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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not want DF to bring her baby everywhere?

999 replies

DijfunvKd · 11/02/2022 12:19

My friend lives a few hours away from me, and visits the area I live in fairly often. She had her first baby last year. When she visits, it's always with her DH.

Now she's had the baby, she will contact me asking if I want to meet her and the baby for coffee or lunch, and I always go. She will also ask if I want to go for a drink or nice meal one evening, and so I find a date on which I'm available. However, I then get messages to say she'll have to bring the baby because she'll need breastfeeding, or there is no one else to look after her etc. So we end up having a quick coke in a child friendly pub, or they both come to my house.

I don't mind the lunches with the baby, and do the expected 'isn't she cute?' (she is), 'is she eating/sleeping well?' small talk, but I find it extremely boring and do it to be polite and supportive. I don't want to repeat the same conversation on the evening.

DF will always say 'baby will be no trouble while we're out, she's very placid', but it inevitably becomes DF talking to the baby while I sit and make the expected cooing noises, and then she needs to leave early to get the baby to bed. If she had no option but to bring the baby to socialise then that would be one thing, but her DH goes off for hours with his friends, child free, well into the night, and I can't understand why she can't do that. If it was because she simply didn't want to leave the baby, then why ask if I'd like to go for a drink or nice meal in the evening?

During her pregnancy she was claiming nothing would change, that she'd still be going on holiday with friends and leaving the baby with her dad, and I thought she was deluding herself with that, but now that the baby has arrived she's swung hard the other way, which is her prerogative, but AIBU to think that her expectation that she brings the baby every time we see each other is ridiculous?

For information, the same happens when I visit her too, although that is less often because she visits friends and family where I live and stays with her parents.

OP posts:
Mojoj · 11/02/2022 15:20

All these people asking "do you have children..?" What does that matter. I have kids and that would annoy me hugely. The baby's 6 months old. He/she can be left with its dad. He must be loving it, btw, never getting asked to do childcare...🤣🤣

starfishmummy · 11/02/2022 15:20

I think it's a matter of expectation- so if she's saying "let's go and have "girls" night out" I can understand that having to change to a baby friendly pub is annoying.

I'd just stick with coffee somewhere.

saraclara · 11/02/2022 15:22

@Mollysocks

If and when you have kids of your own…

Sick of this phrase, makes me rage!

Thinly veiled attempt at shutting down woman’s opinions if they don’t have children.

I also love the assumption that if we agree with the OP, we can't possibly be mothers, and should wait until we are.

There are so many posts here that epitomize smug and excluding mummydom.

SausageFox · 11/02/2022 15:22

@DijfunvKd In my opinion, either her DH is the issue or she's using him as an excuse. Is she anxious maybe?

If a night out isn't happening could you not go to hers with takeaway, wine, and spend the evening chatting? My friends always come over of a weekend (even pre baby, so it's not new). We drink wine and eat dinner. Baby sleeps through in sling/cot.

It sounds like she's struggling tbh. It's hard organising stuff with a tiny baby. Throw in anxiety and you get a shit show. Why don't you offer something like the above? It's a good halfway house. She might relax.

Lottapianos · 11/02/2022 15:22

'if and when you have kids of your own…

Sick of this phrase, makes me rage!

Thinly veiled attempt at shutting down woman’s opinions if they don’t have children.'

Same here. Implies that women without children have no empathy and don't have a clue about babies. Really unfair

Foxglovers · 11/02/2022 15:23

She’s not ready to leave her baby and perhaps she finding that hard to admit (I certainly did for a long time and sometimes still feel like I have to justify it)
I get the frustration but maybe don’t plan to do evening things and just say - oh why don’t we arrange in the afternoon instead as I might go out that evening and that way you can bring baby with no issues. Perhaps she’s finding it hard to admit she’s adjusting. You can’t begrudge her being a good mum

theleafandnotthetree · 11/02/2022 15:23

@AKASammyScrounge

Your friend is obviously very fond of you and doing her best to keep up your friendship. It takes a lot of effort to get your baby and yourself ready to go out, then there's the travelling which is awkward with a baby in tow. You could make an effort to accept with a good grace the limitations an infant puts on outings . It isn't forever, the child will grow up, your friend will be free to come and go more and have more adventurous evenings out.The day will come when you will be glad that you have maintained the relationship with her.You may even come to like the child the baby grows into.
Or much more of this nonsense and the OP will quite justifably give up and not bother and focus on the friends she has in similar circumstances who are NOT behaving like this.
MakkaPakkas · 11/02/2022 15:25

