About Nurtured

Nurtured was established by husband and wife team, Keith and Claudine Johnstone.  On falling pregnant with their first child the couple had several frustrating experiences trying to locate a store with a wide range of quality baby goods.  Department stores, with an ‘add-on’ nursery department and the chain Baby stores had some range of cheaper quality products, but had no trained staff and inexperienced attendants who felt like they really wanted to be somewhere else!

Other boutique nursery stores were lovely to shop in, but had limited range and tended to be expensive.   Finally, on looking to hire an infant capsule from one of the baby chain stores and being presented with something that looked badly used and worn with a side of ‘couldn’t care less attitude’ from the Store Manager, we decided to do something – BabySafe Equipment Hire was born and operated out of Keith & Claudine’s garage – I’m sure the competition were trembling in their boots!

Two years and 2 kids later, the decision to move to a retail store was born and the vision was to open a baby store with ‘that little extra something’ that was missing in the baby industry.  The vision was to have a baby store with a large range of affordable, quality products from toys, to strollers to cots and car seats. They also wanted to provide ‘parents to be’ with some extra comforts such as a feeding and changing area.  Most of all they wanted to provide knowledge and information to give new parents peace of mind.

Customer feedback was fantastic, and though a little out of the way ‘BabySafe’ was gaining more popularity with customers and new parents, who loved the knowledgeable, friendly staff, great product range and great prices.  The Hamilton CBD store became the Waikato’s best kept nursery store secret.

Late in 2010 the decision was made to expose ‘BabySafe’ to a wider market and a new store rebranded as ‘Nurtured’ was opened in November 2010 at Te Awa, The Base.  The secret was out, and we are pleased to report the chain nursery stores have even started to look at what we’re doing.