So me and my DH took our 11 month old to a new soft play today (I’ve only been once before), mainly because I often take him in the week and Daddy doesn’t get to see his little excited face! Obviously we stick to the baby areas which is clearly marked at under twos. With it being a Saturday (never again!) it was pretty busy but lots of babies for LO to see and interact with. Unfortunately there were a number children in there that were over the age of two, I’d guess 4 or 5 who were becoming more and more boisterous. I assume a grandad was in there with two of his GC who insisted on stacking the furniture as tall as he was. My DH asked him a few times to be careful as the blocks of furniture kept falling down onto him and he just keep saying “I can see where you are and it won’t hurt”- not the point surely. My DH then pointed out that it was under 2s only which he responded to with “that other child is older than mine” (other child had no parent to be seen). After several more tumbles of the tower, as I say taller than the GD himself, my DH got fed up and as a member of staff walked past signalled that the older children were becoming too bostrious. She completely agreed and asked them to leave the baby area but the GD ignored her completely. After several mins(!) of her calling him and saying “excuse me, adult” my DH said she is talking to you! He replied “I know, come on then childs name we’ve been banned from here”. He then went to sit down with the children and I noticed (should have said I was sat having a cuppa watching) him talking to GM and I assume son (child’s parent). He looked really aggressive and was clearly shouting his dismay at my DH for asking the staff to say something when his requests were ignored. The son then got really angry and red in the face, swearing and got up. I panicked as he looked like he was heading for DH and baby so I got up and went over, started speaking to DH and asked him to come and sit with me for a bit - I didn’t want them to be trapped in the baby area if he was going to be aggressive. We sat at the table and all the time the son and GD were mouthing off and sticking their fingers up etc. I honestly couldn’t believe their behaviour in a soft play area full of children on a Saturday morning. It really freaked me out how angry they got over something so small? Were we being unreasonable to have asked staff to intervene when our requests were ignored? I should add the majority of the soft play was for over twos so why is there any need for older children to be in here who are too boisterous where babies aren’t even crawling? 😔 Made me not want to go back. They ended up leaving in the end without coming over thank goodness.
AIBU?
Soft play etiquette in the ‘baby area’ - AIBU?
Minnie881 · 13/01/2018 17:50
Not nice people. I will now confess (and then name change 
) that my 5 year old was in the todder bit (not baby - there’s another bit for that) at a softplay in the holidays. We used to go there when he was young and he loved some of the equipment (balls in an air thing) that they don’t have nun the older bit. Same is likely true of the foam blocks tower. So I can see why they might want to be there but there’s no excusing the subsequent behaviour.
They were really awful to behave like that. Although please bear in mind that some children do look much older - someones asked me to remove my DS from the baby area a few weeks ago, he is actually only two!!
That said I do appreciate he is bigger and more boisterous than lots of babies so encourage him to play elsewhere or modify his behaviour (if possible 
)
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