(3) Shopping Difficulties

The mothers who had children sleeping in cots or substitutes for cots were asked. “Are there any things in the way of (ready made) cot bedding or bedclothes which you have been unable to get recently?”.

The proportions of all these mothers who were unable to get various items of cot bedding are shown below.

It is clear that the shortages causing most wide spread difficulty amongst mothers are these of sheets and woollen blankets.

Analysis of these results by economic group showed only one significant difference. A slightly higher proportion of mothers in the lower than in the higher economic group had had difficulty in getting woollen blankets.

Mothers who had been unable to get cot bedding were asked the reason for this, that is whether they had been unable to find any at all in the shops or whether they had seen some that was unsuitable for one reason or another.

In most cases the numbers experiencing difficulty are too small for results to be given, but it may be said that of those unable to buy sheets 70% said they had been unable to find any at all in the shops and 18% said that the price of the sheets they had seen was too high for them. The rest gave other reasons, of those unable to buy blankets 51% were unable to find any in the shops and 28% said the price was too high. 5% said the quality was poor and the rest gave other seasons.

It may be worth noticing that eight mother said that they were unable to get sheets or blankets because they had no dockets for them. In fact no dockets are required for cot bedding and it seems that a small proportion of mothers are being mailed by retailers on this point or do not for some other reason understand the position. One informant said she was unable to afford the more expensive blankets that did not need dockets, having been told presumably that she would have to produce dockets if she wanted to buy cheaper blankets that she had seen.