What's the most barking thing you've witnessed at a mum's group?

Ooh! Sounds like she's not well then! That's sad! Or just a horrible bitch. Hard to know.

fuckadoodle (bloody brilliant name!) I think it was a mixture of both! A few acquaintences messaged me on the ol' Facebook later to say they had heard what she said and were so sorry and then regale me of tales of how fecking scary and weird she was. This included stopping the middle of a singing session when everyone was singing the hello song to the babies "Hello alex, hello...hello Lily, hello..." (isywim) to call a woman a "copycat bitch" because her DD had the same name as her DS.

I have since seen her ranting and raving at staff in our local supermarket.

nevermind. That made me laugh out loud (even though its a bit dangerous).

One where a woman insisted to the whole group that a small bottle of formula is thicker than a large bottle or formula. I explained that no there's more of it but its the same thickness, but she insisted that no 6 scoups to 6 ounces meant it was thicker than 3 scoups to 3 ounces (or however its meant to be mixed, can't remember).

Smile and nod, smile and nod.

I was at a play session yesterday with the DC I look after (18months) there was a very stressed lady with a carrycot thing - it looked like a big sports bag from the outside but was in fact a really well padded baby bed thing.

Anyway, the baby was crying so she started swinging it from side to side (seriously hefty bit of kit, she was sweating and straining!) and then, I shit you not, started swinging it round in circles like someone about to throw a shot putt! (Or whatever it's called) She took out about five toddlers (my mindee being one of them) then glared at the assembled weeping children and roared "Why don't you look where you're going?!"

Bizarre!

Rapunzell. Fucking hell! Was she a bit, you know, not well, or was it a judgment on you?

Ooh ooh I remember another one!!!

38wk pg with DD, Ds was 17mo. Went to a music session with a stay and play afterwards. Sat next to DS and this woman descends upon me and asks "Will your children have the same father?!" I was gobsmacked, should of told her to fuck off but I just said yes, they would. She came right up close to me and said "I. Don't. Believe. You". I grabbed Ds, plonked him in his puschair. Was so shocked and shaken that I cried all the way home.

MNHQ, this thread needs to end up in classics.

Not at all recall, I've seen plenty of babies sling into the shopping basket section. It's quite near where I work.

Pmsl at the baby in a shopping basket!

Loving that I have shared the joy of the panpipe elf with others. It is one of my favourite memories ever. The best thing was that everyone else was so terribly British about it and just carried on getting their babies changed as if nothing unusual was happening at all. I never saw her again :(

I was the mad woman at play group. My friend wanted to come to the cafe after the session but didn't have a car seat. I lent her the little one that clips on top of the combi buggy, and said its ok, I have another in one my car. My car was parked a couple of streets away. So I had to get to my car with the baby and the combi buggy but no top bit, so I decided to wrap her up and pop her in the shopping basket underneath....was only a very short walk. Had to cross at a zebra crossing, and all the cars stopped and the drivers were starring at me pushing a tiny baby in the shopping basket, I felt like such a twat They still take the piss out of me now, 5 years on.

Ok somewhat off topic but after my youngest was born I was quite sick with PND and went into respite care. There were only 3 of us and both the other women were called Delwyn which, even in my unhappiness I found quite amusing.

Not a playgroup but a party for a 3 year old, where all the kids family were shouting fuck and cunt whilst smoking weed.

A woman who wanted to be friends with me who seemed really lovely and friendly. She wanted my children to go over to her house alone (she was trying to help me out which was lovely of her) but i couldn't bring myself to allow it after finding out that she would do anything and everything her husband told her to, including and the worst thing by far, which was leaving the country to go and stay somewhere with no medical facilities for miles and miles and miles even though she was very high risk pregnancy. They both knew she shouldn't go because she needed to be in this country for an injection. She went because he was in charge and it was his job as the husband to make all the decisions. The result was that her baby died

She was so nice but i just didn't feel i could leave my children in her care when really she wouldn't have been the one making the decisions which she openly admitted.

