To ask if my baby can attend my friends wedding

[abystarrs]

My friend is getting married in August and has invited me and my husband only.

Their wedding will be in Chester (where they live) we live in Birmingham.
From our house to the venue it’s 1hr 50minutes.

We have a 5 month old baby who is exclusively breastfed.

I don’t feel comfortable leaving our baby overnight (I know it’s 3 months away but I’m not ready to leave him yet and doubt that will change much in 3 months) and especially as we won’t be “just around the corner” and can’t get home quickly.

My mum has offered to come to the hotel with us and watch our son whilst my husband and I attend the wedding, which would mean I can keep popping out to feed him where possible, but the hotel is fully booked and taken up by wedding guests (we have a room booked)

I’ve spoken to a mutual friend who said she is having trouble finding a sitter for her 10 year old daughter but our friend (the bride) has specified to her absolutely no children can attend the wedding.

I really respect my friends decision but I’m wondering if it would be completely unreasonable of me to ask if I can take my son considering he’s just a baby.

I don’t think I’m going to be able to attend otherwise, and whilst I don’t want to put my friend in an awkward position I also really don’t want to leave my son overnight being so far away.

AIBU?

[quote Italiandreams]@GreyhoundG1rl why else would someone bring up having children as a choice in this thread! Of course it was a ridiculous point to make! It was completely irrelevant to the thread.[/quote]
I imagine they were making the point about your choice to have children not impacting on other people's right to organise their wedding their way.
Not suggesting people should forego having children in case they were invited to a child free wedding.
But that's just me...

@Aprilwasverywet is the reason your friend is now an ex because she brought her 2 DC?
I feel there is a story here...

Please don't be one of those annoying guests who asks to bring their baby ffs. 8months too, hardly a newborn. Have a night off for Christ's sake or decline, your baby will survive a night with your mum.

YABVU and that would be extremely rude.

It's not like you have a newborn baby, we're talking about a baby who will be eating food and can drink out if a cup so the BF is a bit of a red herring. Just say you don't want to leave him for the day and then decline.

And for the record I've had 2 child free weddings myself and also breastfed 2 children (current child 16wks old so can see both sides).

@Cactusesi

Always decline decline invitations to weddings that dont allow children. They are the work of the vain and self-obsessed.

You're probably the sort of person who thinks childfree women are selfish and vain too 🤣🤣🤣

OP - just decline the invite.
It's thst easy.

Not how it reads at all, and I have never suggested that anyone should change plans on their wedding day. Just that they
might have to accept that some people will not be able to come. I turned down a couple of wedding invites when my child was under a year as they involved overnight stays and my child was not ready to be left overnight. No hard feelings on either side.

Has it occurred to you that these children are so 'beloved' to their parents and not everyone else? If you don't want to leave your offspring for a night that is absolutely up to you, but insisting your friends change their wedding guest list so that your beloved children can go everywhere with you is the height of self centred.

@aibubaby Omg. This is totally bonkers and so out of order.
Caring for your children is not ‘up to you’/ optional/ self centred. Babies need to be fed. some of them are breastfed, if you are breastfeeding your baby you can’t easily just ‘leave them for the night’, certainly not without potentially causing significant stress to both mother/ child. It’s not a ‘choice’ like what you might like to eat for breakfast ffs.
In the case of older children - Sometimes it’s not possible to get childcare, for a whole range of reasons. If you don’t have childcare, it’s not ‘up to you’ whether you pop off to a party for the night, ‘beloved’ or not as your child may be. That’s called neglect and is a criminal offence.

@Bizawit

Has it occurred to you that these children are so 'beloved' to their parents and not everyone else? If you don't want to leave your offspring for a night that is absolutely up to you, but insisting your friends change their wedding guest list so that your beloved children can go everywhere with you is the height of self centred.

@aibubaby Omg. This is totally bonkers and so out of order.
Caring for your children is not ‘up to you’/ optional/ self centred. Babies need to be fed. some of them are breastfed, if you are breastfeeding your baby you can’t easily just ‘leave them for the night’, certainly not without potentially causing significant stress to both mother/ child. It’s not a ‘choice’ like what you might like to eat for breakfast ffs.
In the case of older children - Sometimes it’s not possible to get childcare, for a whole range of reasons. If you don’t have childcare, it’s not ‘up to you’ whether you pop off to a party for the night, ‘beloved’ or not as your child may be. That’s called neglect and is a criminal offence.

