The Big Screen for Little People

In a previous life I thought I would spend maternity leave writing a book and learning about classical music. I realise now I was not just blissfully ignorant, I was blindly bumping into floaty matter in a galaxy far, far away. It has been seven months and I haven’t yet held a book the right way up. However, I’m still an undiscriminating cinephile with a compulsion to catch new film releases. All hail, then, the mighty baby screening.

Baby-friendly screenings are offered to enable parents and carers to go to the cinema with their babies. The volume is softer, the lights brighter and facilities available for buggy parking and nappy changing. These are exclusively for customers with children under 12 months, which means no regular cinema goers will be there to disturb or be disturbed.

For toddlers and older children, there are other kid-friendly options. Unlike baby screenings, films here are aimed solely at children. Great news for when you want to catch up on your Pixar movies.

The trouble with these screen-shaped lifelines is that information is thin on the web, so here is a guide around Auld Reekie by a new (cine)maw…

FilmHouse, Lothian Road

CLUB: For Crying Out Loud

TIME: Mondays at 11am

PRICE: £4.50 for all

SEATING: Unallocated

BABY CHANGING FACILITIES: 2

Filmhouse is an arthouse cinema which is host to the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Its varied programme embraces the award winners and the wonderfully weird, and this variety extends, sometimes brazenly, to its baby screenings. I have seen holocaust films, films whose every frame is an oil painting and 1960s misogynistic French film noir. So, too, has my baby.

Baby screenings are shown in Screen 1 which is upstairs on the first floor. Prams are left downstairs in the foyer where the box office is situated although car seats and carrycots can be taken up into the screen. The seats are comfortable with padded arms rests for superior breastfeeding. The café is a boon to this cinema with a film-focused and spacious setting, good coffee and beautifully proportioned nachos.

CLUB: Filmhouse Juniors

TIME: Sundays at 11am.

PRICE: £4.50 for all (£5.50 for 3D)

Cameo, Home Street

CLUB: The Big Scream

TIME: Thursdays at 10.30am

PRICE: Full price £8.20, members £6.20, price includes cup of tea or coffee

SEATING: Unallocated

BABY CHANGING FACILITIES: 1

The Cameo shows a variety of mainstream and arthouse films. Screen 1, which normally hosts the baby screenings, has the unique charm of one of the oldest theatres in Scotland combined with the luxury of recently refurbished reclining seats. The seats are exquisite and probably the best of the bunch for breastfeeding. Buggies can be taken into the screen and parked at the side. The free tea or coffee on entry is a nice touch and the programming benefits from being part of a chain and therefore able to secure highly anticipated new releases like Star Wars, as well as, say, the latest Studio Ghibli. It is worth checking each week and not turning up blind as, if there are no 12 certificates on release that week, the cinema will usually skip rather than duplicate a screening.

CLUB: Cameo Toddler Time

TIME: Mondays at 11am

PRICE: £3 for toddler (pre-school only), accompanying adult free

Odeon, Lothian Road

CLUB: Odeon Newbies

TIME: Tuesday morning, usually between 10am and 11.30am

PRICE: Full price £9.50, concession £8

SEATING: Unallocated

BABY CHANGING FACILITIES: 1

The first time I attended this screening I received the warmest welcome of them all. I was late and the only customer to turn up and considering some poor projectionist had to then turn the thing on, they couldn’t have been more obliging. The particularly friendly usher lady even gave me a cup of tea and one of her own biscuits. A Gold biscuit to boot.

Being alone in that screen meant I felt free to ask them to turn the lights up and sound down. Logan Lucky is a pleasing riot and Daniel Craig kept threatening to wake the baby, who I couldn’t really see.

This can be trickier in busier screenings but the lack of perceptible difference in sound and light between their normal and baby screenings seems to be an Odeon-wide issue.

After the film, Particularly Friendly Usher Lady gave a selling summary of the following week’s film and sealed my custom indefinitely. Upstairs there is the Italian restaurant Croma which does a cheap and cheerful pizza lunch complete with high chairs. The concession stand is extortionate.

Odeon, Fort Kinnaird

CLUB: Odeon Newbies

TIME: Tuesday and/or Thursday mornings, usually between 10am and 11.30am

PRICE: Full price £9.50, concession £8

SEATING: Allocated

BABY CHANGING FACILITIES: 1

This seems a more popular venue than Lothian Road so one baby changing facility can feel inadequate. It would halve the post screening queues if an additional changing unit were put in the ladies. It is a large and comfortable cinema with impressively sized screens and there is a Costa inside the building, as well as just about every other imaginable chain café outside its walls in the wider Fort Kinnaird.

