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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:
Glitterygreen · 11/02/2022 21:02

All of these replies still answering as if OP is the one trying to make these plans!!

She isn't!! Her friend specifically invites her to child-free evenings and then switches it up at the last minute. OP is not pressuring her, either to see her or to leave her baby.

Sterpie · 11/02/2022 21:06

Your friend having to breastfeed her baby is a completely normal reason to have her baby with her.
Then her friend should be honest about that and stop arranging adult nights and then switching the plans last minute.

You could talk to her about the things going on in your life.
If you read the ops posts you'd see she already tries this and her friend ignores her and talks to the baby.

if I begin talking then DF will stare at the baby and cut across me with 'aren't you cute?? You are! Are you happy sitting there?'

Discofish · 11/02/2022 21:11

If she's breastfeeding I imagine she's probably not drinking anyway- or just having the one maybe, perhaps she just fancies a nice leisurely meal and not a rushed lunch- and thinks you would prefer evening due to work/other commitments and thinks you might like a drink. I know you say your issue is her changing the plans but it sounds like you're not enjoying meeting up for the lunches either, sounds like you tolerate them. I get it - I have a friend who I cannot have a conversation with when her 2 year old is with us - he's lovely but it seems they can't be more than two metres apart! I end up following her around the garden or house while we try to talk! My little one on the other hand will happily toddle off and explore without me.

Savingpeoplehuntingthings · 11/02/2022 21:15

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 the kids can stay home with their dad 😁 I absolutely will not witter on about them.

I'm in!

RachelGreeneGreep · 11/02/2022 21:17

@Glitterygreen

All of these replies still answering as if OP is the one trying to make these plans!!

She isn't!! Her friend specifically invites her to child-free evenings and then switches it up at the last minute. OP is not pressuring her, either to see her or to leave her baby.

Exactly! I sent the OP a virtual Wine and I hope she is having a night out now! Grin
Glitterygreen · 11/02/2022 21:20

@Discofish

If she's breastfeeding I imagine she's probably not drinking anyway- or just having the one maybe, perhaps she just fancies a nice leisurely meal and not a rushed lunch- and thinks you would prefer evening due to work/other commitments and thinks you might like a drink. I know you say your issue is her changing the plans but it sounds like you're not enjoying meeting up for the lunches either, sounds like you tolerate them. I get it - I have a friend who I cannot have a conversation with when her 2 year old is with us - he's lovely but it seems they can't be more than two metres apart! I end up following her around the garden or house while we try to talk! My little one on the other hand will happily toddle off and explore without me.
But she's not having a leisurely meal with OP? She is cancelling all planned meals and replacing it with a quick drink in a Wetherspoons or coming over to OP's house.
Original poster
DijfunvKd · 11/02/2022 21:21

I am just about to head out Wine

OP posts:
AryaStarkWolf · 11/02/2022 21:26

@DijfunvKd

I am just about to head out Wine
Enjoy 🥂
MotherofTerriers · 11/02/2022 21:31

Have a great night

EarringsandLipstick · 11/02/2022 21:34

@MrsLighthouse

Everything changes when you have a baby . Your friend will be a different person because she’s a mum now. Sad to say that you will never come first now 😢 sorry 😆
This is bollocks.

I absolutely hate that stupid trope that you become a different person when you have a baby.

No you don't.

Sure, your priorities change. And your lifestyle.

But most people are intrinsically the same & it does is no service to imply we are so altered that we can only view things through the prism of motherhood.

EarringsandLipstick · 11/02/2022 21:35
  • us, not is
Katya213 · 11/02/2022 21:39

Wait til you have children….you will understand then. I was just like you.

ufucoffee · 11/02/2022 21:41

@Katya213

Wait til you have children….you will understand then. I was just like you.
But I have children. And I was just like her.
Sterpie · 11/02/2022 21:42

Wait til you have children….you will understand then. I was just like you.
Op hasn't said whether she has children or not.
Having a child doesn't mean you have to mess your friends about.

