Baby in cafe

[Ginnymweasley]

Today I was out with my dd(3) and my ds (9 months). We went into a small cafe for lunch, sat down and decided what we were having etc. Waitress came over and we ordered and i asked for a high chair, she informed me there was only 1 high chair and it was in use. So I got ds out if his pram for a bit cause he hates being in it if we are not moving.
He sat on my knee and played for a few mins but then started to get grumpy. He is at that stage where he wants to be moving as much as possible. I got up with him and let him walk around the table a few times holding my hands etc. He wasnt crying or anything just a trying to get down and throwing toys.
A couple came and sat on the table next to us. I stayed stood up with the baby,I didn't go near their table just let him walk around the chair/table to his sister and back. He started shouting a bit, again not crying just babbling loudly. I shushed him, picked him up and tried to distract him. By this point our food arrived.
I strapped him back in his pram and gave him some food to eat. He was again babbling and threw a few bits on the floor. The couple next to us at this point got up,loudly asked to be moved as they didn't like noisy children and parents that couldn't control them. I apologised but they just turned round and said I should have left the cafe as soon as he started making noise but my dd was eating and i was alone so i couldn't do that.
I was so embarrassed, my dd is brilliant when we are out and my ds wasnt screaming just babbling loudly. Wibu?

that. As a restaurant manager give me a couple of kids on a table who I'm going to have to pick up squashed peas from, over a crowd of adults roaring loudly any day

Well yes you probably would choose the former but that is very different to my experience.

Today I took my dgd age 6 to a restaurant at a seaside resort.
She is always so well behaved. We can take her anywhere for a meal.
I watched a mother with two kids.. One of them about 6 and one a bit younger. 6 Yr old standing on the chair. Laying upside down on the table. Mother smiling away indulgently. A young boy on another table beating a tattoo on the table top with his cutlery. His dad letting him get on with it.
I can't stand kids buggering about in restaurants and cafes and worse is their parents letting them

Generally the adults in a large group are unaware that they are hella loud. Trust your wait staff. You almost always are.

the mums were oblivious and were busy chatting to each other.

I can assure you the mums won't have been oblivious. Mum's are allowed to get together with their kids you know, even in public. Shock horror mums get together and support each other. Even more of a shock the BABIES sometimes drop their toys on the floor and make noise. They are babies and children, not robots. Mum's aren't robots either. Every mum wants their baby/ child to be 'behaving' in public, but people do need to realise that what is developmentally normal for babies and children is different to adults. I feel very very sorry for any child being brought up by the 'lock them away at home and they better not dare make a noise' gang. I didn't think people with this low level of empathy existed.

No sauce* you think you are above Everybody else dont you ! Do you have children cos i gotta funny feelin you dont! You must be so bored with your life to be on a parent forum telling everyone to shut there kids up! The poor woman took her kiddies out for a spot of lunch and ended up coming across some small minded arseoles who she should just ignore! (Arseoles like yourself really

Boshmama well said exactly

Hanywany have you been drinking? Or are you always this annoying?

I guess you’re one of these women who let their kids make untold noise then. Obviously I’ve touched a nerve with you.

Some people don't seem to realize that it's a great big smelly, noisy world out there. Everything can't always be exactly to their standards, especially when venturing out in public to a cafe which is sure to be full of all different ages and types of people.

Kids in public don't bother me unless they are flat out screaming or doing something unsafe to themselves or others. I try to smile at kids every chance I get because I read once the response they get from adults in public shapes their view of the world.

A lot of times the people who bitch the most about kids also yammer on incessantly on their cell phones and have very little self awareness of their own obnoxious behavior. There's plenty of kid free zones they can go to if babbling babies bother them that much.

Yanbu. You and your children have as much right to eat the food you ordered as everyone else. Baby noise is a fact of life that you have to put up with in public. Just like we have to put up with adult noise we might not love- loud talking, constant complainers etc. People need to be more tolerant.

Hahaha lol! Sorry i nearly pissed my pants laughing! No have not been drinking as i dont drink! And im one of those mums whos children are generally really well behaved, but if they do get a bit over excited or playful i dont get all het up over a bit of baby babble and play! And you didnt answer my question do you have kids/ why are you on a parent forum?!!

Sorry that was aimed at Nosauce

Yes I do have children.
Fwiw though people without children are allowed on MN and are entitled to an opinion.

I hate eating near the miserable faces of adults who hate the noise of young children. If you're going to be the sort of person who hates something so normal then you should stay at home.

You weren’t being unreasonable at all and it’s shut attitudes like these people’s (and some people on this thread) that add to mental health issues for mothers. You and your children had as much right to be out in public as every other person is and maybe if people were a little more tolerant and less judgmental then the world of motherhood would be a less lonely place with less mental health problems.

