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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To want to take my baby on public transport?

202 replies

ETUMP · 18/09/2012 17:17

Just returned from a trip to London with my 3 month old baby. Very busy train on the return journey with a lot of luggage so there wasn't room for my pram (quinny with basinet) in the luggage area as i'd politely hung back to allow others to get on in front.

I put it in the next carriage, as advised by a staff member and then a manager asked (very loudly) whose pram was parked next door and it couldn't stay there etc. He was obviously harrassed, but was quite rude and sarcastic to me. After a very publuc discussion he said 'well these trains are not made for prams really'.

If that's the case - why sell family railcards?

OP posts:

SirGOLDBoobs · 18/09/2012 19:11

I can't fold my buggy, I'm disabled.

So nuh.

forevergreek · 18/09/2012 19:18

I must be toughened up by living in london!

I use a sling on public transport. with rucksack for baby paraphernalia

if people dont offer to get up, i now simply ask someone if they would mind if i sat down with baby.. no one has ever refused :)

i like to think that next time someone who i have asked to move is on public transport with someone who may need a seat more than them, that they may think about offering as many people wont ask.

MummyPig24 · 18/09/2012 19:25

I don't think its a good idea to take a big pram on public transport. Takes up too much room and awkward to fold. I took our maclaren quest to London, suitable from birth, I also have a bjcm which is great for easy folding. However for a baby so young I would put them in a sling.

Northernlurkerisbackatwork · 18/09/2012 19:29

No idea why using a sling, folding puschair or rucksack puts you in line for the title of martyr

5madthings · 18/09/2012 19:29

gold do you asl people to help? or does anyone offer? i regularly offer to help others with little ones, even when i have my own with me.

teacherwith2kids · 18/09/2012 19:30

SirGOLD,

In which case there is [to state the obvious] no problem at all in you not folding your buggy. If the OP had said 'and I couldn't fold my buggy because I'm disabled and I physically can't', then she would not be unreasponable to have a gripe with the train company.

But that wasn't her situation....

WorraLiberty · 18/09/2012 19:33

Even if the OP was disabled though she still couldn't block the aisle with her pram.

Not that she said she did block it, but then she didn't say why the manager wasn't happy either.

flow4 · 18/09/2012 19:37

OP needs to start a campaign... There's nothing like 23 mums with toddlers and pushchairs getting on and off a train together, to catch the attention of the local paper and focus a train company's mind on access issues... Yes, really >mwahahahaha

EasilyBored · 18/09/2012 19:41

I'm dreading something like this happening. Taking a train down to meet a friend next week, and although my pushchair (travel system) folds, it's still massive then. I don't use public transport (other than the tram every now and then, and you don't need to fold your pram them), so it wasn't something I considered when buying it. I'm not buying another pushchair just for the once in a blue moon when I need to use a train or bus. My plan is to put DS in my carrier, and fold the giant pram before getting on the train. I have to take it, as with all the will and the best sling in the world, I cannot carry DS for hours and hours while I shlep round a new city. Hopefully the train wont be rammed. And there wont be anyone to give me a lecture on how they did it when they had kids and they still managed to carry the family goat as well.

SirGOLDBoobs · 18/09/2012 19:45

FWIW Easily I have never had any problems when I have taken my buggy on the train, so don't stress :)

wildpoppy · 18/09/2012 19:48

Yanbu. You and baby plus pram have as much right as anyone else to travel at any time you want to. Dd sometimes has 9am hospital appts which mean getting her to central London in rush hour. People tut but no one directly says anything but I'd like to see their face when I lecture them about taking sick children to great Ormond St if they ever say anything.

teacherwith2kids · 18/09/2012 19:55

Wild, yes -but she needs to fold the pram and stow it in such a way that it does not block corridors, exits or seats which other passengers need to use. She has the right to the seats that she has bought, and reasonable luggage stowage space, just like every other passenger.

If your baby, because of their illness, needs to stay in the pram, that is obviously a different scenario to the OP, who can - and I presume did, since the pram was in a different carriage - remove her child from the pram.