Ponoka7 · 11/02/2022 21:43

As said, ask her if she's tried a bottle, if the baby will settle for her DH and what her plans are for weaning etc. It could be hiding a crap marriage/partner, pnd, or just a touch of anxiety about leaving the baby. You could avoid any evening invites for a few weeks. Things will change. It depends on if you think the friendship is worth hanging on to. I think the reason why people assumed that you didn't have children was because of "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", it's because he can't breastfeed and not all babies take bottles, or not all women can express good amounts. It sounds as though she's desperate to still get out and you aren't objecting so it continues.

saraclara · 11/02/2022 21:45

@Katya213

Wait til you have children….you will understand then. I was just like you.
Aaaaargh!!

But that's another fiver for the fund.

@Katya213 you have no idea whether OP has children or not. Maybe she does. Maybe she doesn't. And if she doesn't, it might be by choice, and it might not be.
At best your comment is stupid and excluding, and at worst, spectacularly insensitive.

Belladonna12 · 11/02/2022 21:48

@Katya213

Wait til you have children….you will understand then. I was just like you.
I have children. I don't "understand" why that means you can mess people about.
Somethingsnappy · 11/02/2022 22:00

@Belladonna12, having children shouldn't mean you can mess people about. But a little understanding and tolerance of the first few months postpartum would be helpful perhaps.

EarringsandLipstick · 11/02/2022 22:03

But a little understanding and tolerance of the first few months postpartum would be helpful perhaps.

How much more 'tolerant & understanding' do you expect OP to be? 😳

Mollysocks · 11/02/2022 22:05

Wait til you have children….you will understand then. I was just like you.

Fellow women! You are not real women until you have children. Your opinions don’t count, you just don’t know anything until you’ve had the kidz!

Also I’m assuming everyone wants kids because I have them and it is just the thing women do and I didn’t consider some can’t or won’t. But don’t let my insensitivity fool you, I know a lot of things for I am woman with children.

Blossomtoes · 11/02/2022 22:05

@Katya213

Wait til you have children….you will understand then. I was just like you.
Patronising bullshit.
Mollysocks · 11/02/2022 22:06

Also I was like you, silly childish unknowing woman but now I am woman with children!!!!

accidentlygothereagain · 11/02/2022 22:08

Sounds to me like she could be trying to hang on to your friendship - aka go to the pub / evenings out to do things you enjoy but having a young baby can make this difficult.

If anything it sounds like she needs support more than you calling her boring.

saraclara · 11/02/2022 22:08

@EarringsandLipstick

But a little understanding and tolerance of the first few months postpartum would be helpful perhaps.

How much more 'tolerant & understanding' do you expect OP to be? 😳

Yep, I'd say that six months of OP putting up with her friend never listening to her, never talking about anything other than her baby and 'being a mother', and flaking on every arrangement (that she herself chose and made) is way more than 'a little' understanding and tolerance, personally.
timeisnotaline · 11/02/2022 22:10

Have you tried this line: ‘are you ok? Are things with dp ok? It’s just that I don’t know if you’ve realised, but you’ve literally had to cancel every arrangement you’ve made with me as he suddenly isn’t around after all becasue he’s going out. I know you say he pulls his weight but all I see is him refusing to enable you to go out, and being quite dishonest about it as you tell me he’s having baby and we should make plans but he cancels on doing any solo parenting every single time, while himself living a fairly single man life where he goes out whenever he wants. That can’t feel very equal, I’d have been raging at my dh if that had happened even a couple of times when dc1 was babies age.’

If that doesn’t work you just have to flat out refuse to make arrangements for evenings and bars, perhaps because you don’t trust her dh to not cancel again rather than she is a crappy friend. Have you mutual friends? Could you arrange something with one or two others and then invite her so you are completely justified in refusing to rearrange. ‘Oh you have baby so can’t come- thats a shame we will have to reschedule. Oh no, I’m afraid Sarah and I have been loooking forward to trying this place out, it wouldn’t be fair to switch to an oj somewhere else but hopefully you can make it next time.’

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