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AIBU?

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Original poster

AIBU noisy children

61 replies

FlamingoFloss · 29/04/2026 15:15

I expect I shall be flamed by this. May I start by saying I’m both a mum and a Grandma.

on a long train journey (UK). I chose to upgrade to first class because I need to do work and so need the space and the quiet.

there’s a (I presume) mum and her young child (around 4 years) in front of me. The child has been singing nursery rhymes (loudly) - (I do ordinarily love a nursery rhyme and sing them with my DGD just not on a train). The child now has a tablet and is playing games which is beeping away with loud music.

i know kids need entertaining on a long journey (I’ve done it with my own) but AIU to think in a first class carriage you should be relatively quiet with children and if you feel you can’t be then sit in a ‘normal’ seat? However, I get that even in a normal seat that it could be annoying and you should still be respectful of others but hopefully you get what I mean.

OP posts:
somanychristmaslights · 29/04/2026 15:40

Lesson learnt, book the quiet carriage. But I agree, noise like that is very irritating.

Original poster
FlamingoFloss · 29/04/2026 15:40

I have a 4 year old old granddaughter whose tablet is an attachment of her arm. I totally totally disagree with it. She stayed with us overnight recently and I was taking her to bed and she said, ‘nanny, where my pad? I can’t sleep without it.’. Me (horrified inside) ‘course you can sleep without your tablet, you big banana!! Let’s go and choose some books to read’.

OP posts:
Itsanewlife · 29/04/2026 15:39

I've often booked a quiet carriage and had families with babies/ young children come on, and make a racket. I just don't understand parents who'd chose to do that, but there we have it. And, yes, nursery rhymes I could live with (and even find amusing), devices not so much. It is also the tantrums that ensue when parents try to take these devices off the kids - it's an addiction.

rainbowstardrops · 29/04/2026 15:26

I’m a mum and I’ve worked with children for over thirty years and a tablet bleeping away and being played loudly, would piss me right off! The nursery rhymes? Not so much.
Why on earth do children need bloody screens at that age to entertain them?
I’ve taken my children here, there and everywhere on a train (before tablets etc) and we took colouring books/pens and paper/looked out of the window talking about what we could see etc.
It baffles me and it’s so bloody sad to see these days. We’re frying these kid’s brains

Bloodycrossstitch · 29/04/2026 15:24

I wouldn’t expect people to necessarily be particularly quiet in first class so the nursery rhymes wouldn’t bother me - that’s a normal level of small child noise I think.
Having tablet/phone blaring away without headphones is terrible manner no matter how old you are or where you are (in public anyway) so yanbu about that.

Threesloths · 29/04/2026 15:24

No one knows how to behave anymore. That kid will grow up thinking he can do what he likes.

Original poster
FlamingoFloss · 29/04/2026 15:24

And it wasn’t me that had ‘a word’ either

OP posts:
Original poster
FlamingoFloss · 29/04/2026 15:23

Yes I’d agree with you on the noise cancelling headphones. Interestingly, it’s gone off now after the steward spoke to them

OP posts:
Arlanymor · 29/04/2026 15:22

First class isn't the quiet carriage I'm afraid.

didntlikeanyofthesuggestions · 29/04/2026 15:21

First class has nothing to do with this. I suggest you have a word or invest in some decent headphones for the future.

AlcoholicAntibiotic · 29/04/2026 15:21

The tablet is unreasonable of them - they should use headphones - but I’d take nursery rhymes over the dickhead talking loudly on his phone all the way from York to London.

First class doesn’t buy yon quiet, and hasn’t for a long time. This is where noise cancelling headphones come in.