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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:
TwoDrifters2 · 11/02/2022 18:14

“I have been at work all week too and I was really looking forward to going to x. I turned down other plans so that I could spend time with you. I hope you know I love DB, but it’s never quite the same atmosphere when there’s a baby around, as inevitably all conversation revolves around the baby and I actually really wanted to catch up with just you and have some adult conversation. I’m always happy to meet up with you and DB for lunches and walks and coffee, as you know, but just this once it would be nice to stick to our original plan for a fun Friday night. Can we please do that?”

1FootInTheRave · 11/02/2022 18:16

Shocked at the amount of mummy martyrs on here.

I have 4 dc and wouldn't dream of taking them on a pre arranged night out. Not even when they were babies, all bf.

How utterly self absorbed to think that's acceptable.

Bigoldhag · 11/02/2022 18:17

God, people are being deliberately obtuse here!!

OP, you have my full sympathies, for your friend and for these posters who are yelling about how you have no clue how hard it is 🙃🙃

Original poster
DijfunvKd · 11/02/2022 18:17

@momtoboys

I'm thinking you don't have children? It is really hard to leave your baby. Honestly, the friends that I would meet for lunch, etc were the friends I was really trying to continue the relationship. The others I wouldn't bother. I may be in the minority though.
I'm thinking you haven't bothered reading my posts.
OP posts:
anon12345678901 · 11/02/2022 18:17

@Imyourvenus

Do her a favour and end the friendshipHmm
Why, the OP isn't unreasonable in what they're saying. Nor rude.
anotherbloodyyearofcovid · 11/02/2022 18:22

Say NO to any evening plans she suggests as you already know she'll bring the baybee and it'll be a colossal bore for you. Just meet up for the coffees etc if you can bear it.

RestingStitchFace · 11/02/2022 18:23

I think YABU. At 5-6 months the needs of the baby trumps everything.

It sounds like your friend REALLY wants to maintain friendship with you but is finding it challenging trying to balance everything. Babies are demanding and she's new to this. Cut her some slack for God's sake.

Amibeinghighmaintenance · 11/02/2022 18:26

@RestingStitchFace I think makes the point - a mother can be a total dick and all must support her in her dickishness….

Have you read the full thread??

QueenLagertha · 11/02/2022 18:26

Honestly OP I don't blame you one bit. That would annoy me too and I have a child. Would've met friends for coffee in the early days with baby. But it wouldn't have entered my head to arrange a meal or drinks out and bring baby along. I'm well aware my child isn't as interesting to other people. Stick to day time plans with this friend for now.

Katyppp · 11/02/2022 18:31

I think YABU. At 5-6 months the needs of the baby trumps everything.

To the mother maybe, but not to everyone else.
I think we have lost sight of the fact that having a baby is a perfectly normal thing to do. To the rest of the world, it's not special or significant.
New mums on here are empowered to think they are princesses who must not be challenged, argued with or upset.
I honestly shake my head at some of the guff I read on this site.

RandomMess · 11/02/2022 18:32

I think I was just reply "let's catch up next time you're here when you can get someone to babysit so we can go out for a lovely dinner and have a proper catch up"

If her replies are ver non-receptive I would allude to having crap going on in your life and needing to talk properly.

Has she always been self centred and become a parent has just amplified it?

MabelsApron · 11/02/2022 18:32

I must say, some of the posts here have been a breath of fresh air for MN. Been here a few years and am often on the verge of giving up with it as it’s such a den of smug mummy martyrs. I want to treat all of the normal people on this thread to a great night out.

Whybirdwhy · 11/02/2022 18:34

Have you replied? Time to be as gentle or as blunt as you feel is necessary but this is your opportunity to nip this in the bud now and put an end to the evening meets. Which you must, otherwise you'll have only yourself to blame.

MabelsApron · 11/02/2022 18:35

@Katyppp

I think YABU. At 5-6 months the needs of the baby trumps everything.

To the mother maybe, but not to everyone else.
I think we have lost sight of the fact that having a baby is a perfectly normal thing to do. To the rest of the world, it's not special or significant.
New mums on here are empowered to think they are princesses who must not be challenged, argued with or upset.
I honestly shake my head at some of the guff I read on this site.

I’d go further and say mums, not just new mums.

I’ve been torn a new one numerous times on this site for daring to suggest that I might like to have Christmas off for the first time in eight years, or that it might not be very fair for me to work unpaid overtime to cover mums doing the school run twice a day and not making up the time. Apparently I’m a raging misogynist!