But it's not the bride and groom's problem to fix for you! Nobody's suggesting that babies don't need to be fed, it's a bit of a ridiculous counter argument.

Me & XH were invited to a wedding years ago when DD was only small (older than 1 though but not much), we arranged for her to stay with family etc, then when we got there everyone asked where she was - we had assumed she wasn't invited as the invitation was only for us 2, but she wouldn't have factored in meal/cover prices, but didn't want to create any issues by asking, we just decided if we wanted to go or not.

@Bizawit

Oh behave. No one is talking about committing criminal offences here. Leaving a a baby/child with a sitter isn’t neglectful and no one is suggesting a baby or child should be neglected so the parent can go to a wedding.

@Bizawit

Has it occurred to you that these children are so 'beloved' to their parents and not everyone else? If you don't want to leave your offspring for a night that is absolutely up to you, but insisting your friends change their wedding guest list so that your beloved children can go everywhere with you is the height of self centred.

@aibubaby Omg. This is totally bonkers and so out of order.
Caring for your children is not ‘up to you’/ optional/ self centred. Babies need to be fed. some of them are breastfed, if you are breastfeeding your baby you can’t easily just ‘leave them for the night’, certainly not without potentially causing significant stress to both mother/ child. It’s not a ‘choice’ like what you might like to eat for breakfast ffs.
In the case of older children - Sometimes it’s not possible to get childcare, for a whole range of reasons. If you don’t have childcare, it’s not ‘up to you’ whether you pop off to a party for the night, ‘beloved’ or not as your child may be. That’s called neglect and is a criminal offence.

It's not out of order at all to suggest that your children may be your priority and the center of your world, but they aren't anyone else's, and actually no one else is obliged to want to spend time with, or be disturbed by them. Especially on their wedding day which they will have paid through the nose for and may just want to enjoy as adult time. There's a million threads on MN about people wanting adult time (even away from their own kids) and how kids change the dynamic. Why, on a day which 2 people have paid for everyone else's food and entertainment, shouldn't those people be allowed to specify they only want adults there because they want adult time and conversation, and the kind of dynamic that kids would change.

A weaned baby is not ebf it it's interspersing its feeds with fish fingers, toast and bits of cheese.

EBF is under 6 months. The OP's baby is likely to be crawling and swiping food off people's plates. I'm sure the baby is charming but it's not a newborn and does not need to be with its mother for its only source of sustenance.

Don't ask if you can take the baby. Say no, or find a solution. Just don't make it their problem.

Bizawit - of course caring for your children isn’t optional - but it does mean that you may have to graciously decline invitations if you can’t sort childcare. It’s your issue to sort no one else’s. and part of being a parent is that you can’t always do what you want (like go to parties).

@elenacampana don’t patronise me - thanks. My point was- Sometimes it’s not as easy as “get a sitter”. Certainly not for an 8 month old BF baby.

No it isn’t neglectful to leave a child with a sitter but it’s ok to not want to do that either. People have definitely said that at eight months the baby should be able to be left but I wouldn’t have been comfortable doing that. I wouldn’t have judged anyone that did, all parents and babies are different. But it’s wrong to pressure someone to leave their child who isn’t ready. I would just decline the invite.

8 months is exactly that age when mum with a baby can be at an event, but actually not engaged as constantly hushing the baby/ feeding/ rocking to sleep/ entertaining. It would have to be a very close person for me to go through this hassle of attending a wedding, (to me sitting in a room in turns feels worse than missing the event altogether).

Don’t ask her though, decline and see if she offers bringing the baby.

Simple solution - tell your friend NOW, rather than waiting, that you will have to decline as you cannot find anywhere close by for your mum and the baby to stay. Wish her a lovely day and say you'll meet up when she's back from her honeymoon to celebrate over dinner or similar.

If she has no problem with you bringing a baby she will tell you this when you decline. If she does have a problem with it, then it's ok because you haven't pressured her by asking. I suspect you she won't offer for you to bring the baby, so be prepared for that.

Everybody wins.

@Bizawit

Has it occurred to you that these children are so 'beloved' to their parents and not everyone else? If you don't want to leave your offspring for a night that is absolutely up to you, but insisting your friends change their wedding guest list so that your beloved children can go everywhere with you is the height of self centred.

