What do you get for the baby who has everything? Its umpteenth cuddly toy? Or how about a £2,230 a night stay at a five-star hotel, in a £26,000 nursery furnished with a cot that took five days to create? Not to mention a miniature sofa for the child to lounge on, a giant doll’s house, and a library of Beatrix Potter books for light bed-time reading? Yes, we thought, that will do us. We had been invited to spend a night in Grosvenor House’s new nursery suite, and as the bleary-eyed parents of a six-week-old, we were not going to turn it down. The “Suite Dreams” package has been designed with a certain royal baby in mind. Of course it has. As we are quickly learning, almost every nursery product on the market right now has been designed with a certain royal baby in mind. We are a nation in the grip of Royal Baby Mania. The Duchess of Cambridge only had to be photographed last week leaving an interiors shop, with a window display that was predominantly blue, for the world to renew its speculation about the gender of her unborn child.
As I wandered around John Lewis the other day, trying to buy a sling for my daughter, Edie, I heard a woman whisper: “That buggy is supposed to be the one the Duchess bought.” While we recalled our pregnancies, a friend from my NCT class said recently: “Apparently, that’s the candle that Kate burnt to get over her morning sickness. It contains the oils of a rare South African buchu plant, dontchaknow.” Anyone doting over a darling newborn at the moment knows full well that in the grander scheme of things, he or she is a mere distraction from the main event. July 13, Kate’s alleged due date, has been ringed in red pen in the calendars of enterprising businessmen and PRs across the country. The Centre for Retail Research estimated that £199 million was spent in 2011 on royal wedding souvenirs, while Jubilee and London 2012 memorabilia netted the UK economy a much needed £300 million. The royal baby will be a new addition not just to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s family, but potentially to the country’s flagging fortunes.
“We’re looking to commemorate, celebrate, to have a bit of fun,” said Mothercare’s chief executive, Simon Calver, as he launched a range of ''Rule the World’’ and ''When I grow up I want to be a Princess’’ bodysuits. “Babies are going to be what people talk about this year.” Babies as fashion statements will be a foreign concept to mothers covered in curdled milk sick and dressed in two-day-old clothes. Still, why not embrace it while we can? And there is much to embrace. We can choose from a dizzying array of babygros featuring crowns (from the Little Punk children’s shop), as well as royal sick bags for the pregnant and pull-along corgis for toddlers (both from the designer Lydia Leith). Emma Bridgewater, never one to miss a patriotic opportunity, has launched a ''Royal Baby in 2013 – Hooray for Will & Kate’’ mug (though bone-achingly exhausted mothers drinking their coffee out of it after a sleepless night might not feel so celebratory). Even the royals seem to have got in on the act, with the gift shop at Kensington Palace selling Grenadier Guard sleepsuits (£22.99) and Buckingham Palace flogging a Guardsman babygro for £12.95.
With all this in mind, Edie’s father and I arrived at Grosvenor House on Park Lane looking forward to her first night in a five-star hotel. Designed by Dragons of Walton Street, the upmarket nursery shop beloved of Diana, Princess of Wales (William and Harry grew up in rooms decorated courtesy of Dragons), the suite has everything a child could want, and then some. We had been told in advance not to bring our Bugaboo, as the suite comes complete with an aptly named Silvercross Balmoral pram (a royal snip at £1,450). There was even a miniature pink version for Edie to play with, though it was a little lost on her. Indeed, a lot of the luxurious room, painted in calming white and pale yellow, was wasted on Edie. The organic baby room-service menu featured such dishes as puréed seasonal melon; blended strawberries with organic Greek yogurt; line-caught cod with potato and spinach purée; and free-range chicken with sweet potato and apricot purée, which at £3 was cheaper than the bottled water in the minibar.
At just six weeks old, Edie required nothing more complicated than a warm bottle of milk and a muslin to sick it back up on to. But her parents definitely appreciated the sumptuous chaise longue on which to feed her, the state of the art steriliser, and the posh-sounding “nappy cleanser” (which turns out to be a moisturising cream that you smooth onto your baby’s bottom with cotton wool, in place of the usual wipes) that stood atop the £340 changing unit – a step up from our usual Huggies baby wipes and second-hand Ikea unit. We lusted after the £1,400 hand-painted toy box, and oohed and aahed at clusters of Peter Rabbit soft toys. In the bathroom, we nodded appreciatively at the careful selection of bottles, teats and nappies. This was definitely a room fit for a baby who would be King or Queen. As Hyde Park is just across the road from the hotel, we decided to take Edie out for some air in the Balmoral pram. This was easier said than done. Roughly the size of a small estate car, we feared we’d need to take it down in the service lift (though in the end the ordinary lift sufficed – just).
Once outside, tourists gawped at us and black cabbies sniggered. We looked like something out of Mary Poppins. But, with its vastly superior bouncing motion, Edie was in her element. Was she getting a taste for the finer things in life? As night approached, we wondered how she would take to the sculpted scroll top cot, complete with a regal coronet and sheer voile curtains draped either side. The mattress was thick and sumptuous; a humble wicker Moses basket this was not. She seemed – perhaps not surprisingly – content as we put her down in it, and within five minutes, was snoring soundly. We went next door, gorged on delicious room-service fare – a far cry from the takeaways that have been our staple diet lately – and managed to watch two whole movies uninterrupted by Edie’s cries. This blissful period of peace is unusual for Edie. We thought about waking her for her regular dream feed, but she was sleeping so deeply we couldn’t bring ourselves to. So, we climbed into our seven-foot bed and drifted into deep sleeps of our own.