Baby-friendly Singapore

I’m just going to come straight out and say it: as a parent with a young baby, this place made for an amazing trip! Please indulge me as I geek out on a couple of interesting statistics on Singapore that help set the stage for the story of our parenting travel experience there.

• As of 2017, Singapore is the country with the lowest fertility rate in the world at only 0.83 children born per woman; and
• As of 2018, Singapore is the second wealthiest country by GDP per capita in the world, at almost $63,000 (US dollars)
• The city was envisioned and created as a Garden City by the head of state in 1963, Lee Kwan Yew, and has been aiming to become a City in a Garden with greater biodiversity and world class gardens (like the Botanic Gardens and Gardens by the Bay). It has long been Singapore’s priority to be a green state and it is currently striving to be the world’s greenest city despite its high density development.

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In summary, Singapore is ranked as the least fertile country in the world, and the second richest country in the world, and despite its density of population, it prioritizes green space. This tells you a lot right away. Babies are a precious few, and there are significant financial resources to treat them like little VIPs! This covers a range of support for babies and parents – and I write this as a tourist to the place, I’m sure Singaporeans and expats who live there could explain in more detail. Our baby availed herself of:

• Restaurants: baby chairs, plates and cutlery at all the cafes and restaurants we went to, and waitresses who fawned over baby;
• Public Transport: on the buses there areas specifically designated for strollers (unless a person in a wheelchair boards, in which case you fold you stroller to give them that open space); people will give you a seat on the bus if you’re carrying a baby; they’ll let you skip to the front of the line to use the elevator first at the MRT (metro) stations. The rationale being that you can’t really take the stairs whereas most of the people in the line could, they just prefer to use the elevator for convenience. Note: It is wonderful that they have elevators in their stations unlike many in New York where only about a quarter of 472 stations are wheelchair accessible;
• Airport: there are many baby care rooms in the main airport (Changi) that have private breastfeeding rooms with very comfortable high-armed chairs. They also, very helpfully, have baby carts to hold your baby and some luggage;
• Around town: sidewalks have little ramps to easily get up and down from to the road with your stroller or wheelchair; and many people stop to look adoringly at the baby and engage with her with smiles and coos.

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Why Singapore?

For us, coming from Bangkok, we had chosen this destination for two reasons: 1. to have a breath of fresh air and 2. to be able to get out for a walk with the baby in the stroller, rather than having to carry her in our carrier because of broken sidewalks. Both goals were accomplished: we spent almost all day every day of out trip outside walking around (places listed below) with the baby in her stroller.

Having lived through the harmful air pollution that covered Bangkok for many of the days in January, and resulted in the closure of all 437 schools run by Bangkok’s City Hall at the end of the month, this felt like heaven to us. We checked the AirVisual app and, even though it was never really in the green (i.e. below US Air Quality Index US AQI 50) which would be classed as ‘healthy’ as we had hoped when we bought the tickets to Singapore, it was in the yellow ‘moderate’ (US AQI 51-100), which isn’t too bad, so we proceeded to enjoy the outdoors.

However, data is one thing in objective terms, and another thing in subjective terms: I had to use my asthma inhaler every night that we were in Singapore after having been outside all day. The broad agreement amongst experts is that the “yellow” range is not generally harmful to most people – in that they wont feel symptoms from being outside for a while – but that it can trigger symptoms in those who are more sensitive to air pollution (like me who has asthma) and can be potentially harmful to children and elderly people.

So our first objective was met for the most part – we enjoyed the outdoors! On getting out with the stroller, our second objective: major success! The city is fabulous for stroller life. I walked along the sidewalks without having to get the wheel out of a crack or having to launch her off a kerb that is 14 inches tall. We crossed the road without having an adrenaline rush and having to do a head turn in four different directions. Because the traffic goes only in the direction that the road rules state, it’s so much easier to check before stepping out to cross, unlike Bangkok where there are frequently vehicles driving up the wrong way on a one-way street (I was actually run over and knocked unconscious by one such motor biker in 2009).

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It was easy to get around on public transport: the stroller can be wheeled straight onto a public bus (of which there are many and frequent) and can be ‘parked’ in an area of the bus designated specifically for strollers. Getting around on the MRT was easy since there are elevators up and down, and wide ticketing lanes to accommodate strollers and wheelchairs.

Taking a Grab car from the airport did require a car seat for the baby, by Singaporean law, so we’re glad we had a snap-on Cybex car seat to our Babyzen stroller so we didn’t have to carry the car seat around on our journey to and from Bangkok. Once we were in downtown Singapore, the public transport options were so fantastic that we never used a taxi and, therefore, never needed the baby car seat during our stay in town (which was great because it is heavy!).

Where was fun to visit with a baby or kid in a stroller?

