Aibu to hate the old lady on the bus today

[Edinburghmummy12]

Ok I went out for lunch with my DM and dd. my dd has her nap after lunch when out and about she has it in her pram. but today she didn't for some reason today was all fine intel she started to get tried so after we got of the tram I put her in her pram so she could nap all was fine intil we got on the bus and she started screaming big time . I knew there was no way to get of because the buses one every few hrs . I kept her in her pram and tried to sooth her but she just got very over tried as this was happening I people were tuting and whispering why I wasn't picking her up now I no that if I picked her up it wouldnt help at all . Then came the old lady that made sure I was looking before she give me a your a shit mother look . So I got of the bus and walked home crying didn't even care what people thought . Why do people judge it's not fair .

She did sleep in the end just as we were at home mummy's mini monster trust me staying in her pram was the best thing for her with me lightly talking to her

Yes, you were absolutely right to trust yourself, OP - there was nothing else you could have done and you have absolutely nothing to reproach yourself for!

My children are school aged now, when I see a parent with a child crying on the bus I think thank god it's not mine anymore.

If I'm in a supermarket on my own and by the checkout there is a child who is crying or having a tantrum I will offer to load and pack the shopping.

This happened to me once too but much younger baby. The bus driver actually stopped the bus and said that it isn't good to let a baby cry. A child later and now adept at breastfeeding in a bus I look back and cringe and wish I HAD picked my little one up but at the time I genuinely thought it would make things worse (I had breastfeeding issues and could only feed though a nipple shield and I think I must have used the last clean one before getting on bus and was too scared to use an unsterilised one). But most importantly then, and now, I don't understand why the driver didn't just assume that I was doing what I thought best and that I also very much wanted my DD to feel better. I got some sympathetic glances from the old ladies on the bus as I blushed and flustered that time actually!

It is very sad, "drivingmisspotty*, how mothers doubt themselves so easily when someone that doesn't know anything about the situation sees fit to criticise them.

I read an awful piece in the Guardian the other week by Julie Myerson (I think) about being on a bus with a mother and a screaming toddler, and the driver actually stopped the bus and told the mother to get off! What bus tutters don't seem to realise is that NOBODY on the bus wants the screaming child to stop more than their parent.

I had a horrible experience when my DS had just turned 2. I foolishly took him out without the pushchair and had an almighty tantrum on the bus home. I couldn't get off because I couldn't carry him - I had newborn DD in a sling on my front and there was no way he was walking - so I just had to hold on to my flailing, screeching ball of rage to stop him falling off the seat while the woman across the aisle tutted, muttered and shook her head. It was the longest 5 minute journey of my life!

I hope I never forget the experience and so will remain sympathetic to parents in the same boat, even when mine are grown. Maybe I'll have it tattooed on me, Memento-style: "DS was a little bugger on the 236 bus!"

YANBU I get it all the time for the same reasons - I don't pick my tot up out of his pram on journeys because I know it's far worse and less safe out of it than strapped in. He cries differently for different things, strangers won't recognise if it's a hunger/boredom/tired/or in pain type of cry - a mother does. So fed up of these stories ppl make up in their head when they see a situation and don't have full facts. I was recently on the receiving end of a local fb group post from a woman who I know wanted to "report" me for not cuddling my tantrumming toddler on a bus, it was humiliating.

If your baby is screaming on a bus then I think you simply have to accept that some passengers will find that more or less intolerable. I would be one of them, and I'm not sure I fall into the old lady category yet. Although I note with interest that it is only ever tutting old ladies who are hated on these threads, eh daisydee and lally.

I sometimes find myself thinking (to myself, and not showing I'm thinking it one my face - I hope) "Why doesn't she pick the baby up" ". And then I remember ......

It's just hard.

YANBU. And I'd never get DD (6mo) out of her pram on the bus,it's not safe. I've seen a grown woman flung head first into the front window when the driver braked. Buses drive too badly, certainly round here, I would be worried seeing a baby out of its pram.

yabu, op babies are identical and picking them up works for every.single. one. I mean, you have had yours for 18 months so surely you have had enough time to read the instruction book that they came with...

maybe the old lady was remembering the time her little one howled.. and the horror of the memory appeared on her face..

Some people are cunts. I tried to give a lady in Tesco a sympathetic look last week when her little one was screaming blue murder.. All the others were giving filthy looks. Fuck them and the horse they came in on!

Fair enough that would find it intolerable Mintyy, but it's the tutting and the muttering that most posters are complaining about. How is that going to help anyone? It's only going to make the mother more stressed and less able to soothe her child.