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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Buggies and Babies and Buses (oh my!)

144 replies

Hollanda · 17/02/2019 14:26

OK. AIBU?

My nearly 2 year old daughter is in her buggy. (Odd that as she's little more than a baby). We get on the bus. I like the seat usually reserved for wheelchairs as she faces me and we can chatter (her speech is great for her age and it's easy to think she's closer to 3 than 2).

Anyway on this occasion the space is taken by a woman with a toddler of 3 on her knee and the buggy not folded. Because the bus is full, several folk from the actual buggy area have to move to let me and my (sleeping) daughter on the bus.

AIBU giving toddler sitting on knee woman a good death stare and inwardly thinking about gauging her eyes out with a rusty spoon??? I wouldn't give this headspace usually but yesterday was bloody awful and I'm still all cross about it!!!

OP posts:

GinUnicorn · 19/02/2019 07:22

London buses are great. I hear you OP with sleep deprivation- it really can bring the RAGE about anything. Hope you are feeling better now

Raspberry88 · 19/02/2019 07:43

There is something about having to use bus travel that can make one feel unreasonably irate.

Oh yes...this exactly! I find getting the bus just so incredibly stressful, especially now that I have a toddler. I didn't realise just how difficult it would be and it's really stopped me getting out and about. I live in a major city and the buses are a nightmare, never turning up and very unreliable. I had to get the bus a couple of weeks ago as I had to go to bloody Wickes which is at the bottom of a really steep hill...it was snowing, DS had been woken early from his nap by motorbikes racing and was pretty grumpy. Had a 15 minute wait for the bus even though it was due and then the driver just held his hand up as I tried to get on...couldn't work out what he was saying as it was so noisy but he said there wasn't enough room. The next bus after that one is one that is often cancelled and would have been another 15 minutes or so anyway so I had to plead with him to let me told the pushchair down. Anyway, actually there were two other pushchairs on the bus when there is easily enough room for 3 but one woman hadn't bothered to put her shopping in the bag area and had just left it in the wheelchair space. Turns out folding a pushchair whilst you hold a wriggling toddler is a bloody nightmare and everyone was looking!!! I got off the bus and just cried which isn't like me at all!! Stupid thing is I was only going 2 stops and could have just fitted in if the other pushchairs had just shuffled about a bit!! I can completely understand the blood pressure rising and unreasonable angst of bloody buses!

Biancadelrioisback · 19/02/2019 08:08

God we've all been there tbh.
I cried on a bus once because I thought my sleeping (at the time) 4month old was missing the views

Sleep deprivation is ace.

Original poster

Hollanda · 19/02/2019 08:20

It irritates me no end when a pram is facing the length of all three buggy spaces and the parent is too busy on their phone to think to move so others can fit on. Grrr lol.

And don't go there with people and bags. I shouldn't have to negotiate my way round an obstacle course to get a small buggy on a bus.

It's half term here and the stabby feeling is approaching as we're all getting a bus to town later. Lovely. :/ lol!

OP posts:

Poodloo · 19/02/2019 08:27

I get serious anxiety about catching a bus with kids. I'm a nanny. I usually wear the 1 year old in a sling on my front and put the 2 year old in the buggy. I've started packing totally minimal so that if I need to fold then I can. But it won't be easy as id have to get the 2 year old out with another attached to me and then fold the buggy while still watching the 2 year old. Luckily it hasn't happened yet but I have in the past got off and walked twice.

LostInShoebiz · 19/02/2019 08:31

Apart from me losing my marbles a few times, we're all good lol!!

Except the poor lady who got all the evils for no reason. So not really “lol!!!”

TreesoftheField · 19/02/2019 08:45

Awwwwwwwwww OP.
When my first was a small colicy baby I got stuck in town because all the buses were full of buggies. Two women pushed in front of me to get their toddlers on - they could have folded which I couldn't do and hold a newborn. I rang my husband crying!
Hope you get some sleep soon. I now always use sling if I'm going on the bus and happily sit upstairs

SleepingStandingUp · 19/02/2019 09:26

Our buses only allow two on, if I can see one is empty I will complain and ask the driver to sort it as they won't even allow two used ones and an empty one up.