The joy of this cinema is chatting and cooing with senior customers whose Silver Surfer screenings take place afterwards. The real danger is its proximity to other shops including Mamas & Papas, Next and the best Fat Face in the city. Screenings here are more regular than at Lothian Road where weeks can be missed, presumably due to programming issues. For each, it is necessary to keep on top of the clunky Odeon Newbies website by selecting the preferred cinema and hoping for the best.

CLUB: Odeon Kids

TIME: Saturdays and Sundays at 10am

PRICE: £3.25 for all

Odeon Luxe, Wester Hailes

CLUB: Odeon Newbies

TIME: Tuesdays or Wednesdays between 10am and 11.30am

PRICE: Full price £7, concession £6

SEATING: Allocated

BABY CHANGING FACILITIES: 1

By far the most indulgent baby screening experience to date, it’s as if the makeover of this venue into one of Odeon’s few ‘Luxe’ theatres was done with mums in mind. The electric reclining seats are dreamy and provide a well cushioned lap alternative for older babies. There is space to truly spread out and retractable table trays to tap, drum or put your coffee on (there’s a Costa in the foyer). There is one baby changing unit which has its own room separate to the disabled toilets.

The impossibly lovely usher pushed my buggy, carried my coffee and even held my baby, thanking me for the privilege. She seemed personally and genuinely delighted to look after the four mums there. Being accustomed to the brisk irritation that clunky buggies can encounter in the city centre, this reception and customer service felt extraordinary.

My enthusiasm to add this cinema to the baby screening repertoire turned out to be well-founded and expectations surpassed. But it took effort. Screenings are intermittent and programming information almost impossible to verify, with staff both on-site and on their centralised online chat box equally bewildered. It is the Aurora Borealis of baby screenings; spectacular, but you have to be lucky to catch the show. If they can secure and promote a regular slot it could be the best in town.

CLUB: Odeon Kids

TIME: Saturdays and Sundays at 10am

PRICE: £4.25 for all

Cineworld, Fountainpark

CLUB: Cinebabies

TIME: Mondays at 10am

PRICE: Full price £9, concession £7

SEATING: Allocated

BABY CHANGING FACILITIES: 1

This cinema feels still very much in the city centre but also offers free validated multistorey parking. The films shown are consistently mainstream while also pleasingly varied, showcasing spectacular animation and general silliness alongside the more garden-variety dramas. The screens change but buggies are always permitted inside.

Following a complaint by a customer who missed the not-exactly-small print about Cinebabies screenings and was politely denied entry on account of being baby-free, these screenings were removed from Cineworld’s normal daily website listing. Instead, email addresses were collected by resiliently enthusiastic staff at the end of that controversial screening, and information is now sent out weekly. While it’s surprisingly exciting to receive an email promoting the following week’s film, it is a pity that it informs only those already in the know.

The email distribution list is worth getting on as, when presented between 8am and 10am, a free hot drink is given on the purchase of any food item at the onsite Starbucks.

CLUB: Cineworld Movies for Juniors

TIME: Saturdays and Sundays at 10am or 10.10am

PRICE: £3.20 for all

Whichever screening you attend, space is never an issue. Audiences are consistently sparse; on more than one occasion I have been the only customer to turn up and the film has not always screened. It was for lack of interest that the Dominion stopped its baby screenings, which with its sumptuous sofas, feels like a loss to more than merely Morningside mums.

Armed with a healthy baby, on leave from a job which will have me back, and with enough to spend on a mid-week leisure activity, I am so glad I have access to this cinematic sanctuary. Before even contemplating motherhood, I found going to the cinema during the daytime one of life’s finest luxuries. Now I get to do it every week while cuddling, feeding and bouncing a baby. It is bliss.

VUE OMNI CENTRE MINI MORNINGS Saturdays and Sundays at 10am, £3.24 for all.

VUE OCEAN TERMINAL MINI MORNINGS Saturdays and Sundays at 10am, £3.24 for all.

THE FACTS: Under cinema licensing administered by Edinburgh Council, screenings for babies can only show certificate U, PG and 12A films as set by the British Board of Film Classification.

By Kyla Donaldson