@aibubaby Omg. This is totally bonkers and so out of order.
Caring for your children is not ‘up to you’/ optional/ self centred. Babies need to be fed. some of them are breastfed, if you are breastfeeding your baby you can’t easily just ‘leave them for the night’, certainly not without potentially causing significant stress to both mother/ child. It’s not a ‘choice’ like what you might like to eat for breakfast ffs.
In the case of older children - Sometimes it’s not possible to get childcare, for a whole range of reasons. If you don’t have childcare, it’s not ‘up to you’ whether you pop off to a party for the night, ‘beloved’ or not as your child may be. That’s called neglect and is a criminal offence.

No you just decline the invite. No hyperbole. What's that mumsnet line - it's an invitation not a summons?!

Why are these threads always full of people saying it's fine to leave a baby at X age, or express for them at Y age?

You have absolutely no idea what is or isn't fine for someone else's baby. It's up to them and will be massively dependent on their baby's individual needs and what mum and baby are used to.

What a load of bollocks on this thread. I had 3 ebf babies. Only with no.3 did I experience the joy of a bottle refuser! I couldn't have left her overnight until 18months. People telling you just to leave her can fuck off you do what suits you and your family not what a random person on the internet says.

In your situation I'd probably not go to be honest. I had something similar with my dd2(the bottle refuser) and I just rang the bride
And said it's likely we will just be at ceremony as she wasn't taking bottles (it was a far more local wedding) the bride then said they were happy for infants who wouldn't need to be counted on the guest list to attend. It was just a numbers thing.

I wouldn't ring to ask I would just ring to decline explaining why then they can decide whether they want to make an exception for you or not.

By 8 months the baby will not be exclusively breastfed because he will be taking solids and old enough to use a cup of expressed milk. But I wouldn't have wanted it leave my babies overnight at that age either.

If it was a very good friend I would accept the invitation, take my mother to look after the baby, popping out to feed as necessary, and then drive home in the evening rather than staying the night. If it wasn't a particularly good friend, I would decline.

I don't think I'd go to the hassle and expense of taking your mum to stay in a local hotel with the baby. I wouldn't bother going to the wedding.

People are free to have childfree weddings and they should understand not everyone can or is willing to leave their dc, especially babies. If you're close enough a friend to be invited, you're close enough to be honest and say you're not ready to leave your baby.

Always baffled by these threads, not just that inevitably people can Just Tell that the nasty bitch bride will be divorced by Christmas and faux shock that children aren’t centered at every wedding ever, but that so many parents of babies just haven’t grasped that, no, you can’t do everything that childfree people can do. Sometimes you miss parties, sometimes you need to arrange childcare, sometimes you miss out, leave early, pay more, feel guilty, feel disappointed. This is part of life. You chose one thing, you can’t go back and choose the other. Literally “having it all” is not possible. Decline the invitation, send a gift, arrange to visit after the honeymoon, enjoy your baby,

It's not out of order at all to suggest that your children may be your priority and the center of your world, but they aren't anyone else's, and actually no one else is obliged to want to spend time with, or be disturbed by them.

This is of course true, but if you want to maintain solid relationships with friends who have children, you have to accept they have children. The wedding isn’t the centre of OP’s world, either, but she wants to make an effort to be their to support her friend in something that is important to her friend. I’m sure she’s not that desperate to attend. If you want a child free wedding including no babies, then fine. But theN you should not expect your friends with children/ babies to attend. If you want your friends to be there for you at your wedding, then there are compromises to be made on both sides. That’s all I’m trying to say.

My best friend had a child very young- about 10 years before anyone else in our friendship group. I watched her relationships with peers deteriorate, because no one wanted to make any accommodations for the fact she now had a child , who went with her in tow everywhere (unsupportive partner, single mum, couldn’t afford childcare etc). My relationship with her survived because I realised from the start her child wasn’t just an “optional extra” , it was her life/ her reality now , and if I wanted to remain her friend that was part of the deal. Did I find her child annoying a lot of the time? Yes. Did I think she was self absorbed about her child a lot of the time? Yes. One year we had a really big row about it over my birthday , because I just wanted one night that she spent with me and not fussing over her child (and I was having a party late in a posh restaurant). That night she did leave her child at home but she was annoyed. But for the most part we made it work, and I’m so glad we did as she has been so much there for me over the years as well. Imv that’s what friendship is about and that’s what friends do.