to expect otger coach passengers to move so I can sit with my baby?

[froken]

wI recently got a coach from Heathrow to my home town.

I was travelling with my ds who is 8 months old, national express recommend that you bring a age appropriate car seat when traveling with a baby, they book you 2 seats under 1 booking.(it's very kind of them to give an infant an entire seat) we were one of the last to get on the coach and by tge time we arrived there were no seats together. There were lots of people sitting alone in a double seat.

None of tge passengers sitting alone in a double seat would move, I ended up threatening to leave the very grumpy teething out of routine baby next to a lady.

Eventually someone moved but I had to organise where he would sit and tge lady he was going to sit next to wasn't at all pleased that he was going to sit next to each other.

Aibu ( and an entitled mum) to think that people should move seats so a parent can sit next to their small child?

[MrsOakenshield]

what an extraordinary thing. I would move for 2 chums travelling together, let alone a parent and baby.

[ExitPursuedByADragon]

This makes me feel very sad.

[SilverStreak7]

OP said that was her main problem , that she and baby had got two seats for price of one . .. Like somebody else suggested, on a seat opposite hers as so many single seats vacant ! Not rocket science, Not everyone has to bend over for DDs or DDs , , In fact in the old days babies and toddlers sat on knees or were held in arms , , ,long before elf and safety mind you but people managed that way for Generations . . .You will raise children who are "precious or precocious" no doubt whilst looking down on others .

[cherrytomato40]

I am always stunned by the selfishness of people in public transport- I remember a few years ago I had to stand up breastfeeding a clingy whingey 4 week old DD2 while leaning on the luggage rack, with a 2yo DD1 clinging to my leg on a crowded train before (local train so no reservations) and noone so much as blinked.

[hettienne]

You don't get two seats for the price of one exactly - under 3s travel free on National Express and get their own seat so they can sit in an appropriate car seat. That's not precious (or precocious, but I think you didn't mean that!) - the baby is entitled to a seat and it is a basic safety measure.

[birdsnotbees]

Silverstreak, as I am sure you are well aware, infant and child mortality rates plummeted on the introduction of compulsory car seats. Oh, but of course that's just health and safety gone mad, isn't it?

I'm bringing up my kids to be considerate to others - and to give up their seats for people who need them. You never know, you might be on the receiving end of their kindness one day.

[pigletmania]

Silver now babes and Chidren have to have carseats. National express recommended to op that she should bring a car seat for her dc

[Amy106]

I would have moved. Who in the world would want to separate a parent and baby?

[MadBusLady]

TBF I would have said no if you didn't explain why you were asking. I would assume an 8mo would sit on someone's knee, and wouldn't be particularly aware of the car seats/double booking thing. I'd move if you spelt out that they required you to use a car seat so you needed two seats.

[hettienne]

MadBusLady - surely if a woman with a baby in a car seat asks if she can have two seats together it is pretty obvious that the car seat needs a seat rather than being balanced on a lap/floor

[ExitPursuedByADragon]

So someone standing in the aisle with a car seat would need to explain why they needed a seat for said car seat. Where would you expect them to put it?

[ExitPursuedByADragon]

X post

[MadBusLady]

Not obvious to someone without children, no. People with babies seem to have all kinds of paraphernalia that for all I know folds up into a handkerchief sized square, and I have no idea which bits are indispensible to what activities, I would need to be told. I doubt I could even tell a car seat from one of those carry things.

[ExitPursuedByADragon]

[hettienne]

I would be genuinely surprised if anyone was bamboozled by the sight of a car seat, childless or not.

[MadBusLady]

Well, I would be surprised if anyone was "bamboozled" by one, yes. However, what I said is that I wouldn't necessarily know (a) it was a car seat as distinct from some other carrying thing and (b) the baby needed to stay in it and be put on a full coach seat.

So in this hypothetical scenario in which I'm a coach passenger and you're in the OP's position, you can either explain this to me, upon which I would happily move, or you can do little humphy faces about the fact that not everyone instinctively understands every need and priority in your lifestyle.

If the OP did explain why she needed people to move then all this is irrelevant, of course.

[JamieandtheMagicTorch]

Silverstreak

Is this your hobby horse, by any chance?

[HeySoulSister]

Silver streak said she was leaving MN!

[MidniteScribbler]

I avoid buses, because I get incredibly bus sick. Even for work when we go on a school excursion, I always drive my car instead of travelling on the bus, or I'd be completely useless. On the very rare occaision I needed to get on a bus, I need to be able to sit and look out the front window or I'd be throwing up everywhere.

My elderly aunt travels by bus a lot, and having previously been thrown out of an aisle seat in the past, she gets very anxious unless she is sitting in the window seat.

Some people won't move because they are twats, but some people may actually have chosen that seat for a reason.

[YeahWhat]

Y were NBU

and no, I wouldn't have ignored the OP and pretended to be asleep, or in the middle of an important phone call, or unable to understand,..honest., I wouldn't

[MistressDeeCee]

YANBU so what if theyre settled into coach seat, its a coach not their home and I cant see why some people just cant be kind, without trying to prove a point. Id be unable to sit there not offering my seat. But, it takes all sorts I guess

[K8Middleton]

YWNU. The choice is move or sit next to random child. The obvious answer is move unless you are a total berk.

Wanda I love that you wrote to commend the coach driver who called the other passengers cunts

[omwards]

I think it's a bit rich that OP is being told she should have left more time - presumably if she was leaving from Heathrow she had got off a flight, so the timing was decided by the airline and ATC.

Even when not departing from an airport, I'm not arriving everywhere with buckets of time to spare now I have a child. Everybody on this planet has a duty to make life as easy and pleasant for everyone else as they can. Children are just one of the things that can require a bit of extra consideration, there must be lots of others.

[hettienne]

However early you arrive, you can only get on the coach 10 minutes before departure anyway ime and there is a scrum with women and small children pushed to the back. I did once have a lovely driver insist everyone got out the way and let me and DS on first though.

[Dackyduddles]

Why didn't you just go to the front and shout "someone needs to move!" Down the bus? I'm guessing someone might have then...?