Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Baby Change - toilet priority.

153 replies

coffeeforone · 07/04/2019 20:34

Fully prepared to be told AIBU.

I was in my local supermarket this afternoon, my 6 month old had a poo explosion at same time my almost 3 year old decided he needed a wee.

There was a sign on the men's loo saying it was out of order - please use baby change.
Supermarket was busy and, about 5 men were queueing in a single queue for the baby change and the separate disabled loo. I joined the end of the queue and waited for a couple of minutes. Toddler was getting desperate so I then took him into the ladies (no queue) and he used the loo there.

Came back out fully expecting the guy that had joined behind me in the baby change queue (who was now at the front) to let me back in at same place - but he refused, and said I'd need to wait again as he couldn't wait any longer and I should have just changed my baby in the ladies (the floor was pretty dirty and he'd had a poo explosion so I felt a contained baby change was required), by this time there were another 4 males in the queue, who pretended I was invisible.

WIBU to be really pissed off?

OP posts:
SarahAndQuack · 07/04/2019 22:45

And, this mum didn't push in and tell the man 'you don't mind'.

She accepted him saying he had to go.

She's just wondering (and she does say she'd accept she might be BU) whether it's usual to have toilet priorities set up like this.

I think she could have found ways round the problem, but I do also think that an adult who does not have a pre-existing condition ought to be able to be polite. A baby can't.

LittleChristmasMouse · 07/04/2019 22:47

Yes she did ask him. The point I am making is that when someone asks you if they can cut in you are then left having to explain why no, you need to go first, as this man had to. Because, you know, people are sceptical as to why a healthy person can't hold it for a minute.

SarahAndQuack · 07/04/2019 22:48

Cross post.

little, I am sceptical that healthy people can't wait. As I said. That is what I am sceptical about.

To expand on that, what I am getting at is that I suspect a lot of people are a bit selfish. They don't think about others. It is possible that, in the OP's situation, there were five men who all had medical reasons why they couldn't wait to use the loo, of course. But, I suspect - frankly - that at least one or two of them would have been just fine to wait, and could have noticed a woman with poo leaking out of her baby's bum.

sweeneytoddsrazor · 07/04/2019 22:49

Even if the man wasnt desperate the others behind him in the queue might have been. Imagine if he let u go first then another mum came up and wanted to take priority. Poor bloke at the very back of the queue could well piss himself by his turn.

SarahAndQuack · 07/04/2019 22:51

Yes, she asked him. Ok, maybe she shouldn't have, and maybe she should just have addressed the whole group asked if anyone would mind her going before. But she didn't cut in (which was the scenario you mentioned), and she did end up waiting for five men who - realistically - were probably just not letting her in because it didn't occur to them to be basically thoughtful of another person.

LittleChristmasMouse · 07/04/2019 22:51

But the issue is that just say 3rd man in the queue didn't have an urgent need to go so he says for her to go in front of him, all the people behind him now get pushed back and have to wait longer. And as PP said it was going to take longer than a couple of minutes to change the baby. The people behind him might have been desperate.

ScreamScreamIceCream · 07/04/2019 22:54

@SarahAndQuack I'm healthy but when I need to go to the loo I need to go quite quickly and in the past as a teen wet myself. Now I get round it by not drinking if I don't know if there are toilets in the place or using the men's toilets if the ladies queues are too long.

On the other hand I have a friend who can hold it in for a long time. So when she goes to the loo she can take ages because she has to mentally trigger herself to go.

What I'm saying you don't know how everyone's bladders work and just because something is your norm it isn't everyone else's.

ChipSandwich · 07/04/2019 22:57

I am rather sceptical that any healthy adult (male or female) couldn't wait a bit longer

Maybe when you're younger. As you get older the old pelvic muscles aren't as reliable. If I'd been in a queue 10 minutes already, and somebody wanted to nip and change their baby, possibly at least another 10 minutes, I could be seriously struggling.

I used to keep a cot sheet in my bag to change my babies over my lap in the loo, as there were scant few baby change facilities when mine were small. If I'd been unable to do it on my lap I'd have had no choice but to change baby on the floor, on a nice clean sheet that I had in my bag.

SarahAndQuack · 07/04/2019 23:02

I take your point, but ... well, wouldn't you try to go before you needed to? Confused Don't most people?

If I really need to go, I really need to go, too. And I know for some people there's no warning, and things are unpredictable. But, I do think that it is exaggerating to imagine that in a queue of five adults, none could have waited a moment longer.

Not saying the OP should have been entitled to push in. I'm just saying that maybe - I don't know - things could be easier if those of us who're able would be a bit more patient and kind.

