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I’m new here. Been lurking for about a month and hosting since last summer thanks for all the great info and posts here! We rent our garden suite and live above the unit on the main floor (it’s a bungalow). Hubby and I have 2 young boys (2 and 4.5)…it’s a busy household and noise transfers to the suite below. We are upfront about that in the description, house rules, pre-booking message etc. We would like to attract other like-minded travelers who have a young child in tow and who follow a similar schedule in terms of quiet periods and noisy times. I want to appeal families with babies/preschoolers while not excluding any other interested parties. We have a high chair, travel cot, some toys and other kid friendly things that we highlight.
So that being said, I’m looking for general feedback but also for suggestions on what to title the listing so as to not alienate people in general and attract families with young kids.
Hi @ladysnow89. I am still thinking about a title but did have some feedback on your pictures. This space, in your photos, doesn’t actually look all that child-friendly. Have you considered adding some additional photos, at the end of your slideshow that show the bedroom with the pack n’ play, the dining table with the child-friendly cutlery and maybe a high chair of some kind, and maybe one shot of the living room, with toys ready to be used?
Your pictures and your listing narrative are not in synch if young families is your hoped for market. Plus, the narrative area that encourages young children is a bit hidden for the casual, skim-reading, overwhelmed family.
To add to @anon67190644’s remarks, I would advise you to say in your listing that while you welcome children of all ages; the listing is not child proofed. I think that a lot of people would interperet “baby-friendly” as child proofed.
We traveled a lot with our kids as newborns, infants, and now as toddlers. We interpret “child-friendly” to just mean you have some baby gear available (pack and play, etc. Books and toys are great extras and we are very happy when we see these things). We always child-proof as soon as we enter a space. This means we move fragile things onto high surfaces, move poisonous cleaning products, take the cutlery tray with knives out of a reachable drawer, and if we can’t latch cabinets shut with devices that we bring with us, we move all breakable things out of those drawers. We take photos so we know how to put everything back.
That’s just me, though. Do be careful about cleaning products and if it’s possible for a toddler to turn the gas on if you have a gas range. My 2 yo turned the gas on in the apt that we rent out while I was cleaning – now I always pull the range knobs off when a toddler visits & I remind the parents to pull them off after they use the range.
If you don’t want to turn off couples/guests without children, I would put all the kid gear into one picture towards the end. Parents don’t need to see the pack and play set up in the room nor do they need to see the highchair at the table. One picture showing all these items together with a bin of toys and books would be more than sufficient to make me zero in on your listing. We also know how to evaluate room size and figure out where to put the pack and play so we aren’t held hostage by a sleeping kid. I think those written details are superfluous for your target audience and might possibly alienate others.
@ladysnow89. You have made some adjustments! I didn’t notice your last sentence… I suspect that your children do NOT sleep on a 24 hours cycle, so you might wish to change this:
“We have young kids upstairs who are usually up by 7am and in bed by 7am. So it is busy during the day but quiet in the evening.”
I think your children are in bed by 7pm, and how do you get children to sleep for 12 hours?
Ooops - thanks for catching that!
Yes, I recently uploaded our new configuration and photos of the baby focused amenities. I have tried to put them towards the end of the slide show.
We are pretty lucky regarding the sleeping situation. Did lots of sleep training when they were wee ones. Hard at first, but it paid off big time.
Thanks for the tips! We are actually minutes away from hosting a family with a one year old and I went down and moved all breakables or things that babies can get into up high, including cleaning products. I have plug covers and have put those on. Luckily no gas stove to worry about! Also, I have reorganised the listing and moved the child related stuff to the end of the write-up.It was definitely cluttered!
Your listing looks great, and I think the suggestion of others really helped to make it even better!
As a travel-loving family, I’d only stay in an AirBnB that clearly stated it was amenable to having children around. I know Air pushes hosts to accept infants/kids, but that doesn’t mean I’d want to do that to poor hosts who want no little ones ruining their stuff… and I wouldn’t want families doing that to my “no kids” place. So, it’s great that you’ve differentiated yourself so well.