We stayed 4 nights at the Rendez-Vous hotel in Bencoolen area as we found it to be a good balance and combination of price, location, classy and artsy. We had 3 full days in Singapore and for that time to get around town found it worthwhile to buy their travel card, the Singapore Tourist Pass, for public transport since they have such an extensive, frequent, comfortable and generally well run transport system. As I mentioned above, it was very easy to get on and off buses and trains with a baby and stroller. With just a long-weekend to see a bit of the city, we went mostly to the classic tourist spots:

• Haji Lane: Known for its independent boutiques, art murals and a somewhat unusual Selfie Coffee shop where we took our family selfie photo and had it imprinted on the top cream of the coffee – a fun experience!
• Botanic Gardens: We visited twice because they are so large, beautiful, interesting, peaceful and there is no entry fee except for specific parts like the National Orchid Garden, which costs $5 (Singaporean) for adults. The Gardens were successfully “inscribed as Singapore’s first UNESCO World Heritage site in July 2015”, which gives you an insight as to how valuable and beautiful the gardens are. It’s also interesting to know that Singapore has a vision of being a Garden City that prioritizes green space. This journey began in 1963, when then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew planted a tree in the Botanic Gardens. Singaporeans and visitors can enjoy all sort of activities at the park including yoga, tai chi, jogging, picnicking, and there is a children’s garden (James Ballas) specifically dedicated to children – the first of its kind in Asia.
• Fort Canning Park: We picnicked one evening while live pianists played beautiful romantic music alongside trees draped in twinkly little fairy lights on Raffles Terrace. It is close to Clarke Quay and makes a nice area for a post-dinner stroll to help with digestion.
• Gardens by the Bay: it has a great kids garden (Far East Organisation Children’s Garden) that is a mini-water park with sprinklers for kids to run through. It also hosts the famous walk through the Super-Tree Grove and OCBC Skyway that stands 22m high. Our stroller was allowed on the skyway which we were relieved about since we didn’t want to carry the baby in our arms at such a height. It also had a great outdoor restaurant for lunch (Satay by the Bay) that has local treats. There are beautiful gardens to walk around that are all baby and stroller friendly – in addition to the “paid attractions” (which cost about $28 (Singaporean) for adults and $15 for kids 3-12 years).
• Southern Ridges Walk: we took the bus to Hort Park and walked the Southern Ridges walk to Mount Faber Peak, which was really amazing – and all surprisingly very stroller friendly since the walkways through the treetops are all fairly smooth;
• Clarke Quay: We ate one evening in a riverside restaurant by Clarke Quay and watched the light show along the river at about 8pm;
• Tiong Bahru: We took a bus to this tranquil, hip and cute neighborhood for a delicious Greek brunch and Creamier ice cream (as good as being in Italy!) and a look around a couple of great book shops there: one for adults, Books Actually, and one for children, Woods in the Books, which I thought was really amazing – a whole bookshop dedicated only to children’s books! I think the only other place I have seen that was in Manhattan. I am a book addict and it was fascinating for me to see the books that are stocked in a typical book shop in different countries. For example, here they had books about racial identity in Singapore, art from around the city etc.

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Things to do when baby is a little older

Things that were less baby and stroller friendly that I really wanted to do, and that we will look forward to on our next visit when baby is a little older, were:

• the 450m zip line in Sentosa “where you fly at 60kph over the jungle and beaches of the Island!” Wow, that would have been incredible! But I don’t know where they would attach baby and we didn’t want to leave her 😉
• The water parks and Universal Studios: another mom living in Singapore did take her baby and says it wasn’t so great, but helpfully shares her experiences here. I think it will be more fun when baby is a little older – right now one little sprinkler at the kids garden was enough to be an adventurous water activity for baby!;
• the cable car across to Sentosa island. For both the cable car ride and the tickets for Universal studios we did discover that it can save you a lot of money to buy the tickets in advance online, rather than waiting to buy them at the gate.
• the night safari, since this was happening later in the evening and would have interrupted baby’s sleep routine, which always comes at a price the next day! Here are some tips for doing the night safari with kids.

So we have already decided that we will go back. All in all a really great baby-friendly trip! 😊

Stroller Tip for Singapore

An interesting observation was that about 80% of the strollers we saw were the same brand and model as our own, Babyzen Yoyo, which was reassuring and validated our choice of stroller for city living! We saw a couple of Bugaboo Bees, and a few other brands of strollers that I didn’t recognize so much. But it was overwhelmingly Babyzen Yoyo that had cornered the stroller market in Singapore. Of course, some of these could have been tourists like us, but definitely not all or even most of them.

I have to say it is a very good choice for Singapore in terms of getting on and off buses and up and down any stairs at bridges to cross roads since it is almost the lightest stroller on the market, and it also folds up very small which is convenient since the vast majority of people live in apartments given the constrained real estate (island state) of the country.

Fun Fiction Read on Family Expat Life in Singapore:

Travails of a Trailing Spouse by Stephanie Chen. “The adventure starts when Sarah’s husband, Jason, is offered a position at a university in Singapore. Sarah, a successful lawyer in the US, quits her job and the couple say their farewells, and, with their two children, fly off to a new country, a new condo, and a completely new life.Travails of a Trailing Spouse will strike a chord with anyone, expat or not, who has ever found life more complicated, puzzling, thrilling, frustrating – and, ultimately, deliciously rich – than could ever have been imagined.”