To think friends being CF wanting me to do her childcare when I have my baby? What do I do?!!

[Pupstar241]

Soo I am 5 months pregnant with mine and DPs first baby.

My friend has an 8 month old baby and is a single parent with no support she's due to go back to work from maternity full time soon.

We're good friends, see eachother about once/twice a month. She has hardly any friends so I know I am very important part of her life in terms of company/friendship.

Now the cat is out the bag of my pregnancy she was very excited for me. However the conversation went like this:

"This is amazing, congratulations!! How exciting!!"
"Thank you so much"
Then we chit chat about pregnancy and babies and she drops
"Yes well if your going part time that will be perfect for me, saves me a few days childcare thank god. Will make such a difference to me, I'll also babysit whenever you and dp want to go outof course"
Conversation moves on to other chit chat..

Wtafff?? So she's assuming I'm going to be doing her childcare on my days off if I go part time?! I'm assuming she probably will on maternity also?!!

I have 0 plans to do anyone childcare when I'll be getting to grips with my first baby!
If I go part time it will be for baby play groups, swimming, making new mum friends, seeing family etc.

Not to be juggling looking after 2 babies under 2! I wouldn't want to do it even for pay.
I also don't need her to 'babysit' for me and dp to have a date night, certainly not in exchange exchange childcare!!

I'm not selfish in that I'd be more than happy to have her baby on the odd Saturday night if she wanted to go out or have a break. But not several days a week every week.

I've not even thought about whether or not I'll go part time or what kind of part time me or dp would do if we decide for either to reduce hours.

What on earth do I say if its brought up again? I feel its gonna be basically a confrontation of some kind as she's basically mapped it all out in her head of what's going to happen.

Please mumsnet tell me how I can lay this down without ruining our friendship? Do I just not raise it again and hope she never does?

Excuse any typos on my phone!

@Pupstar241, how did it go?

Hello everyone,

Sorry for not updating. To be honest there's been nothing to update.

I feel like she may have read this thread.

We had a meet up arranged at the weekend which she cancelled with a short message. Then on Wednesday we had pre arranged a coffee date as I was off work for the week. She cancelled that too.

We've not spoken since. This is really not like us and out the blue so I'm kind of sure she's read this thread.

Friend, if you are reading this then please message me so we can hash it out.. the answer will still be no to childcare but at least there will be no hard feelings.

If I manage to meet up with friend then I'll update you. Thanks again for the advice everyone xx

Oh dear that's sad. If she has read this maybe she is just very embarrassed. You didn't do anything wrong though.

If she has read it then maybe she's annoyed free childcare will not be forthcoming. It's not a fair ask of you. I'm a single mum too with no family help so I know how grim it can be struggling to piece things together but that's my responsibility. I have a local friend who offered to help me with two separate afternoons which was a godsend. I paid for tickets to a local attraction for her family and got her a separate gift for her, and I still feel bad about her giving up her time to help me.

Two separate afternoons recently as a one off, not on an ongoing basis!

Ah, that’s a shame. I’ve just reread what you’ve written and all along you’ve been asking for advice on how to say no nicely. If you hadn’t wanted to continue the friendship you’d have not needed advice.
And you didn’t want to text because you thought it would be nicer face to face.

Friend, you may be embarrassed but the op still wants to be friends. She just didn’t want to do childcare. Get in touch with her, apologise for cancelling for some made up reason and rearrange. Pretend the requesting childcare was a joke and then the op will never know whether you’ve read this thread or not, and you can both pretend it didn’t happen. Friendship continues.
Or just admit you’ve read the thread and feel embarrassed. Friendship continues.
Friend rearrange that coffee date.

It’s a shame if it’s all over - for both of you.

Well, OP, you’ve done nothing wrong and said nothing awful about your friend - just been a bit shocked in your first post. Otherwise you’ve been kind and fair. So hopefully even if she has seen this it’ll blow over.

If you really do value her as a friend, I’d probably just tackle it head on now. Send her a text and saying something like, “Obviously there’s something going on. You are a dear friend to me and I don’t want to fall out. If it’s about your childcare, then yes, I admit I was taken aback you assumed I’d be willing to take it on, and I needed to get my head around that, which I did. If you want to talk about it, let’s. If you want to do least said soonest mended, then let’s hit the reboot button and forget all about it. Coffee this week?”

If she has read the thread @Pupstar241, she should be realising that she is the unreasonable one, not you. She may be trying to square that off in her head because she may not have been told "No" before or "I can't do that for you" because people have probably be able to help without much inconvenience to themselves but she hasn't seen it like that. She has seen it as something to be expected not as a courtesy that others are extending to her.

Don't worry too much about her at this point. If she has read this thread and doesn't like what people are saying, tough. If she's read it, and is angry, tough. She has to realise this herself though.

You keep being you and you'll be fine.

If she raises it again, just laugh and tell her you're sure she's joking (isn't she?) and if she persists, it's time for,

"Watch my lips: not happening. "

Maybe she has read this thread. Job done, then. You've not said anything rude or disrespectful about her; in fact, you've made it clear you want to maintain the friendship while also saying no to the demand in a way that won't upset or embarrass her.

It is never pleasant for a user type to see their behaviour spelt out in all its unreasonable, entitled, selfish glory. Won't like it! All she'd need to do was see the votes, really. So...

Eek - how did this go down after? In a similar situation!