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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To take breastfed DD with me to training?

211 replies

whynowblowwind · 11/06/2014 17:39

I got a job the other day :) but I have to do a course on safeguarding. This lasts about 3 hours from approximately 9-12.

DD is 2 months; she is exclusively breastfed at the moment. I am wondering what to do about this course and wondered if I could just take her with me? It's quite am informal course they said and there will only be about 5 or 6 of us in total.

Alternatively I could ask a friend to have her but she won't take a bottle at the moment and still feeds very frequently.

What's best?

OP posts:
Weathergames · 11/06/2014 22:35

Safeguarding updates are every 3 yrs but anyway....

Weathergames · 11/06/2014 22:38

You should not have to "handle" your partner.

MNER's would not want to lynch him - YOU need to take some responsibility here and ask yourself if this is what you want not sit and wait to be rescued.

Your daughter will grow up thinking this is ok.

Original poster
whynowblowwind · 11/06/2014 22:38

Front, thanks :) I did ask, when they rang up to ask if I could come in for an interview, if I could rearrange due to childcare issues and they said it would be fine to bring DD in.

Scarlett I know what you mean about there being no rush but I have to admit I am really struggling with isolation, and feel very hopeless and lost a lot of the time. We are lucky to live in a beautiful farmhouse but it is so rural, even the village (well, if one garage and a primary school and a few houses constitutes a village!) is a few minutes' walk.

Some days I feel almost like I don't exist at all, and that really frightens me in a way I can't explain.

OP posts:
Original poster
whynowblowwind · 11/06/2014 22:42

Weather, it was a joke, hence the smiley face. It's nothing to do with wanting to be rescued, it's everything to do with logistics, practicalities and other stuff I won't go into. I have DD, and I also have a seven year old son, I can't yank him out of school for weeks while I stay with a friend. I have no family at all. I don't even have a car at the moment.

Walk a mile in my shoes and all that, dd was barely in me five minutes ago Sad

OP posts:
FrontForward · 11/06/2014 22:57

I have to do safeguarding updates every year. Adult and child regardless of the fact I don't deal with children currently. I appreciate you have told us you are very experienced in this area Weather. I have been in health and social care for 29 yrs now so think that counts as a little bit experienced myself. Updates annually are mandatory. One persons experience is...one persons experience, not gospel

My friend is a deputy head and does regular safeguarding courses

Weathergames · 11/06/2014 23:10

Must be an LA thing as me and my social work colleagues on the same team go every 3 yrs.

BranchingOut · 12/06/2014 08:12

Well, I for one think that it would have been ok.

I have attended safeguarding training where people have brought babies/toddlers, albeit in a children's centre environment. It was absolutely fine.

I think that it should be acceptable for bf babies (especially those under 6m) to go everywhere their mothers go (as long as it is a safe environment for a baby) and particular efforts should be made to enable mothers who are looking to return to work to attend work-related training.

I say 6m because that is the recommended duration of exclusive bf. The equalities act also applies to all bf mothers - breastfeeding is allowed anywhere where services might be provided to their mother.

Another option, I have just done a safeguarding course online. Would that work for you? Pm me for details, I mean that, please do.

waterrat · 12/06/2014 08:44

Op you are making a wise and brave seeking seeking work and independence - please ignore people who are just looking for arguments - I recently attended a meeting at work - v professional environment - where a mum brought her baby it was absolutely fin and everyone loved the chance to have a cuddle!

You ask and if thy say no that's fine - it's great that you have found flexible work especially if you are in a controlling relationship

The relationships thread may be a supportive place for you rather than aibu

Mrsjayy · 12/06/2014 08:57

I wouldnt take the baby can you express what are you going to do if baby decides to want a feed just as you are going to work and your lady is waiting for you

Breakhardthewishbone · 12/06/2014 09:46

This thread has made me really sad.

The OP is trying to take steps to "sort her life out" FFS. She has sought local work, for 2 hours a day at a time when her partner WOULD be around to cover childcare, in a sector she has experience in. This training is a one off, during hours she would not normally be working, in a home-based environment. She is not talking about taking a baby into european parliament for 10 hours every day.

OP, please consider getting back in touch with the agency and just asking them. I think this job could be really important for you, in terms of getting your confidence up, giving you some financial independence and just getting you reconnected with the world. And I also think you'd be good at it. You are OBVIOUSLY conscientious and caring, that much is clear from your responses here, and I have little doubt from how you've come across here that you would do a good job for this lady.

Also, I think for your own sanity you need to address the invisibility. Do you get out to any groups? If you are anywhere near Herts or Bucks, I would happily meet you for coffee. I would also give expressing and bottles a go again. Not because I have anything against EBFing, but because I think it would be good for your sanity and independence to have options. I always found expressing first thing in the morning the most productive time, don't know if that helps.

Anyway. Hang in there. PM me if you want a friendly chat. You are not a bad person. You're a good person in a hard place.

BettyFlour · 12/06/2014 12:41

OP I applaude you for getting yourself a job when your DD is so little.

Don't let these idiots on MN make you give up a job.

