To think it wasn't my fault that her coat got dirty

[NatureRun]

In a busy coffee shop with 8-month-old DS and our NCT group. A woman pulled an extra chair up to join her friends at crowded table next to us. She sat down within grabbing range of DS and before I could stop him he twisted round in highchair and grabbed hold of her pale grey coatigan thing that she'd draped over chair and wiped his mouth on it He had prune puree and yogurt around his mouth as I was feeding him

Woman jumped up angrily and told me off. I apologised profusely but she was really angry. She insisted I pay for dry-cleaning. I refused (had she been nicer I may have offered) but she was making a scene and I loathed her.

If you sit within grabbing distance of a prune-covered baby surely that's not my fault? Or am I BU?

So is a coatigan a garment made from coat material but without buttons?

I've googled and that's what seems to be coming back to me, heavy material, doesn't fasten.

I find it strange that the baby swivelled round in it's seat, grabbed the coatigan and wiped it's own mouth.

The baby probably didn't "wipe their mouth" in order to clean his/her mouth in a way an older child/an adult would. Most things a baby gets hold of tend to head towards their mouth (part of their development) and they sometimes rub it around that area. I highly doubt the OP meant her baby was using the woman's coat to have a wash! Just discovering, as babies do.

Thank you Cant I have come into contact with babies before
I was quoting the OP

Oh right

YANBU, she sounds very rude. However she may well have had to get it dry cleaned. Here is a coatigan which is dry clean only and I think prune would be very bad for it....

BUT you can't expect other people to notice you're feeding your baby

I think it's fairly safe to assume that people of any size in a cafe may have food about their person

Why feed a baby prunes anyway?

Don't they shit enough

Just one of these things, only apologise once. Like you say if she had been less of a cow you might have offered but she wasn't. Don't worry yourself about it, some people are just not as relaxed about being covered in baby food and other things lol

It is your baby's fault her coat got dirty. You are responsible for your child's actions, ergo you should pay for it to be cleaned.

You should pay to have her scarf cleaned. Your child is your responsibility. If your child had knocked a glass on the floor, you'd replace it, or if she puked on someone's carpet, you'd have it cleaned. Later in life she might throw a ball through someone's window. . . You still apologise and you still pay!

IMO she WBU the minute she yelled. She out her self in that position. She moved her chair there. Babies are unpredictable and messy.

My friend and I went into Costa the other week, sat on chairs that were where they had been placed by staff and a baby in a high chair did a flick up as mum spoon fed him Apple purée. It went up and over his head and landed in my hair.
Once my ferried and I had had finished pissing ourselves I was able to accept the baby wipe off the mortified mum and reassure her it happens! We had our DCs ages 10-12 yo with us. They laughed for a lot longer --and demanded to know what they'd done as babies that mortified my friend and me

You were already in situ - she should have positioned her chair out of reach from him.

i once sat at a seat by a bin in Mcdonalds and someone threw a milkshake down my back , i didn't scream and shout at the person or demand payment for my dry cleaning bill, i wiped it off like a normal person.

Where does it say she yelled...or raised her voice at all. It just says she was angry. Stop adding arms and legs to it. I hate it when people do that on MN.

I think I must be from another planet... I am afraid I have been going round offending people and BU all my life as I have no understanding if the attitude that compensation could be reasonable in this situation... I can imagine a scene in a busy café where people squeeze past a high chair and a sticky infant gets some food on several customers over a period of time... Are you supposed to pay them all, or should they have been more careful? I do think it's all to do with who was there first. Almost stationary hazard versus adult human. It's a no-brainer to me. I did think of the comparison with a slobbery dog before it was mentioned and if I was wearing something I cared about I would not have sat next to a slobbery dog, even on a lead.

Can't she just put her coatigan in the bloody washing machine? In your shoes,having been shouted at,I wouldn't have offered to pay for it either!!

I don't think she expected a baby to reach and grab her coatigan for wiping his mouth.

BUT you must as the mother be aware of your baby's milestones and that he has a tendency to grab and wipes... Especially items close to hand! Not your fault he did what she did but she has a right to sit where she sat too, near her friends.

To be honest depending on woman's mood, value of coatigan, shock at having purée smeared over it, then your first reaction should be to apologise (say the word accident after it) and then offer to pay for drycleaning. Most sane people will say, no it's ok I can wash it/wipe it down or ok then. But most of us would refuse.

Some of you are being awful towards someone who's had their property/possesion damaged etc, she was probably reasonably being upset.

What I hate about this thread is the idea of - how dare a woman

1. wear something that can't be bunged in the machine
2. wear something with a ludicrous name (oh no wait, it was the OP that called it that, not the actual woman wearing the garment)
3. wear something perhaps a bit nice and a bit expensive in a public place like a cafe.

At the end of the day though OP you didn't pay, presumably didn't swap numbers head tilt and the woman probably thinks quite few mums are rude when their baby makes a mess.

Round one to you OP ding ding

Stop adding arms and legs to it

What a brilliant expression

Why the fuck should she even offer to pay though? She was there first, the woman chose to sit within reach of the child (who btw, had as much right to be in the cafe as her) and therefore any damage to her property was her own fault.
But, as the expression goes, "a mothers place is in the wrong".

Vipers are missing trick, it wasn't prune purée but prune purée and yogurt (was it one of those activia prune layered yogurts??) - surely either the yogurt would have made it easier to get out, or maybe not... Was the prune that stringy type? Which would seep into fibres of said coatigan.

Was coatigan mohair or something equally delicate? I think we need to know!!!

Slowly the offer is the polite thing to do, most people including me with an offer of payment smile politely and say "not but thanks offering to pay".

It's called manners, look it up in your Charm School manual.

1. It might've been washable, coatigan lady was vair angry and demanded dry cleaning money....doesn't mean it's not washable.
2. Coatigan is a ludicrous name. It's still a cardigan, and it's not a coat. See also treggings, jeggings, SuBo and Sanpro. 3)Don't flap nice things in unnecessarily close proximity to other diners. However short they are and even if they do eat prunes.

arms and legs

If this happened to me I would be pissed off. However, if you offered to pay I would have turned down the offer, and I expect just offering would have dissipated the anger.

It's tricky not having been there. Children misbehaving and not being watched properly winds me up, but it doesn't really sound like this was the case. Equally, shouting is an overreaction. If it happens again offer immediately and I think it's likely to ease the situation!