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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Who WBU: baby and train

164 replies

Charmander123 · 22/01/2018 14:32

So I'm on a train with my baby which is about an hour long. There's a woman next to me with a young baby and a toddler. Her little girl really needed the loo so she asked if I could watch the pram. I said yes and luckily the baby didn't cry in that time ;-)
(This train is a little dated so the only toilets are those very tight ones at the far end of the train)
As the mum left, this group of l women behind me started bitching and having a go about how wreck less the mother was leaving the baby there with a stranger. I turn around and say he is in safe hands, and asked how many of them had 2 young kids (turns out none of them had any ).

I didn't mind at all but in this situation;
Do you think the woman were wrong to be so judgemental or wrong for the woman to leave the baby with me?
Xxxxx

OP posts:

SeaToSki · 22/01/2018 15:31

I have always told my dc that if somehow they need help and I am not around, to look for an official and if that is not possible, to ask a Mum with children.

I think it was very sensible of her to ask you to help, rather than struggle and disrupt the dcs and then potentially the whole train if one started crying. If you were happy to watch the baby then all is well. The gossipy women behind were unkind and catostrophising - unnecessarily.

Sarahjconnor · 22/01/2018 15:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

allegretto · 22/01/2018 15:33

Of course she did nothing wrong. The hardest part of parenting these days is how judgemental everyone has become. My grandmother travelled a lot on trains with her four children after the war (husband still overseas) and so she told me she often left one or more in the care of strangers for a few minutes - she usually looked for soldiers as she thought they would be even more trustworthy!

lalalalyra · 22/01/2018 15:36

Crazy woman - what about all those stories about women with babies and prams stealing other babies and prams from trains...

Honestly, the judgey mob behind need to get a grip. Sometimes we need to ask for help. Asking another parent on a moving train is hardly setting your kid up to be murdered or tolen.

QueenDramaLlama · 22/01/2018 15:37

I don't know if I would do it myself but it seems perfectly safe.
Bystanders knew that the baby wasn't yours so for you to do a runner with it (and your own baby) would have been near impossible.

Petalflowers · 22/01/2018 15:45

The mum did nothing wrong. They were being judgey.

CheerfulMuddler · 22/01/2018 16:38

They were being unreasonable and rude. What exactly was going to happen to the baby? I think she made a sensible decision, and I'd have said yes too.

Kitsandkids · 22/01/2018 16:57

When my baby was 3-4 months I took my older kids to an activity in a sports centre and waited for them in the cafe. A woman in her 60s was waiting for someone too and commented on the baby's cuteness etc. When I needed the loo a bit later I asked her if she would mind holding the baby. She was delighted and it never crossed my mind while I was in the loo that she might run off with the baby! Similarly I've held strangers' babies for them in the past and thought nothing of it.

carefreeeee · 22/01/2018 17:08

I think it's fine that she asked you to hold the baby. Public toilets are difficult enough with one small child never mind two.

Highly unlikely anything bad was going to happen. People would make their own lives so much easier if they weren't so worried about this kind of thing. I'd be more worried about the baby screaming or puking or something rather than the adult doing anything untoward

SleepingStandingUp · 22/01/2018 17:09

I don't think they were unreasonable to be annoyed that someone left their baby with a stranger what business is it of theirs to be annoyed? Presumably they'd have also bitched if she'd put the buggy in the open loo door, stunk the carriage out with poo and blocked the aisle.

I have done the same both ways. Wait for v train to just leave v the station so it won't stop and assume its sodding hard work getting one buggy off a train let alone two.

ThisLittleKitty · 22/01/2018 17:17

Yes I have heard of babies/children being hurt by random women in public like the lady who handed a baby a bottle filled with bleach or the lady who tried to take a baby out of a trolley in asda and walk off. Anyway saying that I wouldn't judge this situation and I don't get the "children are more likely to be hurt by family than strangers" surely that's because people don't leave there babies with strangers so less likely to happen?

Anditstartsagain · 22/01/2018 17:17

I would leave ds2 to take ds1 to the loo not so much now ds1 is older however I can't imagine how you would help a toddler use the loo on a moving train while holding a baby seems much more likely someone ends up with a bashed head or covered than pee than the op hurts or kidnaps the baby.

It must be really stressful being so paranoid that you think every one is trying to hurt or kidnap your child I couldn't live like that.

ReanimatedSGB · 22/01/2018 18:04

Thislittlekitty: if that stuff happens at all and isn't the usual (frequently racist) urban legends then it's very, very rare. Your DC is much, much more likely to be hurt in a car accident than kidnapped by a stranger (in a public place with several witnesses).
It's like - people have been killed by blocks of frozen piss falling from aeroplanes It's very rare but it does happen. However, we don't spend all our time looking up at the sky or running away when we see a plane passing overhead...

Sprinklestar · 22/01/2018 18:05

Seemed like the best course of action at the time to me.

Spartaca · 22/01/2018 18:06

Bit of both. But surely they are entitled to hav an opinion?

Heartoffire · 22/01/2018 18:14

Mmm the handing baby a bottle of bleach is on a par with the toddler who was supposedly abducted in s shopping centre, had her head shaved and clothes changed and was only saved by an eagle eyed body guard.

The second story was utter bollocks and I suspect the first one was too. Like the daily abduction attempts on FB!

Of course the woman did the sensible thing in the circumstances. Good on you op for helping and standing up for a fellow mum.

RatRolyPoly · 22/01/2018 18:16

Oh, some people will pounce on any little thing if it makes them feel superior.

Fuck 'em.

I'd have left my baby with you OP.

SleepingStandingUp · 22/01/2018 18:57

ThisLittleKitty the youth I sit by in the bus could pull out a bote of bleach and spray us both. DS's 121 could be a paedophile. DH could be. The first person DS dates could be a rapist or murderer. But geez it would be hard to live like that.
Chance of parent on train killing or kidnapping my child in a public train vs consequences of 4 yo wetting and pooing her pants part way into a long day out

Iliketeabagging · 22/01/2018 19:20

People who would carry a baby to escort a toddler to the toilet, and then manage toilet shenanigans ... so funny. Try it. Just once.

Stranger danger on a moving train arising from another parent watch a baby? Crazy.

Notevilstepmother · 22/01/2018 19:25

It’s fine. Total over reaction to think it’s an issue.

Heartoffire · 22/01/2018 19:28

Ah but beware the exploding cars that make people judge others for leaving their babies in full view of the petrol station while paying.

Just as deadly as the mum with s baby on a train! Obviously a kidnapper

ThisLittleKitty · 22/01/2018 19:29

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23052234

Maybe google before saying I'm lying??

SauvignonBlanche · 22/01/2018 19:33

To be perfectly honest, before today, I never heard of anyone asking a stranger to watch their baby.

What kind of bizarre world do people live in? I too have been both a watcher and an asker. i would be quite comfortable asking another mother, albeit a stranger, to watch my child whilst toileting another.

Anditstartsagain · 22/01/2018 20:07

That news story is from 2013 how many times has it happened before and after?

Now how many people have walked by prams and done nothing. You can't live in fear all the time.

ThisLittleKitty · 22/01/2018 20:11

Doesn't matter when it was from the pp said "have you ever heard of a random woman hurting a child in public" so I responded that yes I have. The asda one wasn't too long ago either.

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