DuelingFanjo · 18/09/2012 20:08

To be fair, even if you can remove a small baby from a pram that still doesn't explain what you do with the baby while you fold the pram, however nifty it is. It being a Quincy is a red herring.

KellyElly · 18/09/2012 20:27

A sling doesn't work for everyone. I had terrible back problems for months after having my DD and a sling and a backpack wouldn't have worked for me. I just travelled outside rush hour but I live in London so was easier for me to plan my days around that.

Goldenbear · 18/09/2012 20:28

I don't understand why new mothers are expected to be so accommodating of others needs, so selfless when it is hardly ever reciprocated.

Many things block the doors on packed, peak time trains, including people and luggage, luggage such as silly fold down bikes that jut out in standing space and minimise the surface area in which to stand. Let's face it, peak time train travel is far from ideal and yet mothers with very young babies are the selfish ones??

JamieandTheMagicTorch · 18/09/2012 20:33

Well, I have generally not found people to have accused me of selfishess. We all muddled along together in less than ideal circumstances. OP seems to have encountered a bit of a charmless Guard, but there are things she can do to mitigate against travel being difficult again. Having a massive pushchair isn't the easiest thing on a busy train.

JamieandTheMagicTorch · 18/09/2012 20:35

BTW - I travelled on public transport every day when mine were small.

BlazerOfGlory · 18/09/2012 20:37

Everybody is expected to be accomodating of others needs. Its called, you know, polite society?

ATourchOfInsanity · 18/09/2012 20:42

Had a similar thing happen on the bus here - managed to get a bus to a small village nearby with a buggy area specially designed within it. However on return was told that only one bus using that route had that option and it was not running any more that day. I had no option but to put my 5mo dd on a blanket on the grass while I shunted about trying to fold and decant a lot of bits and bobs (you will always need two hands with most brands) while the driver tutted and huffed that I was going to make him late on his rounds. No one came out to help.

After this I bought a BJCM and take a plastic bag to empty anything that may fly out into just in case I need to fold up within 2 seconds!

I think the issue is more about having a space where disabled and mothers with buggies can go in if not every carriage/bus, then at least every other and make it clear on timetables where/which these are.

Goldenbear · 18/09/2012 20:48

It is being insuated on here- I have never directly been told this either but this thread demonstrates how intolerant people are to this kind of scenario. Posters offering practical advice on how to travel via public transport with a baby I think have missed the point. Surely, the OP's asking has she got the right to do so not how do i go about it? In 2012 you would think the answer would be yes regardless of her pram choice. However, considering the fuss that was made about her pram by the guard and this sentiment being backed up on this thread I would say only if a number of conditions are met - which is fucking ridiculous. Continue to stay local OP!

JamieandTheMagicTorch · 18/09/2012 20:51

But clearly she's got the right to do so. Evidently she did travel and no-one stopped her! It's OTT, IMO to ask that question. It's about how you go about exercising that right. And that's what we're advising on. I don't agree that pram choice is irrelevant.

BlazerOfGlory · 18/09/2012 20:51

Has she got the right to stick a big buggy anywhere she likes because its convenient for her, even if it is bad for lots of others? Er, no.

People are perfectly nice, on the whole, they will help you on and off, help with luggage, hold a baby for you. Smile and ask nicely and in my extensive experience people can't do enough for you. Throw your weight (and your pram) around and you're on your own.
You get back what you give out.

teacherwith2kids · 18/09/2012 20:51

ATouch,

i'm sorry that you had such an experience. IME, when I am obviously making an effort (e.g. folding down a buggy) and faced with an unexpected obstance, the most unexpected white knights have come to my rescue.

11 years on, I still remember the kindness of the smartly-suited young black businessman in Washngton DC, who cheerfully held DS while I folded his pushchair, then carried the pushchair (along with his own briefcase) down the endless length of a broken escalator at a Metro stop.

JamieandTheMagicTorch · 18/09/2012 20:52

.... precisely because prams have been designed for travel scenarios.

Goldenbear · 18/09/2012 20:52

Blazer, but everybody is not accommodating of each others' needs, most commuters just think about their own comfort and own needs so why should a mum with a baby be the exception to the rule?

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