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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Baby in cafe

658 replies

Ginnymweasley · 09/04/2019 18:52

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?

OP posts:
MRex · 09/04/2019 19:50

You were fine, babies make a little noise and it's a cafe not a library. If they can't stand a little noise then a cafe probably isn't the right place to go, they'd be better having a sandwich outside on a bench or staying at home. No need for them to be rude regardless.

Boboo18 · 09/04/2019 19:53

Omg!! This literally happened to me last week with my 9 mo DD when i was out having lunch! An old man shouted to me and DD "ok we are going now so you can shutup!! Control your child!! I would never have behaved like that at her age!" i was humiliated. Everybody in there apologised to me on his behalf, even his wife! He then turned around and said "well im not bloody sorry!". Cheeky get!!! what do they expect off a 9 mo old baby?? and for all other PP backing the couple up you can f**k off!! They are just learning how to make new noises and express themselves so does that now mean that as parents of a 9 mo we need to be house bound? no thanks!

Nonnymum · 09/04/2019 19:54

You are not BU they are. Some people forget children are people too. I find noisy groups of people chatting, laughing, shouting etc much more distracting than a baby. But no one would ask a loud couple talking to leave a cafe or people talking on their phones.
You have to expect some noise if you are in a cafe it's not as though you were in theatre or cinema
Please don't let this put you off going out and about.

Boboo18 · 09/04/2019 19:54

My DD wasnt walking round though just in her high hair shouting quite loudly trying to talk*

crumble82 · 09/04/2019 19:54

I had similar recently, met DH and DC in Wetherspoons at 5pm, the DC we’re finishing up and DH went to the bar for another drink. Younger DD is 2 and got up to follow him and said ‘I go with daddy’, I said ‘no’ she said ‘oowh’ not remotely loudly. An older lady at the next door table who was on her 2bd bottle of wine and who had been turning the air blue since we got there suddenly started shouting at is that it was not a playground and to control my child! I was holding her hand the whole time and trust me she was not noisy as I would have removed her. Her friend looked embarrassed, as did the table of men next to us.

Some people just don’t like children, it’s easy to say ignore it but it can be unsettling for you and your DC so Flowers. Also I don’t think it sounds like YWBU

Livelovebehappy · 09/04/2019 19:55

If I go to a cafe with someone it’s to relax with a coffee and have a chat. In the past if someone with noisy DCs sits at the next table I will get up and move to a different table where it’s quiet, but even that can cause offence as people think you’re being passive aggressive and glare at you as you move, probably thinking you hate children.

iklboo · 09/04/2019 19:56

ok we are going now so you can shutup!! Control your child!! I would never have behaved like that at her age!"

How the bloody hell does he know? He might have been a little swine.

Slicedpineapple · 09/04/2019 19:57

Amazed people have said YABU. You definitely were not. I also wouldn't have an issue with somebody walking their baby about. Letting a toddler run around screaming is a different story.

Gone4Good · 09/04/2019 19:59

I would have left if I was the couple.

NunoGoncalves · 09/04/2019 19:59

I often wonder on threads like this one if the posters who are so verociously pro children felt that way before their precious offspring?

I was laid back before I had kids and I still am now. So people making normal noise in public places never bothered me in the slightest, as it still doesn't now. (And I include babies/kids babbling/crying/shouting/etc. as "normal noise").

VickyEadie · 09/04/2019 19:59

I'm childfree by choice - but whilst a noisy baby might make me inwardly annoyed, I wouldn't dream of showing it to a mum trying to feed her kids, much less say anything negative!

You and your kids had every right to be in there.

NoSauce · 09/04/2019 20:00

Makes me want to go to the least child friendly cafe I can find and unleash the kids

Obviously you’re joking. But still. Why even think such a stupid thing? Why do you think people out for lunch deserve to hear your loud kids?

Seniorcitizen1 · 09/04/2019 20:00

I think someone should open a chain of cafes for miserable gits so the rest of us can enjoy ourselves rather than being on edge waiting for their unreasonable behaviour. This would only happen in Britain - on the continent you would not have had any problems with your baby acting like a baby

BlackPrism · 09/04/2019 20:04

@NoSauce why would you stay in the cafe then? Go to a different one with less children... loneliness and PnD is prevalent enough in mothers without them not even being allowed to socialise in a cafe.