X post there

saraclara · 11/02/2022 15:25

Be a better friend to this friend of yours

Are you serious @mathanxiety? OP has put up with these constant changes and her friend not listening to a word she says or showing the slightest bit of interest in her for six months. I think she's been an exemplary friend. And indeed she has asked about the DH anyway.

theleafandnotthetree · 11/02/2022 15:26

@Foxglovers

She’s not ready to leave her baby and perhaps she finding that hard to admit (I certainly did for a long time and sometimes still feel like I have to justify it) I get the frustration but maybe don’t plan to do evening things and just say - oh why don’t we arrange in the afternoon instead as I might go out that evening and that way you can bring baby with no issues. Perhaps she’s finding it hard to admit she’s adjusting. You can’t begrudge her being a good mum
IT IS THE FRIEND WHO IS ARRANGING FOR AND PUSHING EVENING MEET UPS!
Original poster
DijfunvKd · 11/02/2022 15:26

@mathanxiety

The sudden announcements that the baby is coming on the night out are probably due to the H flat out refusing to take care of the baby or him suddenly announcing that he has plans for the night as soon as she says she has made an arrangement with you.

Be a better friend to this friend of yours. Try asking her how her H is with the baby. Ask her how his hobbies are going, or how his mates are, etc.

Speaking as someone who stopped going out anywhere and lost friends because I realised that H couldn't be trusted not to hit the children and rage at them when my back was turned...

You have my sympathies with your situation.

But if you'd RTFT you'd have seen that I have already covered the part about what she says about her DH. I find it a bit staggering that posters assume because I don't say 'I ask my friend about her life' and detail all my questions that I mustn't do so.

The last six months have revolved entirely around talking about her life.

OP posts:
Mollysocks · 11/02/2022 15:27

@Lottapianos

'if and when you have kids of your own…

Sick of this phrase, makes me rage!

Thinly veiled attempt at shutting down woman’s opinions if they don’t have children.'

Same here. Implies that women without children have no empathy and don't have a clue about babies. Really unfair

Yep. It’s internalised misogyny I think, pitting women against women.
I21018 · 11/02/2022 15:27

@starfishmummy

I think it's a matter of expectation- so if she's saying "let's go and have "girls" night out" I can understand that having to change to a baby friendly pub is annoying.

I'd just stick with coffee somewhere.

This is exactly it and what some poster's aren't getting through their heads on here.

It's not about whether or not she's ready to leave the baby. If she's not that is FINE. But don't arrange a girls night out then, just stick to coffee in the day or the park or lunch or whatever else.

LouisRenault · 11/02/2022 15:28

Your friend is obviously very fond of you and doing her best to keep up your friendship.

How is she doing that? By ignoring OP and focusing all her attention on baby when they're together? By not asking OP anything about how her life is going, or listening when OP tries to talk about anything other than baby? That's not how someone doing her best to maintain a friendship behaves.

AryaStarkWolf · 11/02/2022 15:28

@Oli5

I have kids my youngest is 2 and if I’m being totally honest it’s a wrench to leave them . I think that might make me a bit strange but I just prefer to be with them. Maybe your friend just doesn’t want to be away from her baby and that’s ok. Things change when you have children
I couldn't wait to get away from them for a few hours when mine were that young Wine

@DijfunvKd Have you ever thought about telling her that you feel this way and how annoying it is for you to have plans changed or cancelled like that all the time?

TrippinEdBalls · 11/02/2022 15:28

'Yeah he was but Rob text him to say the lads are going [to city drinking] ( which we were meant to be doing ) and I've told him to go. He's been at work all week and it's just as easy for me to take DB with me so no point in him missing a night out'.

