'Wake up baby!' Not so much AIBU as what would you have said?

[everybodysang]

Took the morning off work today as I had an appointment in town with 10 month old DD. Once we had done that I was walking around town with her and she fell asleep in her pushchair. She's usually in a sling and doesn't often fall asleep in the pushchair so I was delighted, especially as she had a terrible night last night and we've both got a cold - I thought, ooh, I can sit down and have a coffee and read my book for half an hour.
Went into coffee shop, ordered coffee, waiting in queue for coffee to be made - still delighted that she was sound asleep. Small boy, I think around 3.5/4 suddenly ran up to us, ran round the pushchair, leaned in and SCREAMED in her face 'Wake up baby! Wake up!' and then ran off again. DD woke up, screaming and terrified. I looked round to see where the little boy had gone, and he was standing by his mum a few people behind me in the queue. I caught her eye and she kind of shrugged at me, laughed and said 'oh, he's always doing that.'
That was it. I got my coffee but poor DD was inconsolable so had to throw it down my neck and leave almost straight away. She cried the whole way home on the bus.
I know young kids do impulsive things, he was only small so I don't really have a problem with him actually having done it - though obviously I wish he hadn't - but I just sort of gawped at his mum, and I wished I'd had a good comeback. Wouldn't you apologise if your child did this? What would you have said to her?

Having had some rubbish nights sleep recently I'm actually feeling quite frustrated just thinking about this!

a couple of screaming toddlers woke up my overtired baby who was in desperate need of a sleep and i gave the mother evils. pure evils. she just looked blank the whole time while they ran round in cirlces past the buggy.

do mothers have no memory of what it was like to be desperate for your baby to sleep?

Oh gosh- that mother's child will be at school in a year, no doubt exhibiting behaviours that he has not been corrected for, and then at 15 the mother will be in at Parents' Evening, taking the child's side when the teacher reports he told him to "F off".
As a teacher you just get so sick of dealing with the consequences of weak lazy, indulgent parenting- this is an example of how it starts.She could have gently reprimanded him and apologised at the very least- but parents who are even able to respond that way are like that are always beligerant and think it is not their fault.They are one huge pain in the A**.The cycle will go on for ever with these kids becoming the bug bear of every teacher that has to deal with them and their parents- and at 4 it is not the child's fault but the parent.
Always it is the parents' fault, unless there is a special need going on which who knows, perhaps there was and she did not say.

FredFredGeorge - takeaway cup! Why did I not think of a takeaway cup? Then I could at least have enjoyed my festive caffeine fix. Darn.

But I was really looking forward to just sitting down and reading for fifteen minutes.

well done you for your control....what an ignorant woman that other mother was, lets hope that her darling little boy wakes HER that way at 3am for the rest of november

OMG op i bet you were HOPPING!! i cannot believe the mother didn't say anything ffs, oh i am so on your behalf.

I'd have been fuming too! YANBU

Was she a "Oh my Hugo is so delightfully wilful" type of mum, or was she a "Shut the Fuck up" type?

I would have told the mother I was disappointed that I would not get my coffee in peace now, and that I thought if her child did go around waking up babies for sport then that really wasn't very nice.

But I would have been swearing my head off inside, and hoping her knickers fell down or a bird crapped on her head.

I too have a 4yo boy. To be fair, he has a 4mo brother, but even before that he's known for a long time that shouting at anyone is out of order, let alone a sleeping baby.

I would have said to the child in a firm but polite voice 'that's not very kind'. I would have said to the mother 'if he always does that then perhaps it's time you took an interest in him and taught him not to'.

Then I would have gone outside and cried all the way home. I have a baby with severe reflux so if he's asleep I will do anything to keep him that way. As I'm not in control of other people and their shopping trolleys, loud voices, careless bags, legs & feet etc I spend a lot of time crying!

FWIW even my 2.5 year old would not dare do this for fear of my wrath.

Ooooh yes, I would have been very upset. At the child, although it's not really his fault. But the mother. Ooooh yes! - she bloody well should have apologised

Hexagonal I'm not really sure - I think the first, she wasn't really talking to him at all though, so it was all a bit strange.

I do hope her knickers did fall down. And then her darling son yells in her face in the middle of the night.

buttonmoon - love your reply.

Do you know what? I think it is partially the child's fault, and I would have told him that was a mean thing to do to a baby.

YANBU, even my 2.10 year old twins know not to scream at their sleeping baby brother!

If it's any consolation, it doesn't matter that you didn't say anything to the mother, because I'm sure it wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference to her parenting. IMO it doesn't really matter how you react as a parent to something like this - whether you go for telling your kid off, explaining why it's not nice or whatever - as long as you bloody well do something to communicate that they shouldn't behave like that in the future.

YANBU

for you and your DD.

I remember hearing Andy Hamilton saying on either the News Quiz or Have I Got News For You that he always bore a terrific and lasting grudge against former PM James Callaghan.

The reason was that Andy Hamilton and his wife had finally managed to get out with their newborn baby, they were completely shattered from lack of sleep and at last the baby had dropped off.

They sat outside at a pub and thought with some relief that at last they could have a moment of normality. Then who should come along but the politician Jim Callaghan. As politicians do, he looked into the pram.

He then boomed: "WHAT A LOVELY BABY!!!!!!"

Immediately baby Hamilton woke up and screamed and that was the end of that.

Andy Hamilton said he never forgave him. I think this might have been a programme where a news item under discussion was Callaghan's death.

So you are not alone.

I would have flipped my lid. Honestly. Not over the child so much, but his indulgent, thicko mother.

I would have been pissed off. Amazing you had so much self-control.

If my DD (3.5) was in the habit of running around screaming at little babies I would be telling her off and dishing out consequences.

YANBU

If she had gone out I probably would have said nothing through shock. However, being behind me in the q I would probably have managed to recover my equilibrium and said something to her. Or punched her. One or the other ;D

The mother sounds like an over-indulgent idiot that lets her child rule the roost under the guise of him "expressing himself"

Could you not go and flick the mum of the naughty child in the face (right between the eyes, really hurts, my brother and uncle used to do it to me all the time I was little and say 'Oh, I am always doing that'

Could you not go and flick the mum of the naughty child in the face (right between the eyes, really hurts, my brother and uncle used to do it to me all the time I was little and say 'Oh, I am always doing that'

That is definitely what I will do next time.

If they scream at babies and puppies at age 5 (ish), and they're not corrected, what are they going to do at age 15?

I can't add to what cherrysodalover said. This is what the teachers deal with day in day out, thanks to useless, indulgent parenting.

I feel so sorry for you, you were so close to getting a lovely bit of peace and it was so needlessly snatched away. Horrible for dd to be startled awake like that too