Somethingsnappy · 11/02/2022 18:36

@MabelsApron

I must say, some of the posts here have been a breath of fresh air for MN. Been here a few years and am often on the verge of giving up with it as it’s such a den of smug mummy martyrs. I want to treat all of the normal people on this thread to a great night out.
Postnatal anxiety can be one of the causes of mothers feeling reluctant/unable to leave their babies. Smug mummy martyrs? Nice...
TrippinEdBalls · 11/02/2022 18:41

I think the mummy martyrdom stuff here is beside the point. I wouldn't have wanted to do the kind of night out OP's friend suggested - going into the city (presumably a bit of a journey) for a full night out - when either of mine were six months. So I didn't ever suggest that when mine were six months old. It isn't wanting or not wanting to be away from the baby that's unreasonable, it's the making of plans that it's completely clear (she's now saying she could only ever have gone to the original place for two hours?) she has no intention of honouring that's hugely unreasonable.

Scirocco · 11/02/2022 18:44

@DijfunvKd I think you need to be clear in your communication with your friend about what you want and where your boundaries lie - it feels to me like you're being unreasonable to yourself and to her by not doing so. Changing plans constantly to something drastically different from the original idea isn't fair on you, but if she doesn't know how you feel, the situation won't have a chance to get resolved before there's so much resentment and hurt that the friendship gets irreparably damaged.

I'd suggest being clear with her about how you feel when she changes plans. Maybe when you're making the initial plan together you could emphasise to her how important it is to you that the night is just the two of you, not in a Wetherspoons etc. Then, if she suggests changing at the last minute, you can refer back to your original request and explain that her suggestion just doesn't work for you and you'd rather reschedule. You could also make your own alternative plan for a quality night in with your own company in case she does make the "Wetherspoons Baby" suggestion - so you know that you have a nice alternative and not a wasted evening ahead of you.

Original poster
DijfunvKd · 11/02/2022 18:44

Postnatal anxiety can be one of the causes of mothers feeling reluctant/unable to leave their babies. Smug mummy martyrs? Nice...

That's not what she's saying though is it, @Somethingsnappy?

It's the 'I have got a baby. A baby! I have got a grown up life, because I have a baby. I can't possibly be expected to think about anyone or anything else. Because I have a baby. I haven't slept since 2014 when he was first born. But that's what happens when you have a baby. You have a baby too? Oh that's not the same, because, er, did you ebf till she was 18? No? There you go. You don't understand the real struggle of having a baby.'

OP posts:
Blossomtoes · 11/02/2022 18:46

@MabelsApron

I must say, some of the posts here have been a breath of fresh air for MN. Been here a few years and am often on the verge of giving up with it as it’s such a den of smug mummy martyrs. I want to treat all of the normal people on this thread to a great night out.
Bring it on.
Somethingsnappy · 11/02/2022 18:47

@DijfunvKd

Postnatal anxiety can be one of the causes of mothers feeling reluctant/unable to leave their babies. Smug mummy martyrs? Nice...

That's not what she's saying though is it, @Somethingsnappy?

It's the 'I have got a baby. A baby! I have got a grown up life, because I have a baby. I can't possibly be expected to think about anyone or anything else. Because I have a baby. I haven't slept since 2014 when he was first born. But that's what happens when you have a baby. You have a baby too? Oh that's not the same, because, er, did you ebf till she was 18? No? There you go. You don't understand the real struggle of having a baby.'

That doesn't sound like a description of a 'smug mummy martyr' either, so I very much doubt that's what that poster meant.
DiscordandRhyme · 11/02/2022 18:49

I agree with you.

I have an 11 month old who is breastfed and still quite clingy.

So if I wanted to meet with a friend it would just be1-2 hours whilst DH had him or I'd say beforehand and in advance "Do you fancy meeting up? X will be with me if that's ok? If not I'll arrange something for a different date."

I have no social life but that's not my friends responsibility, it's mine.

Somethingsnappy · 11/02/2022 18:50

P. S. You sound rather lacking in empathy when you write things like the above, OP.

TrippinEdBalls · 11/02/2022 18:51

@Somethingsnappy

P. S. You sound rather lacking in empathy when you write things like the above, OP.
She sounds frustrated. Which is fair, because the way her friend is acting is frustrating and the way that so many posters on this thread won't read what the OP actually said is even more so!
Original poster
DijfunvKd · 11/02/2022 18:52

@DiscordandRhyme

I agree with you.

I have an 11 month old who is breastfed and still quite clingy.

So if I wanted to meet with a friend it would just be1-2 hours whilst DH had him or I'd say beforehand and in advance "Do you fancy meeting up? X will be with me if that's ok? If not I'll arrange something for a different date."

I have no social life but that's not my friends responsibility, it's mine.

This is exactly what I would like my friend to do.
OP posts:
saraclara · 11/02/2022 18:55

@MabelsApron

I must say, some of the posts here have been a breath of fresh air for MN. Been here a few years and am often on the verge of giving up with it as it’s such a den of smug mummy martyrs. I want to treat all of the normal people on this thread to a great night out.
I'm in!

Let's not make it 'spoons though.