I never understand why on an empty bus people sit in pull down seats and then tut when my large buggy is pulled into the half a space they've left me with its back end hanging out into the aisle.

Also people who stand at the very front of the bus when they're not getting off. I call excuse me please or can I get past with the pushchair please and they nudge in a little. No love, it's your feet I'm gonna run over if you don't move!!

Have to say teenagers are generally better at shifting out the way!

AntiHop · 19/02/2019 09:32

Sorry to hear you're having a tough time op. Have you seen your gp about the pain? Or is this something already diagnosed?

Can I made a suggestion about bus survival? Get a super light easy to fold maclaren or similar. Make sure you only keep a thin blanket and the rain cover in the basket underneath. Then if it's really busy on the bus, you can fold it with one hand.

Underhisi · 19/02/2019 09:38

If you have got a child that can stand it is worth putting reins on them before they go in the buggy because it may be easier to hold the reins with one hand whilst using the other to fold the buggy. When ds was little the local buses didn't have a wheelchair space so I used to do this at the bus stop.

Raspberry88 · 19/02/2019 10:38

I had never even thought of that Underhisi! Genius! I'm going to do that next time we have to get the bus. Even my pretty light pushchair I struggle to fold one handed, probably because DS is so big and wriggly!

Halloumimuffin · 19/02/2019 11:38

FWIW OP it sounds like the type of thoughts I have on the bus, although I wouldn't death stare (I hope). We all get unreasonable bus thoughts, it's a gauntlet out there.

HOW DARE YOU BE IN THAT SEAT, THE ONE I PREFER.
Yep, this sounds like my brain.

GreenDinosaur · 19/02/2019 12:01

Threads like this are why I'm scared to get on the bus with a buggy and have been stuck in my crappy little town for the past 2 years.
(I can't drive for medical reasons)
Our buses are very unreliable, they are meant to be every 30 mins but you frequently have to wait much longer and my mental health isn't up to the stress of the who sits where arguments.

Original poster

Hollanda · 20/02/2019 14:19

Re GP for period pain. I have had endometriosis years. It hurts. I get on with it and usually just grit my teeth and work through it. Not much they can do apparently.

It really isn't usually anything I'd bat an eyelid about or give anyone stink eye over. It might usually on a bad day make me a bit cross for 5 minutes. That's about it! I'd either get the next bus or foldo mine up or whatever.

OP posts:

ThreeAnkleBiters · 20/02/2019 14:37

That lady should have folded her buggy as she wasn't using it but of course you should be prepared to fold your buggy too.

ComeMonday · 20/02/2019 15:54

YABU OP but I really respect you for taking the comments on board and explaining your situation. We’ve all been there. Lack of sleep really f*cks with your brain.

My pet hate are massive enormous buggies on the bus. I have to admit when I was pregnant with my first DC I bought into the bullst I spent a fortune on this “beautifully stunning” tank-sized thing that I could barely lift. Then after like three times of having to wait for a bus with free buggy space or apologetically hold everyone up while I managed to dismantle the damn thing I put it on eBay. (In my defense this was well over a decade ago when Bugaboos were the new big thing and I didn’t realise how disruptive it would be on the bus.) I used the money from the sale to buy a Maclaren AND a Citymini. The Citymini one-handed fold has saved literally hours off my life that I would have spent waiting for a bus that could fit another buggy.

Sorry for the vent!

Fingermoose · 20/02/2019 16:12

Hollanda for you for admitting ywbu and hope you feel better soon.

Public transport sucks - I used to have an absolute twat of a maclaren pushchair which refused to fold down so I'd dread any other pushchairs getting on the bus. Still, I've had someone behind me on the bus cutting their toenails before so your journey could always be worse!

Drogosnextwife · 20/02/2019 16:20

You will apologise to her if you see her again? Why what did you do?

Original poster

Hollanda · 21/02/2019 07:08

Gave her a stink eye look!!

OP posts:

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