A favourable write-up in the Egon Ronay Guide, And Children Come Too, a useful digest of recommended hotels, restaurants, cafes and pubs in the UK "where young families are welcome" led us to a small and relatively new niche of British hotels - nearly all in the West of England - which specialise in catering for stressed parents and their offspring.WOOLEY GRANGEWe booked a five-night, mid-week break at Wooley Grange near Bath, and hoped Daisy would approve She did. While we dined a deux on seared Loch Fyne scallops with spiced lentils followed by brown bread ice-cream with strawberry salad and strawberry sauce, Daisy slept in our room, monitored by the hotel staff, full of scampi and chips So good were the children's meals that left-overs were rare. All were served in Wooley Bears Den, a haven for active toddlers with a race-circuit full of Little Tikes cars, a mini house, table football and a library of books and videos. It was difficult to prise children away from these attractions and parents wanting to escape for a walk by themselves could easily do so. The Den is staffed by nannies and has the added benefit of making the hotel's common areas relatively child-free and peaceful places to read or have a drink.We could happily have spent all five days pottering around the hotel - and this was winter.

As it was, we dragged ourselves out to see Bath and also to walk around Bradford-on-Avon. With more time and less laziness we could also have shown Daisy the animals at Longleat and visited the locks on the Kennet and Avon Canal.At full rate, the Wooley Grange experience does not come cheap, but many families obviously consider it good value - weekends are booked up a couple of months ahead and the hotel was full all August last year.POLURRIAN HOTELI would not recommend Wooley Grange without all the summer facilities to families with slightly older children. They would be better served by hotels like the Polurrian on the South Cornwall coast. A friend of mine, Lucinda, and her boys aged six months and four years, stayed at the Polurrian for a week last September. The peaceful situation of the hotel - and exhaustion from the days' activities - led her boys to sleep so well that she had one of her most relaxing holidays since becoming a mother. "I was lying in bed with such a beautiful view of the sea that I felt as if it was coming into the bedroom," she told me. "And it was great not having to think about shopping, cooking, cleaning or washing."Nor was entertaining the four-year-old a particular challenge.

He made friends on the first day and spent the rest of the holiday playing with them in the playroom, in the indoor swimming-pool and Jacuzzi, and on the hotel's private beach. With both tennis and swimming available, there was very little incentive to leave the hotel, though one day Lucinda did leave the baby with the hotel's resident nanny (pounds 3.50 an hour) to visit the nearby seal sanctuary.RADFORDS COUNTRY HOTEL and BEDRUTHAN STEPSAnother friend of mine, Amanda, has spent the last two summers staying in family hotels in the West Country. She believes it would be impossible to find hotels on the continent like the Radfords Country Hotel in Dawlish, Devon, or Bedruthan Steps Hotel on the north coast of Cornwall. She, her huband and three children (aged five, three and six months) stayed at Bedruthan Steps for a week last July, sharing one large family room. Despite poor weather everyone was happy, with a beach, outdoor playground, and numerous indoor ones. Though Bedruthan offers parents the opportunity to offload kids at children's clubs, Amanda didn't feel she needed it: "I enjoyed time with the children not having to think about anything domestic".

Younger children were not allowed in the restaurant, but the hotel supervised them for two hours every evening with film shows, bedtime stories and hot chocolate. This did inject an up-market Butlins flavour, but, given the generally child-oriented atmosphere, turned out surprisingly fun.Radfords Country Hotel, a pink thatched cottage in Devon countryside where Amanda and family have also stayed, has fewer facilities but is more personal, having been run by Terry and Janet for thirty years. It has indoor and outdoor playgrounds as well as separate swimming-pools for children and adults The fact that dinner was served between six and seven did not distract from the particularly excellent food. Amanda also liked having the children in a separate but adjoining room, rather than in the same room.OLD BELL, TREVELGUE and MERTON HOTELSThe excellent-value Old Bell in Malmesbury, Wiltshire - sister hotel to Wooley Grange - is another hotel recommended by friends that provides a nanny-service for the children. And while the childen are enjoying themselves in the play-den, the grown-ups can get busy on one of a number of outdoor activities, ranging from horse-riding, to golf, to gliding.