HOT: Parent’s Room and Eco Mall, Level 2 Highpoint Shopping Centre, 120-200 Rosamond Rd, Maribyrnong
Photo by Highpoint Shopping Centre
When you’re a parent who likes to get out and about you become, like me, an expert at sniffing out good parent’s rooms. A space that’s clean, quiet and relaxing is a great resource when you’re towing around a baby or a toddler.
Highpoint Shopping Centre is undergoing a major development at the moment and a new Parent’s Room is the first of two new facilities due to open to cater for the parents of Melbourne’s west.
We visited the Parent’s Room and adjoining Fresh Food Market and Eco Mall at the invitation of Highpoint and were quite impressed.
Firstly, I liked that the Parent’s Room was a restful retreat with an interior designed to bring the outside in. Who would have thought that a patch of fake grass could make a space so relaxing and welcoming? The garden theme is enhanced by the big apple bolsters (perfect for climbing, hugging and sitting on), the flowers and snails acting as magnetic wall fun, the play area’s safety gate camouflaged by tall grass and the dangling mobiles of apples and butterflies.
Secondly, there are three private feeding rooms with, most importantly, distracting etch-a-sketch toys for toddlers inside. More toddler distraction comes in the form of a (silent) TV screening cartoons.
Thirdly, there are a number of clean recessed change tables set into the bench and a child-sized toilet for the toilet-trained.
In addition to the new Parent’s Room, a number of new children’s retailers have opened at Highpoint in the new adjoining Eco Mall. It’s a great time to visit as everyone is on sale at the moment! I bought some new dresses for Lady AB at The Kids Store and a newborn set for Baby 2.0 at Purebaby.
I was also impressed by the bright and abundant displays of the nearby Highpoint Fruit & Vegetable Market, one of the few places in Melbourne where I’ve been able to buy the kind of exotic tropical fruit that Lady AB loves like mangosteen and dragonfruit and the sweetest pawpaw I’ve ever eaten in Australia.
Oh wow, that is a beautiful parents room – a HUGE improvement on the old one at Highpoint.
I remember when my daughter was young, and I was still feeding her hunting all over Highpoint for a nice parents room, only to be bitterly disappointed by the change room that was meant to be a feeding room :(
I do wish more shopping centres would get the message that parents want nice facilities to attend to their child in – not smelly toilet cubicles.