Felt awful for her and would talk to her about her options but she was committed to staying with him.

I feel shortchanged, your groups are all far more mental than mine!

Only two mildly weird things stick out for me, the mother who complained the hydrotherapy pool was too warm (the rest of us were just glad we weren't in the usually freezing public pool) and the mother who glared at me yesterday as I knelt beside a small child, asked him if I could please have a tambourine (he had four) picked one up, thanked the wee boy and handed it to my DS. He wasn't even her son!

"It's a great calmer" she said "Nothing more soothing than a suckle on mummy!"

Er yuck! Can't believe she got her tit out to calm a random kid! I have an image of her calming her child on one boob and her husband on the other.

foreversunny that tortoise story is hilarious!

"It's a great calmer" she said "Nothing more soothing than a suckle on mummy!"

Okay this is bonkers!

Local CM came to group every week. Once her mindee who was about 11 months fell over and landed on her face. Cue mindee screaming. Childminder didn't turn a hair. Every other mother sat there looking like whilst staring at the CM. CM only moved when another mum picked the poor baby up, at which point the CM demanded she put the baby down, because baby was just attention seeking and she ignored so as not to encourage that sort of behaviour.

Mental naked panpipe elf = best post ever.

Mother Earth type at the play group I used to take DS to, still BFing her 4.5 year old (which I am NOT judging btw!) She would just whip her nork out, grab her DS and shove her udder into his face whenever she felt he needed "calming"... One day, my DS was having a meltdown over this fucking Tonka truck, that was the Holy Grail of toys at the group. I was there at eye-level, trying to calm him down and distract him and I'd just about got through to him when I could feel a presence at the side of my face. Earth Mother had got her tit out and was offering it to DS. "It's a great calmer" she said "Nothing more soothing than a suckle on mummy!"

WHAT???? I imagine that's true if you ARE the mummy, which you weren't, you loon.

Still, I suppose it reflects more badly on me that I felt sorry for her a few weeks later (she came from hundreds of miles away to live with her DP and had made no friends here) and accepted her offer of going back to hers for a coffee. Well, I am a messy bastard so for me to judge the state of someone else's house things have to be pretty spectacular, let's just say that. I'm not just talking usual house mess but things like a used condom on the bathroom floor, cups of half-drunk tea going moudly... then she offered me some lunch. Which I couldn't turn down as I had been moaning at the group about being starving :(

Still didn't learn my lesson after that and invited her and her DS to DS's garden party for his birthday. She turned up, got pissed on Pimms and passed out under the gazebo whilst her DS terrorised everyone in sight.

I went to one baby massage class when DD was 7 weeks old. One of the other mothers was a bit...ahem...rough. Near the end of the session the leader asked me if DD was my first baby. I said quietly 'no, she's my second, my first was stillborn'. The leader said 'oh, I'm so sorry, when was that?' and before I could answer this woman says very loudly: 'I died on the operating table, you know'. We all stared at her and she followed this up by saying that 2 of her 4 kids had something wrong with their ears (slightly deformed bit), which she demonstrated by pulling at her son's ear, and then she said 'and that's not all, he's got something else wrong with him but it's easier to show you than to tell you', pulled down her 13 month-old's trousers and nappy and grabbed his willy to show us that his foreskin was abnormal. (Tbh I couldn't tell what was wrong with it but she said he would need to have it removed when he was a bit older)

It was as if she was doing one-up-manship with illnesses!

Yes it must have been crumbs!

CPT

I took DS aged a fortnight or so to DD's toddler group. A mother accosted me to tell me all about what DS's name meant. When I finally got a word in edgeways to say that yes I knew what his name meant and we chose it precisely because of that meaning, she looked all deflatedly shocked that anyone beyond her could ever know that..

Cpt!

I don't think anyone is responsible for making ds2 feel bad about glittery stuff. Dh and I always let him get on with it. I think it's externl influences. Tv and such like.