Toddler in shops stories thread to make me feel better?

[Sorryfellowshoppers]

Feel like worst mum and shopper ever. DD happy and had a lovely morning so thought we'd nip in to Next on way back to pick up a parcel preordered online as it's often quiet about now and can't really go alone at the moment as DH at work late evenings and weekends. In hindsight I should have rethought as while happy we are just trialling dropping daytime nap and I think she's in between stages and maybe still needs it (she's only 2 but doesn't seem ready for sleep until 9.30 if she naps and I thought trying without might be better for her) and in hindsight likely was tired

We got in and joined queue at wrong end, I knew it was usually the other end of the counters but as there were three ahead already queuing it felt appropriate to join them rather than start a new queue on other side. Except unfortunately some people did so it meant our queue had to join their's and got longer. All started out well but by now six in queue and one check out person and it was just one of those days where each person's purchases/returns took a while and DD got progressively more upset, kept trying to bolt for it, lay on floor, crawled about and eventually screamed and all I could do really was clutch on to prevent her running. It's so unlike her so I think she was knackered and bored.

Everyone was looking at me as wondering why I'd bring a child to shops and I was wondering why I did too! Person behind had a baby who started crying and I was worried we'd woken them up. I'm pregnant too and felt like everyone thinking why would I have another when I'm hopeless with the first! Then when we got to till I said hello and blurted out my parcel number mid running after escapee DD and assistant seemed cross and said hang on her machine was loading but I'd have to wait a second longer, I hope she didn't think I was rude but was just managing logistics! I said thank you etc and was smiling but of course being masked didn't come across. Anyway parcel retrieved and everyone seemed relieved we were on our way out

No actual harm done just a lot of noise but I felt dreadful and rude

I know it's been done before but if anyone has any recent stories perhaps of toddlers getting up to worse I'll feel less of a terrible mum and citizen in general!

Normally we have a lovely shop experience if we go but it's the first time since pandemic so probably all a bit strange for DD.

Oh and i took them into homebase to look at the Christmas lights. I was on the edge of a breakdown already and i was trying to do something nice but free. They'd just started toddling. I let one go on ahead and he got to the end of the aisle, gave me a massive grin, and pelted it into the garden centre. When i tried to get the other one to come with me they absolutely refused and threw themselves on the floor. Had to scoop them up and run after the one that had run off before he made it outside. Then there's the time i thought it would be nice to get the bus to Tesco and treat them to a cake in the cafe. They screamed all the way there, both of them, (no pram) and into the Tesco foyer where lots of people stared at me. I turned tail and walked all the way home again, holding their little hands, sobbing my eyes out. Very much low points in my life.

My parents took my 4 year old who has autism into m&s food hall. On the way out I met them and thought I could smell something so I asked them if he had asked for the toilet. They said he hadn't so I took him back into the shop in search of one.

In one aisle I noticed a very smartly dressed security guard pointing at his feet and directing people around him. I looked down and spotted a huge poo. I immediately put two and two together and made a rather rapid exit from the shop. I still feel a bit guity whenever I go back to m&s food hall.

@CookieMonster22

So your parents let your ds poo on the floor?

My DD (almost 3) is in the middle of the tantruming stage at the moment. We've had them almost daily in lockdown. The other day she had a huge strop in the park cafe because I wouldn't buy her a lollipop. Screaming, thrashing on floor, hitting me etc. She then grabbed a lolly from the freezer and sprinted off outside. I had to leave DS in his pram in the cafe and run off after her. I could just feel everyone's eyes boring into me!! One woman on the way back winked at me and said "you've got this" . How long does the Threenager stage last??

In Costa with the 2.5 year old. DH announced he was going to the loo. When he came back she said, rather concerned and very loudly, "was your poo okay daddy?"
The elderly lady at the next table cracked up laughing.

As a toddler one of dd's favourite treats was fresh bread. When she was about 3 we'd been out somewhere and a neighbour asked me to pick up a few boxes of beers from the supermarket. (We live rurally so picking stuff up when you're going anywhere is fairly common, as is buying a few of anything to keep in)

Naturally, as I stood queuing at the till with a trolley full of beer, dd loudly began to beg for bread. No such luck as incoherent screaming or throwing herself on the floor. It was all 'please mummy, please can we buy bread today? But mummy why can't I have bread when you're buying all that beer' 'I just want some bread mummy' and so on, as big tears fell from her eyes and other shoppers glared at me in disgust.

It didn't help that she was articulate, tall, going through a skinny phase and looked and sounded like a 5yr old begging for food, so despite my assurances we did actually have loads of food at home, including bread, and she ate like a horse, I don't think I managed to convince anyone she was a toddler begging for a treat.

TrainspottingWelsh

They may be small and very young but they are masters and mistresses of manipulation!

Not as exciting as some on here but I remember both my Grandma and my dad referring to when they were in a shop when he was very young and he did the usual wanting a toy or something and throwing himself on the floor and screaming! A passing old lady told my Grandmother that she didn't deserve to have children. I think at that moment she might have agreed!