I would bet my house that this was not actually how the conversation between her and her Dh went. Which doesn't make you even slightly obliged to put up with it - and I certainly wouldn't give up your Friday night pal a for her again; in fact I'd text back and say just to leave it tonight at this point. But I do feel sorry for her.

Original poster
DijfunvKd · 11/02/2022 15:30

@AKASammyScrounge

Your friend is obviously very fond of you and doing her best to keep up your friendship. It takes a lot of effort to get your baby and yourself ready to go out, then there's the travelling which is awkward with a baby in tow. You could make an effort to accept with a good grace the limitations an infant puts on outings . It isn't forever, the child will grow up, your friend will be free to come and go more and have more adventurous evenings out.The day will come when you will be glad that you have maintained the relationship with her.You may even come to like the child the baby grows into.
She isn't travelling to see me specifically. She comes home to visit her family really, and I guess friends too to an extent.

I think I have been extremely accepting, with good grace, of limitations. Is that supposed to extend to me entirely putting my evening plans in her hands without any say in the matter?

I might like the child, I might not. I don't really care. It is her who I am friends with.

OP posts:
Doubleraspberry · 11/02/2022 15:30

You know her and I don't, but in my earlier post I said this felt like she was desperate to go out and then it wasn't happening, and now you've posted about her DH, it feels even more like that.

I know you've said she talks a lot about her DH and so, as I say, this may be totally off beam, but it sounds like he's sabotaging her attempts to go out, and she's trying to keep them on track but getting it very wrong.

Chewbecca · 11/02/2022 15:31

I think I would start to decline when she changes the plans and say let’s meet up when you’re totally free.

neverornow · 11/02/2022 15:31

Sounds like she has good intentions. She's still trying to maintain the friendship despite the fact that she has a baby who needs her (more than you do...)
Fair play to get for suggesting evening/dinner/drink dates. That's a lot more than I'd have been able to commit to.
Be grateful that she's willing to make such an effort with you.

Original poster
DijfunvKd · 11/02/2022 15:32

@Drunkpanda

Well today is your opportunity then - are you at least going to say "I was really looking forward to going to x, why don't we reschedule for another night" - she will know you are upset then, at the moment has she any idea?
That's interesting actually. I don't know if she knows. I have tried to be 'oh that's fine, don't worry at all' about it because I haven't wanted to be a dick when she's got a new baby. But perhaps I've went too far and she thinks it's no issue at all, rather than just politeness.
OP posts:
I21018 · 11/02/2022 15:33

@Noisyneighneigh

You must be as equally self centred and arrogant as OP's friend to think that what she does is acceptable self centred and arrogant? Her life just centres around the baby and she's probably just oblivious to how irritating she's being. OP just needs to tell her.
I don't get this sort of thing.

Am I the only woman who didn't lose her ability to consider other people when I had my child?

Yes my life changed and a lot of my world focused around the baby. But I'm not stupid, I didn't just lose all thought process, I can still understand that others may not want a baby coming along to their nights out all the time.

EverydayIsPJday · 11/02/2022 15:34

So just don't meet up with her 🤷 it sounds like you're mighty annoyed, not enjoying her company and are not prepared to do it again...so don't. Go out with your other friends when you want to. Just understand that she will then probably drop wanting to see you too when she gets to the point she's comfortable going out without her baby (which could be anytime between now and whenever, it's her choice).

Fwiw she probably thinks your being really supportive and enjoying your company so it's a shame she will realise that's not the case and lose a friend because she has a small child that she's not ready to leave yet (and that's totally reasonable).

BrightYellowDaffodil · 11/02/2022 15:34

I am feeling very prickly indeed.

I would too. Your friend seems tone deaf.

I21018 · 11/02/2022 15:35

New mothers are the be all and end all on here though OP. You're not allowed to expect any consideration from them nor are you allowed to question anything they do.

Unless one posts on here for advice, then poster's will stick the boot in her as well 🤣