Like the PP I am saddened that you came here for advice and have been made to feel like the only option was to give up your job.

Please, please tell the car company you'll do the job and the reason you turned it down is due to childcare issues regarding the training course (but now you've got your friend lined up to do it).

I'm sending you all the luck and best wishes I can. Smile

BettyFlour · 12/06/2014 12:42

*care company

Original poster
whynowblowwind · 12/06/2014 16:50

Thanks :) feel a little more positive today - I have arranged my friend to have DD. The care agency rang me at 10 today and said bringing dd wouldn't be a problem, but I'd been chatting to friend who is going to come and care for dd next week for a few hours, it'll be nice to see friend too.

OP posts:
Funnyfoot · 12/06/2014 17:06

Hello OP.

Good to hear you are more positive. Also very good to hear you are still going on the course. I think it is fantastic that your employers are accommodating sounds like working for them will be ideal for you.

I hope all goes well on the course. Smile

Breakhardthewishbone · 12/06/2014 17:09

Oh I am so pleased! Have been thinking of you all day.
Well done :)

Original poster
whynowblowwind · 12/06/2014 17:23

Oh gosh - wouldn't wish thinking about me all the time on my worst enemy Grin

DH is away now until Monday night so friend is staying :)

OP posts:
wigglylines · 12/06/2014 19:42

"The care agency rang me at 10 today and said bringing dd wouldn't be a problem"

Brilliant, great you've got that option just in case you need it.

So, are all the people who were so rude to the OP, told her it wouldn't be allowed, and that she shouldn't ask, going to come back and apologise to her then?

Funnyfoot · 12/06/2014 20:18

Actually I don't think anyone was rude tbh wiggly. Yes they gave their opinions because OP asked for them but at no point did anyone swear or make rude comments. Some said they thought it to be unprofessional to ask.

Please find me a rude comment directed at the OP. Cos I cannot see one.

ilovesooty · 12/06/2014 20:19

I'm glad you're going after all.

ElphabaTheGreen · 12/06/2014 20:37

Very glad you've gone back to taking the job, OP Smile

Weathergames The OP is not being overly sensitive. You, however, have been extremely unpleasant. I would also have been upset by your comments and I'm in no way the delicate flower you're making the OP out to be. There is 'being frank', and there is being 'passive aggressive'. Calling the OP a child in an opening sentence, then saying you are being 'kindly' and 'polite' in the same post is the latter. I also think telling the OP to take a year off or choose between EBFing and working is bang out of order. I EBFed my son til six months and he was a total, TOTAL bottle refuser despite us trying every trick in the book (including leaving him with a bottle and other people I might add), and still remained so when I went back to work FULL TIME when he was eight months old. I still continued to BF him until he was 17 months old. You are not the expert you think you are. Further to that, I also have to do safeguarding annually, not every three years - I'm clinical staff in the NHS, and this has been the case in three very geographically separate trusts I have worked for. In recent years we have only done the training online because, really, it's not brain surgery and the occasional distraction of a tiny baby is not going to be the difference between life and death, especially not for someone who has done it annually before.

Best of luck OP. Thanks I hope the job works out for you and you find the physical and emotional resources you require to do what you need to do about your 'D'H.

ScarlettlovesRhett · 12/06/2014 21:04

I don't think weather was rude or passive aggressive at all. She gave her opinion, as is the nature of explaining why she would not do what the OP was asking about.

The OP responses (imo) were quite unnecessarily emotive at some points and disproportionate ("I won't take the job then" being an example).

It matters not if someone was still bf up to 17 months and working, or even at 8 months. Presumably you could leave your child for 3 hours at that point with no drama - the OP can't as the baby is only 2 months old.

I'm pleased that the OP has sorted it all out so that she can go to the course, obviously, but it is unfair to have a pop at posters on this thread who have been perfectly reasonable (if a little blunt).

ElphabaTheGreen · 12/06/2014 21:09

It matters when someone says you have to take a year off work if you choose to EBF. I did not take a year off work, and I EBFed.

And I think Weather was being incredibly unreasonable and beyond blunt. I appear to be in the minority on that one, but I think some agree, and I can totally see why the OP was upset.

Chippednailvarnish · 12/06/2014 21:18

I'm with Scarlett, people may have been blunt but the OP's responses have been disproportionate.

Lucyccfc · 12/06/2014 21:27

Just for the record, whilst safeguarding training is mandatory, CQC do not have any requirements for how often it needs to be refreshed. It's entirely up to each individual company to decide.

Well done Whynowblowind on sorting out your friend to mind your baby and congratulations on the job. It's great that you want to work and are doing part time hours that you can increase as baby gets older.

Please do not let any negative posts on here get you down or knock your confidence.

Good luck

PrincessBabyCat · 12/06/2014 21:32

I worked a corporate office job and people would bring in their children for the day. It was fine. No one batted an eye or cared. Why would they have? It's not like they let their kids run amok screeching like godless little heathens.

If the baby is quiet and you take her out when she cries, it will be fine. In fact, I'm sure the other people would fuss over her and say hi. :)