Silence in the waiting room

[Meatandseventeenveg]

Was at the doctor's with my 2 year old this afternoon. We were playing in the children's corner of the room, nothing noisy but just a chat about the pictures of the animals in the room, and DD was also making the animal sounds.

Another person in waiting room told DD to be quiet as there are sick people there (at this point it was just us three in the waiting room). I'm afraid I snapped back that my daughter is sick as well, and turned away.

My daughter, the angel, understood the woman and proceeded to talk in a whisper until the woman left.

So WIBU to think that toddlers are allowed to talk in the doctor's waiting room?

My simple point is that when other bystanders and in a room with parents and young children through no choice of their own they would expect some effort to be made to limit the noise their child makes. That’s all

How about, when adults are in a waiting room with a parent and sick child, who are there through no choice of their own, the adults should make efforts to understand that young children and parent interaction is normal and comforting and the GP and waiting room is not there solely to serve the adult. Its a community service. To me a compromise is the child is not running around playing loudly, but rather interacting quietly with the parent. But it seems some adults want it all their way and are unable to consider the needs of all.

More extreme nonsense.

The only person posting extreme nonsense would be you.

@thing47

OP is imposing by sitting with her young child in the children's corner, participating in an activity for which that area has been specifically designed…?

Honestly I have no idea how somebody who thinks like this manages to get through a normal day's interaction with other people.

Me neither. The mind boggles ...

My simple point is that when other bystanders and in a room with parents and young children through no choice of their own they would expect some effort to be made to limit the noise their child makes.

You appear to want to "limit" the child into complete silence, though! At age 2, ffs! Little more than a baby! She was talking at a normal tone with her mother about animals on a picture and mimicking their sounds. That's it. That's all she was doing based on the OP. If you want to "limit" that any further, you're bordering on giving unhealthy messages to children about the need to mute their self expression and age appropriate communication attempts. I can't get behind that, I'm afraid.

I was in a specialist hospital earlier this week. I was on the verge of tears, feelings well and very anxious.
There was a young child maybe around 3, chatting with his mum. It was hard for me to be waiting but it must have been worse for him. He wasn’t screaming or running. He just had a loud small child voice. He’s a child and I’m the adult.

YANBU OP and I hope your little one is ok.

In our doctor's surgery a few weeks ago the radio was on, there were multiple people talking on the phone and instead of being seen at 10:50 my DD who is 2 waited until 11:45 to be seen. She knows we have to play the whispering game but it lasts about 3 sentences then she forgets! She has though become very shy so sticks her thumb in her mouth if anyone so much as smiles at her so I didn't really have a problem with noise.
At 2 she doesn't really understand why she has to stay quiet and obviously forgets but she's obviously not there on a jolly so I don't understand what the lady meant by 'sick people', most probably the two year old is also a sick person

The ‘sick people’ must have been the lady herself - given that it was just the three of them in the waiting room at that point.

Assuming the role of spokesperson for an empty room suggests a slightly poor understanding of appropriate behaviour.

I didn't know people had to be quiet in waiting rooms

I have encountered on various occassions mothers who think that everyone wants to listen to their little angels. These same mothers talk loudly to their little angels and show off how advanced their little angel is. Of course a child should be allowed to talk quietly in a Doctors. I did put YANBU that a child should be allowed to chat quietly but not that they should make animal noises.

She's two. Making animal noises is how she talks. She's not going to be discussing political developments in full sentences. It'll be "ooh, piggy, oink oink".

At 2 she doesn't really understand why she has to stay quiet

I'm 45 and I don't understand either 🤷🏻‍♀️

I honestly don’t expect a doctor’s waiting room to be silent. A child talking to their parent, at a reasonable volume, wouldn't bother me at all. If they were making a lot of noise, running around shrieking, for example, I would think that was not reasonable or considerate behaviour, and I’d want the parent to try to quiet the child down, and explain that people are feeling poorly, so it would be kind to be quieter.

I wouldn’t expect a child of 2 to automatically be considerate - but I would expect the parent to encourage consideration (and to understand that other people are feeling ill or worried and might not find their child’s noise as endearing as they do). Frankly, everyone should be considerate of other people, and it is something all children should be taught - I think it is a learned skill.

All depends on the volume, it might have been your talking that was loud ... kids and adults are often louder than you realise, add in people feeling unwell, perhaps the animal noises were too much? She sounds grumpy but we weren't there to judge your volume

Wow there are so many judgemental people on this thread.

Even as a mum of three the noise of kids irritates me and probably would in a doctors waiting room. But I would probably just sit there silently moaning in my head about it and not be so bloody rude as to scold a young child for being loud!

The OP probably didn’t want to be there, and was probably just trying to keep her little one as entertained as possible so she didn’t actually start going wild.

I bet the people who commented saying she should have kept the child quiet, are the ones who would be the first to judge if they saw a 2 year old with their head stuck in a iPad. You can’t win there days.

OP, that person was rude.

Cut her some slack. She may be under huge stress or a great deal of pain

She may be under huge stress or a great deal of pain

If you’d read the whole thread you’d know the stress that the OP was under and what her 2 year old has been through. Amazingly enough, despite all that, the 2 year old managed to restrain herself better than the adult.

@2bazookas

Cut her some slack. She may be under huge stress or a great deal of pain

Why does her stress or pain outweigh OP/her DD though?

@claymodels

Her stress or pain doesn't outweigh theirs, but she wasn't making theirs worse, like they were hers.
And no, expecting them to be more quiet doesn't make it worse, whatever OP or anyone else may want to believe.

[quote JesusIsAnyNameFree]@claymodels

Her stress or pain doesn't outweigh theirs, but she wasn't making theirs worse, like they were hers.
And no, expecting them to be more quiet doesn't make it worse, whatever OP or anyone else may want to believe.[/quote]
An normal exchange between a parent and child does not make anybody's pain or stress worse. I am having real trouble trying to work out why anybody could actually believe that. Sure, some people are intolerant idiots who expect silence from the world but let's be real, their issue is the same whether the room in quiet or not. Their stress or worry will not increase because a child spoke to their parent and neither would their physical pain.

[quote JesusIsAnyNameFree]@claymodels

Her stress or pain doesn't outweigh theirs, but she wasn't making theirs worse, like they were hers.
And no, expecting them to be more quiet doesn't make it worse, whatever OP or anyone else may want to believe.[/quote]
Yes she did - when she complained about the ‘noise’ a child was making in the children’s corner. A stressful appointment for the OP and her DD made worse by someone who overreacted to normal child and parent interaction.

All we have to go on is OPs version of events. I'm willing to bet her daughter, the angel, wasn't quite as quiet as she would like to make out.

That's kind of how this board works…

We can all invent whatever scenarios we want, you could just as easily posit that OP's DD was being as quiet as a mouse, there is no more or less evidence for that than what you have posted, but if we judge purely on what the OP has posted, then she definitely isn't being unreasonable.

Night night. Xx

@thing47

That's kind of how this board works…

We can all invent whatever scenarios we want, you could just as easily posit that OP's DD was being as quiet as a mouse, there is no more or less evidence for that than what you have posted, but if we judge purely on what the OP has posted, then she definitely isn't being unreasonable.

Yeah, no. Anyone who refers to their child as "my daughter, the angel" is about as trustworthy as a Wish-advert.

@janj2301

As an aside due to covid transmission we're not allowed anything on display, magazines toys etc. we didn't even have our little fake Christmas tree last year, not sure about this year

I think that's just individual settings choice. I was at a&e at a children's hospital a couple of months ago and there was a library of books to choose from, toys out, an x box to play, all situated in the waiting room.