SarahAndQuack · 07/04/2019 23:03

chip - but we've no reason to think all five men in the queue were elderly?

Original poster
coffeeforone · 07/04/2019 23:04

where on earth where you that 9 men needed to go to the toilet in such a short space of time!

Just to answer this and the other posters who seem to suggest I'm making this up.

it was Asda in Sutton earlier this afternoon. Anyone who knows it will believe me when I say it was busy. It's in a town centre on the high street so people may pop in just to use the loo.

OP posts:
ChipSandwich · 07/04/2019 23:06

things could be easier if those of us who're able would be a bit more patient and kind

If I knew I could wait, of course I'd let someone else go in front of me. But if there are four people behind me, I can't make that decision for them as well. Maybe a couple of them might be cursing me for making them wait while a baby is cleaned up and changed. - just because I can doesn't mean that they can.
In this situation the only safe recourse was for the OP to go to the back of the queue and take her rightful turn.

Original poster
coffeeforone · 07/04/2019 23:08

Also I didn't drive today into town today, I used public transport- so car boot wasn't an option.

Note I'm no longer arguing my point - I fully accept that I shouldn't have expected to push back in, just clearing some of the questions that posters have raised.

OP posts:
flitwit99 · 07/04/2019 23:09

If you'd left the queue I wouldn't have let you back in either. Sorry.

ChipSandwich · 07/04/2019 23:10

but we've no reason to think all five men in the queue were elderly?

We've no reason to think they weren't either. It's unlikely they were all fit 30 year olds in Asda on a Sunday afternoon. If even one of them was elderly, he would be made to wait longer if someone at the front let in a woman with a baby. OP should have just taken her place in the queue. None of them were going to be in there as long as her and the poo explosion.

LittleChristmasMouse · 07/04/2019 23:12

Tbh though there was no urgent need for the baby to go first was there? Out of everyone in the queue they were probably the one that could wait.

If I was the only person in the queue and I wasn't desperate then I would let someone go in front but I don't think it's on for me to impose that on the people behind me and often I really can't wait but don't usually feel like sharing that with a queue of strangers.

blackteasplease · 07/04/2019 23:12

Yanbu.

They don't like it when they suddenly have to wait like the rest of us, do they?

SarahAndQuack · 07/04/2019 23:12

Yes, fair point.

I don't think the OP should have just taken her place, though. I think she's right that this was just a stupid way to organise things. I'd have made the loos mixed-sex and left the baby change free.

SarahAndQuack · 07/04/2019 23:15

I may be misunderstanding, but isn't the mum wanting the baby to go because in the normal course of events, she'd go in the baby change and let the toddler wee while she changed the baby? So she's had to queue twice to do something that usually takes one queue?

Obviously you can cart a baby around covered in poo just as you can expect an adult to sit in his or her own wee, but I'd say the point where the baby is leaking everywhere is the point where you (as a parent) do need to act. If the OP was at that point, I see her frustration. And while I accept it might be that all these men really needed the loo desperately, I do wonder (realistically) whether or not some of them might have been able to let her go first.

LittleChristmasMouse · 07/04/2019 23:20

She was in the queue and her son needed to go urgently so she left the queue to take him to the toilet but now she still needs to change the baby.

Doesn't change anything really does it? The men ahead of her 1st time may not have been able to wait while she changed the baby and let her son use the toilet had they let her cut in.

I don't get why you seem determined that a child or baby's need is necessarily more urgent than an adult's?

LittleChristmasMouse · 07/04/2019 23:22

I can see all of this "I do wonder" or "I am sceptical" is in the same vein as "you don't look disabled" aimed at people with invisible disabilities who use disabled toilets, blue badge spaces etc.

sweeneytoddsrazor · 07/04/2019 23:23

If the loos had been made mixed sex, then there would have been a whole host of complaints about safety.

SarahAndQuack · 07/04/2019 23:23

I don't think I am determined?

I think (as I said) that the OP should have found an alternative way to change her baby, that didn't involved this queue.

But I also think sometimes people are a bit selfish, and I wonder whether this may have been the case here.

MidniteScribbler · 07/04/2019 23:26

But, I do think that it is exaggerating to imagine that in a queue of five adults, none could have waited a moment longer.

But it's not a moment longer. A poo explosion would probably be a 10-15 minute clean up job. Add in the five other people ahead of them in the queue, and it means a 15-20 minute wait.

Mymycherrypie · 07/04/2019 23:27

I’d have let you in, and - this is disgusting but true - I’ve put baby in the sink and given them a little bath when there has been no facility. You can get them dried and dressed standing up on the side of the sink, no need to use the floor.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

Join Mumsnet Log In

This thread is closed and is no longer accepting replies. Click here to start a new thread.