To not want DF to bring her baby everywhere?

[DijfunvKd]

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.

I'd also like to counteract all of the women who state that new mums don't want to go out alone by saying that I went to see Fantastic Beasts at 3 weeks PP, by myself, with a big bag of sweets. And yes I was breastfeeding - it was the first time I expressed.

Yes but if you’d cancelled the cheque a week ago OP none of this would have happened

Maybe she's frightened of losing you as a friend and in her head, at the point she makes the plans, she sort of feels it is doable and if not, she will deal with the consequences later?

(Nothing to do with babies but I got told off by a housemate once when overpromising we'd come to a party when we already had other plans. She turned to me and said, you know we're not going to fit that in, why are you saying it?! She was right. In the moment, it felt kinder to say we'd go .)

I agree it must be annoying for you, OP.

Why don't you reassure her that for the moment, it's fine to do lunch/park? The baby is young for such a short time.

Shes probably desperate to get out and see people. Just stick with it, the older the baby gets the easier it'll be for her to get away. The first year they are pretty reliant on mum especially if breastfeeding.
My boy is 18mo and I still wouldnt go away for the weekend. He is like my 3rd leg.

I don’t think you’re being unreasonable at all. Her husband should have the baby. I can understand her now wanting a long evening away from her baby but she should be able to have say, three hours to have a relaxed meal somewhere. She could express some breast milk so that her husband can feed her. I would have thought she’d be desperate for a break!

@Susu49

Hope you've got your hard hat ready...

🤣🤣

I have a 6mo too and don't make plans for the evenings because usually I'm too tired to go out then, still have stuff to do at home or just want some me time in peace. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to go out on my own for drinks or food! And I probably will at some point, just not yet.

I wonder if your friend is missing being out on her own with adults and she sets out to do it but then for some reason struggles, be it she doesn't want to leave the baby or sometimes can't leave her.

I personally just wouldn't be making plans with her in the evenings. Go out in the eve with other people, catch up with her (and possibly her baby girl) for brunch. Job done. If she asks just don't be available in the evenings and suggest an alternative.

@CloR86

A person can't be away from their breastfeeding baby so you are being unreasonable.

So why does the friend keep pestering OP to have a night out? Have you read OP's posts at all?

It's not OP arranging these nights out.

@RachaelN

A breast fed babies tends to need erm... The breast. It is her first baby, maybe cut her some slack.

Oh FFS.

Is there no end to this stream of people with absolutely no reading comprehension whatsoever?

Why not just decline if you don’t like going out with her and her baby? Rather than come on an Internet forum and bitch about her? When you have children your whole life changes and it’s fine if your friends can’t understand that but just be honest and tell her you’d rather not go out in the evenings if she has to bring the baby and you’ll just stick to the daytime meets

[quote ToykotoLosAngeles]@RachelGreeneGreep I suppose that's what she gets for stealing the dress belonging to the nonexistent mother of the bride [/quote]
Exactly!

And she probably refused to split the bill evenly as well.

@Naughtyperson972

Yes but if you’d cancelled the cheque a week ago OP none of this would have happened

She should have cancelled it before she wrote it, then none of this would have happened.

YABU, but you probably won’t realise it until you have a baby yourself

Another fiver. But I'm starting to lose my sense of humour.

I always put my children (WHEN they were children) above anything and everyone else and that was my choice.

@LoisLane66

I always put my children (WHEN they were children) above anything and everyone else and that was my choice.

That's nice.

If it was me and I knew your views I’d stop seeing you op. I tried so damn hard to still meet up with friends and at all times of the day, including for a nice drink. I could and would not leave my breastfed baby. In the nicest way possible it sounds like you don’t really understand and maybe you need to wait until she’s older to catch up.

@DijfunvKd I think it sounds like your friend is depressed. Maybe she really does want a night out, but when it comes to it, can't do it. It doesn't mean she doesn't want to and intend to have fun with you and that means she cares for you.

Love her unconditionally and be patient. Ask her how she really is, offer to look after the baby so she can get some rest, cook her some meals, book her a massage, help her adjust to motherhood. She won't get another chance at these early months and she'll remember the friends who were patient and kind.

@BiscuitLover3678

If it was me and I knew your views I’d stop seeing you op. I tried so damn hard to still meet up with friends and at all times of the day, including for a nice drink. I could and would not leave my breastfed baby. In the nicest way possible it sounds like you don’t really understand and maybe you need to wait until she’s older to catch up.

Were you inviting people out for a child-free drink, deciding to bring the baby last-minute and guilt-tripping anyone who tried to rearrange for daytime?

@BiscuitLover3678 dear god read the thread

I think I’d just ask her why she”s doing it op. Doesn’t have to be confrontational, just explain you’re finding it difficult to work out what is going on as she seems to want to go out for adult evenings, but then changes the plans. Is it because when it comes to it she can’t bear to leave the baby? It so, that’s fine (when I had my DD I v rarely went out in the evening for the first year or so, the logistics were too tricky), but it’s messing up your life which is not fine

Also you’re not unreasonable not to want to talk about babies all the time. I loved my DD and thought she was gorgeous, but I have never had the least interest in babies unrelated to me. I find them very boring until they get to at least 6 months old and much prefer toddlers and older.

A breast fed babies tends to need erm... The breast. It is her first baby, maybe cut her some slack

By six months you usually have them in a routine of feeding every few hours. You can easily go out for a couple of hours inbetween feeds. That is, if you want to.

@LoisLane66

I always put my children (WHEN they were children) above anything and everyone else and that was my choice.

Of course you did. MNers always do. Women are not allowed to have lives of their own once they have children. The very idea!

@saraclara

YABU, but you probably won’t realise it until you have a baby yourself

Another fiver. But I'm starting to lose my sense of humour.

Plenty of posters on here with kids who don't think the OP is being unreasonable.

@Theunamedcat

You are a bit deluded really how old are you?

Why deluded? I have 4 - never took any of them out to dinner with friends!

Personally I think it's incredible that she's prepared to take the baby out in the evening and break it's routine to meet you. I think your friend must like you a lot to be doing that. Give the poor woman a break. It's absolutely impossible to know how hard work it is with a baby until you've had one. There is literally nothing you can compare it to that you will have experienced.