You and your DP choosing to stay and be silent instead of going somewhere else is just weird tbh

Iceinthecider · 09/04/2019 20:04

Yanbu and they were a pair of joyless twats and rude to boot. Babies and small children make noise. You can distract them and keep them occupied but that's it, you can't order them to be quiet. Other people and noise is a part of being out in public. You were an easy target Op. A mum by herself with small kids. They could huff and puff and demand to be moved and make a sly dig to make you feel like shit. They are probably dining out on it right now

'We went into a cafe and we couldn't hear ourselves think because of all the noise, we demanded to be moved. Disgusting'.

Had it been a group of burly blokes or intimidating-looking teenagers making noise they'd have sat there and said nothing I bet. As someone up thread said it is just yet another way of making women feel like shit.

Boboo18 · 09/04/2019 20:04

@iklboo i'm actually extremely proud at myself at how i handled the situation. I put him in his place without swearing at him but i wanted to and shouted back at himGrinhe was definately a swine

Borderterrierpuppy · 09/04/2019 20:04

Yanbu they were miserable arses.

3luckystars · 09/04/2019 20:05

Children are not welcome anywhere except mc Donald here.

Then that is only because you are there for 20 minutes and get out.

In other countries children are welcome in restaurants into the evening and there is none of this shite.

CherryPavlova · 09/04/2019 20:06

Of course you shouldn’t feel bad. Babies babble and squeal. Better a child being entertained and engaging with its mother than left dulled into silence by a parent whose left it strapped in a buggy whilst they text and shriek down their phone.
Better babbling babies than foul mouthed adults.

NoSauce · 09/04/2019 20:06

Then more fool you for not turning around & leaving, they were there first

We had planned to meet a friend there but ended up texting her to say don’t bother and that we’d meet at another cafe down the road.

Greyhound22 · 09/04/2019 20:08

I'm with Twinkle.

Don't worry about it - bollocks to them you have as much right as anyone else to be in there.

lotusbell · 09/04/2019 20:09

Baby is 9 months old. 9 months! He is a baby! Not a tantrumming 2 year old or a stubborn 6 year old. A baby. Unless there were no other free tables, complaining couple should've picked a table further away, maybe before they sat down next to someone with kids, noisy or not. Oh and I'd suggest a not so small cafe may want to look at having more than one high chair! Dont worry about it, OP.

Giddyuppp · 09/04/2019 20:10

You were sat there first. If people don't like the normal noise children make then maybe they shouldn't sit near them to begin with.

TheSheepofWallSt · 09/04/2019 20:10

@cathf

No
I’ve never had a problem with other people’s children being children.

I was a prolific caner in my early twenties, living in east London. Saturday and Sunday mornings hungover sat in cafes alongside families with young noisy kids never fussed me. I often played with them. Nothing like helping a kid draw a wobbly stick man to help you through a vodka fuelled existential crisis.

As a whistles wearing, 4 inch stiletto heeled tv exec at important relationship building meetings a few years later- often conducted in cafes and restaurants - I never minded kids being kids. In fact I remember once signing a major celebrity up for a show, and the thing that seemingly broke the ice with them was that I had passed a grizzly toddler’s mum my bread basket to keep kid from melting down totally whilst waiting for their meal (I was serial carb dodger so not totally altruistic). They said I wasn’t “like” other tv producers, and they thought they could work with me.

And now I’m a LP to a boisterous 2yo boy, with a new career and living in a strange city, with no real family support or weekend childcare, the thing that has most sustained me, when it’s been really FUCKING hard to feel like I have anything like the life I used to, is going for a flat white and a bastard gluten free muffin. And I have to take my kid. And I’ll be honest with you- between my exceptionally stressful job, my lack of support and network, and significantly depleted funds since I had to start from scratch, those Saturday mornings are about all I have left of a social life.

So yeah I’ll expect the rest of society to show the same forebearance and humanity I did, while I get on with living and parenting, and my kid gets on with moving through the necessary neurological development stages he needs to, before he stops shouting “bums!” At random passers-by without warning, or laughing hysterically because he’s thrown his spoon on the floor for the 576832th time. People might want him to shut up- hell, likelihood is, I’ll want him to shut up in that moment- but I will never ever ever let anyone make me feel guilty, or unwelcome, because I’m the mother of a small child, doing what small children do. And I never did that to anyone else either, because, frankly, I’m a decent human being.

AlaskanOilBaron · 09/04/2019 20:10

As you describe it, it sounds all fine. That said, some parents seem a bit clueless about the kind of havoc they bring to bear on cafes.