See the thing is that pre supposes that it's only mothers who have mental health issues or need support and that the rest of society exists only to provide that support.

It fails to recognise other groups of people who might also need support and an opportunity to socialise but who need a quieter calmer environment for their own mental health.

'I can’t stand noisy kids.'

Tough shit for you that they have as much right to be out and about as you do, then.

I can see both points of view . Perhaps it was not the right choice of cafe (one highchair) .
If we are out I would avoid a table near lively young children. As I like peace and also I wear a hearing aid which amplifies all sound. I can adjust it to hear from certain angles but I still want to have a quiet meal and hear what the other person is saying .
Babies are nice and I am sure yours are adorable, but sometimes strangers just like that little bit of quiet relaxing time.

I can guarantee 99% of parents feel more uncomfortable when their children are noisy out and about than anyone els. Kids are noisy - fact it shouldn't stop a parent taking there kids out places, I regularly take my 2 dc (1 & 4) on outings and to cafes, sometimes they play up sometimes they are good as gold. Just because some ignorant bastard's wanted to move tables shouldn't make you feel embarrassed with your family, you should feel embarrassed with the couple who chose to sit next to you and deliberately made you feel shit.
What do some people want? For us to keep our kids at home till they are teens? Get a grip we were all kids once, have some compassion

manicmij ridiculous comment. It’s not as though parents encourage their children to scream in supermarkets - I assure you we hate it more than you do. What do you expect parents to do? Never go to supermarkets incase their baby might scream? It can’t be helped. When I had my first child the supermarket was the highlight of my day as it was my only interaction with the outside world. It was a lonely, isolating time. Outings can be an anxiety riddled nightmare when you first become a parent, even more so for those who have pnd. Perhaps instead of being so intolerant you could dig deep and scrape out some compassion and work on your empathy skills.

If a cafe wants to encourage families and the business that goes with it, it should have more than one high chair.

if we could return to the op for a minute - do the naysayers really think it was ok for op to be insulted by the couple even though she was doing her best? Should she be punished because other people do not control their children as pp keep bringing up?

That is the crux of the matter - as I have asked before - should all mothers in cafes or wherever be automatically tarred with the same brush?
Or do we all have the right to enjoy public spaces without the fear of retribution for having children? As I have previously stated I have had people be rude to me as soon as I have entered (in a restaurant and in a plane). Do you really think that’s fair?

Op you did nothing wrong. Some people seem to believe that natural child behaviour is an affront to civilised society. Go to Europe and you will see children are allowed to be children. You shouldn’t be forced to hide in your home until your children are 21 like some people seem to believe.

Exactly hen. Most reasonable people surely have no issue with the very presence of babies and young children abit of babbling etc. Pretty much everyone detests slack parenting and badly behaved kids shouting running about the cafe etc. It’s unfair that op and the rest of us tarred with being like this when in reality most families with young children aren’t like that.

When my (at the time) childfree sister was selling her house one lady refused to even view it because there were children next door - the horror. My sister was baffled the neighbors children were small but lovely and well brought up. There are some odd people about

I’m sorry, I call bull on there being a town with not one non chain cafe

Only "chain" our local high street has on it is a relatively recently opened Greggs which I don't count as a cafe really. Have about 4-5 cafes and sandwich shops - all independents. There were rumours of a Costa opening but they turned into nothing.

The couple in the OP were a bit much - but I do have to admit that, when I had two with a small age gap that despite me doing the cafe and cake thing to get out of the house and stay sane a lot when they were small - there were age ranges where I didn't do this much at all - and the "wanting to be moving around all the time" period was one of those age ranges where I picked my cafes very carefully (or waited till the youngest was asleep for at least the waiting for food part of the event).

We also live quite near a part of town which is very much insipid children rule the roost "parenting" central and when the cafes there have been busy with young families I tend to just turn around and leave (or get a takeaway) because loads of kids are just allowed to run absolutely riot (think diving off the sofas type "self-expression") and I'm a) not up for the misery of paying to sit and put up with that and b) mine are not getting any bloody ideas of how to muck about in that way!

I don't see any problem with people saying that sometimes they want to go to a place without children - there is another thread running with people saying exactly that (and most of them have children). The problem is that there are very few of these places around.

It's all very well saying parents and children have a right to be in these places - well so do others who might be have their own issues going on - and they have the right to say that something is annoying them. Just as had the OP been sat in the cafe with her children and the people next to her had been swearing their heads off. The OP could equally have asked to move because she didn't want to sit next to them.