I mananged to lose myself when out with mum. It was quite late, so starting to get dark. She left me across a road to go into a paint store. Of course it may only have been a few minutes but to a little kid it is forever. Plus I could not remember what shop she was in. Of course I started crying. A policeman went up to me and asked the problem. Well I could not say what shop she was in. He took me back to the police box (which was nothing like on Dr Who, how disappointing!).

Whilst I was with the policeman, a man with a child went past and offered me a sweet. This shocked me as naughty men poisoned sweets that they gave to children (that is what I believed anyway!). Why didn't the policeman arrest him?

A message must have gone around all the shops because a very un-sympathetic mummy came along and said that I knew where she was...

DD2 must have been 3 and in the trolley, I said let's go and see the lady at the checkout. Well that was it.
It's NOT a lady mummy, it's a MAN.

No the lady just has short hair, like grandma.
No IT'S A MAN!
Whisper - Shhh!! Enough!
All fully in earshot of the poor woman on the checkout. I was mortified.

Checkout woman had the most enormous boobs too, but obviously I couldn't point that out to DD2. We did have a chat about not making personal comments after that though.

OP I started a similar thread a little while ago after DS(nearly 3) had a tantrum that started when he realised daddy wasn't coming with us to the supermarket (about 15 minutes drive), continued when I said I needed to get a trolley and doubled down on the kicking and screaming when I tried to get him to sit in it! I ended up giving up and it took me another 10 minutes to strap him back into the car to drive home (still screaming and crying). Once home he calmed down very quickly and I ended up going back out with him in his buggy (I wasn't going through the whole bloody thing all over again!) to walk back to the same shop and just get the bits we were desperate for instead of a whole weeks worth of stuff and he was as good as gold the little monkey

Me being a toddler in shops is legendary amongst my family. I have always hated shopping even as a toddler. My mum was dragging me from shop to shop and apparently I kept asking to go home and she said we could once we had been to a particular shop. She turned around a minute later and i was gone. No one could find me.

The police came and were looking for me as well as organised groups of volunteers who had seen what was going on. The police sat my mum down and told her to be prepared that someone may have taken me. My dad left work and my grandparents came as well.

Then they found me. I was in the particular shop playing on the escalators. I had crossed three roads and walked from one end of the town to the other to get there. To this day my family say they thought I was dead or kidnapped, but no, i just hated shopping so much I decided to end the trip myself.

When I was pregnant with dc2, dc1 decided everyone who wasn't stick thin must also be pregnant regardless of age or sex. One particular Asda trip after he'd asked the 3rd non pregnant person, having tried explaining gently and got nowhere, I tried bluntly explaining why we don't do that. He promptly collapsed on the floor screaming, where he remained for the next 10 or so minutes.

Aren't they @Deathraystare. It always seemed a bit too coincidental she managed to pick the one occasion I wasn't buying alcohol alongside a food shop!

@Dinosauratemydaffodils dd was the same. I wasn't pregnant but we knew a few pregnant women and she was surrounded by lots of pregnant animals. By sheer luck we managed to avoid her voicing her thoughts in the hearing of random members of the public but we came close a few times!

She once commented very loudly on a horse that she announced was apparently having a foal now. The owner of the morbidly obese gelding grunting with the exertion of a sedate canter was not amused.

Just after my nephew was born my two year old niece started to play up. We took her shopping for winter boots and she found some shoes she wanted that her mum and dad weren’t buying. She screamed, cried, rolled on the floor holding one of the shoes, kicked her legs. My brother had the baby in a car seat, sil had just had a Caesarean section so I had to lift her under my arm like a screaming kicking surfboard and carry her to the car.

Oh we've all been there op

My giant 2 year old DS lost his shit shopping the other day. Out of nowhere he threw 2 large punnets of strawberries from the trolley in a rage. As soon as they hit the floor they just flew everywhere. I was mortified, trying to keep him in the trolley as he was escaping whilst scurrying around picking up berries with a kind staff member. Many people staring. He's in age 4 clothing so many people think he's much older.

He then smacked me straight in the mouth and bust my lip open on my braces.

By the time I got to the tills my hair had been pulled out of my bun in tufts, I had blood all down my face and huge visible sweat patches after the stress of it all. As soon as we got back to the car he said "yayyy fun at the shop mummy".

My eldest is normally very good. There was one horrific shopping trip that sticks in my mind. We’d often have a baby ballet class and then go to Waitrose to pick up a few bits. Despite being good everywhere else she was a complete shit in that class (we canned it before the term was over). It just seemed to turn her into a devil child. After one tricky class, we went to the supermarket as normal, I was very pregnant with spd and already stressed from her being the only child in ballet that misbehaved. She had the mother of all strops and was laid down kicking her legs, screaming at the top of her voice. I couldn’t lift or move her. It was awful.