'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?

I would NEVER even IMAGINE my DD doing something like that to someone's baby!! Infact we have a conversation every time we go to the park about how we don't go near or touch other babies as we don't want to disturb then.

I can't believe this woman LAUGHED it off?!!!! I would have shouted at her and told her "If he's always doing that, then take some fucking initiative and tell him NOT TO DO IT."

Hope your DD is calmed down now.

smallwhitecat - I have three NT children and I wouldn't let another unrelated adult tell them off either because frankly it's not their job, it's mine. I wouldn't let them frolic unchecked either though.
I agree that parents of children who are not NT should be allowed to get on with things in the way that works for them. When we were on holiday there was a boy on the beach who obviously was not NT and whose communication was very limited. He was clearly intrigued by my three (who were all playing in a huge hole at this point) and came haring over from his family to watch them. Dd1 and dd2 were of course fine with that, dd3 was a little bit scared as he couldn't articulate words so she hung on to her sister's leg whilst they told her not to be daft. The boy's father came rushing after him and distracted him, apologising profusely to me. Of course I said there was nothing to apologise for. Those parents were obviously used to dealing with people's reaction to their sons difference by apologising for him. I don't think they should have to do that. His manner was unusual but not harmful and I was encouraging my dcs to be welcoming to that difference. However when all is said and done it is up to the parents of the child to decide what is the right reaction. Completely different scenario here - whether the child is NT or not - he was behaving in a manner which did impact on other people and the parent neither distracted him nor apologised. That should be picked up on - though not with the child for my reason far, far above