To think you should leave the room with your screaming baby?

There should be no screaming babies/kids and no noises from mobile phones.

This, I don’t mind the crying children so much. Would’ve taken mine out. The talkers on the other hand. Used to be the same ones at DDs. They only shut up for their own kids. Used to make me so mad. I’ve told them to shut up before but that only spurred them on.

Sorry, but 120 children on stage is not a nativity play, it's a feckin ridiculous bun-fight.

Yanbu. At DS's nativity last year, there was an idiot with a screaming child who, after allowing the first quarter of the performance to be disrupted, took the child to the back of the hall.

We could all still hear it, but to add insult to injury, she'd positioned herself right behind the guy the school had brought in to video the performance. We weren't offered the chance to buy a video that year - presumably that was ruined, too.

I think it’s unreasonable to feel a child’s nativity play is “ruined” by a baby crying.

Yes they should, and it's why younger siblings end up being banned from watching in some schools.

So glad DD2 was allowed to watch DD1 as Mary though. We were sat right at the front, DD2 was only ten months old and I was ready to nip out at the first sign of trouble. But she sat so quietly and never took her eyes off her sister, it was so cute.

What is WRONG with people?!

The phone calls, texting brigade in the cinema are also selfish twats. 🤬😤

Absolutely agree. Dad is in a number of theatre groups and during their performances this year there were crying / shouting babies at each one. It’s so incredibly rude. They were sat right by the door in almost every case, but only one parent saw fit to take their child outside.

Nativity plays are for all primary school aged children. We used to have entire school nativities (Year 6 had the main parts) when I was at primary school. I have a 1 year old and if she cried during a performance, I would leave the room for a bit. It's selfish not to.

At my ds school the head always makes a point of saying before any performance (whether it's harvest festival, assemblies, nativity etc) that babies are welcome but if they start to make a noise please take them outside as the children only have little voices and they've worked very hard to create this performance for us all.

I think that's fair and an appropriate way to set the standard before things begin. Can't always rely on peoples common sense in this situations.

100%

You know you can't usually hear what is said at a nativity even if the audience is silent?
120 children? Was this a stadium gig?
How big was the hall? Seating for what, 250?
The children with speaking parts would have been mic'd up, I think this is an issue for whoever set up the PA, not the tiny percentage of babies that got upset during the performance.

So every other child misses out instead? 🙄

We stopped siblings coming in the end because of parents like this - had no choice.

At my kids school, parents with younger children were only allowed to watch the dress rehearsal which I thought was fair. I had a young baby and toddler in those years

Both of my children’s schools primary and secondary had a rule about no young children/babies we’re not allowed to attend performances of course some parents thought they were exempt from this rule and brought babies and young children they would be placed at the back of the hall closest to the door and if the child started crying or being disruptive they would be sent out of the hall, secondary school they wouldn’t get in at all they were very firm about the rule and I don’t blame them there’s nothing worse than listening to a baby or child crying or being disruptive in that setting it’s not fair on anyone it ruins the show

Yes they should have, 100%. In my children’s school the head would say the children have spent weeks learning their lines and have little voices so please take them out if they cry. Once the head took a baby out herself as mum clearly didn’t want to miss seeing her child, but no-one could hear a thing

yanbu. Absolutely they should have taken them out to settle them.

My DD was in a village show recently (all children) and there was a boy approx 4/5 in the audience. He spoke through the entire show loudly (what are they doing? Why are they doing that? Who’s that mummy?) and the parents just ignored him other than the odd shush. It was so distracting and must have been very distracting for the poor kids performing.

Agree with you OP - & would remove DC if they were like that in any performance.

But on another point - were all 120 kids in the same performance?? How do you even do that? Were there multiple Mary's?
Our school has less than 50 in total - so all performances require each child to take part or even have multiple parts.

Yep. I took baby dd to her big brothers nativity and thankfully she was silent throughout but me and dh had an agreement from the outset that if she started to cry I'd fuck off with her in my arms immediately!

She's a toddler now and ds' year 2 xmas singing is next week. The same courtesy applies, if she has a tantrum or whatever she is gone!

Yanbu. We did our nativity today one baby got a bit grizzly so her dad took her out. It’s the only sensible thing to do if you have to take baby with you.

Wow that must have been an epic performance. Kudos to the teachers!
and yes the parents should have taken the babies out.

Also as humans we are programmed to be disturbed by a baby crying so it’s a difficult noise to tune out.

This is wrong.

The feelings of one child who is a disappointed sibling do not trump every other child in the nativity, and the teachers who’ve worked hard, and the parents watching.

I don’t care if your “family dynamic is stretched” or your older DC is feeling pushed aside. All the other children will be very upset and put-off having a baby scream over their lines. Just take the baby out of the room.

I am pretty sure babies and toddlers weren't allowed at the evening performance when mine were little.

YANBU it's selfish. We always had someone recording or waving a camera about despite being told that it wasn't allowed. Some people just don't think about anyone else.

That is really frustrating and rude of them not to have taken them out. Our school doesn’t allow siblings at concerts to stop them detracting from the child you’re there to see, it works really well