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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:
Somethingsnappy · 12/02/2022 20:37

Finally, finally, someone did a diagram! The thread is now complete! Grin

Forensicpsych · 12/02/2022 20:40

I don’t think you’re being unreasonable in the slightest, and I say this as the mother of multiple children who were all exclusively breastfed for years. Glad you went out @DijfunvKd!

LadyPropane · 12/02/2022 20:41

Good for you for going along anyway. Maybe your DF will realise that it's unfair on you to keep cancelling things last minute.

I think it's very strange that she's staying with her family, and her DH is staying with her, and yet her few plans seem to be repeatedly steam rollered by other people wanting to go out last minute so there's no one around to look after the baby for a few hours. The two scenarios I can come up with are either she's got a really shitty "support network" and her whole family are inconsiderate misogynistic arseholes and enable her DH to be one too (entirely possible and sadly quite common in some families) OR she's got major anxiety about leaving the baby and chickens out last minute.

Sadly I don't think you can get an honest answer from her about which it is until she is ready to admit it. Either scenario is difficult to admit, I suppose.

I hope it all calms down soon and you get your proper night out with your friend, or at least she starts making more realistic plans!

Toadinthroat · 12/02/2022 20:42

This thread has made me quite irritated. Not only the OP but some of the responses.

I am someone who took my baby under 6 months to an evening meal at a pub a few times with ny best friends. Some of which have children and understood my baby being there and accepted it, happily. Some of which did not have children and understood my baby being there and accepted it, happily. My baby's routine was not disturbed at all. I breastfed, and they slept.

Lives change. I met them in the middle by going out in the evening but not for the drunk nights we used to have. Maybe you should appreciate that OP? If you don't like it, just do not meet her in the evening until baby is older and she can be left with the father.

And that is another point - people assuming trouble in their marriage, or an unsupportive husband as he can go out but she can't?? It's because HE CAN, and that is fine. She breastfeeds so this is just the way it is for a few months.

GLTM · 12/02/2022 20:44

Sounds like she's trying to accommodate both yours and the baby's needs and failing at mtg your needs. You're lucky she's making so much effort, it might be a lot of hassle for her and probably exhausting. Fair enough if it's not what you want, and fair enough not to meet in the evenings any more.

Atmybitsend · 12/02/2022 20:46

@BrightYellowDaffodil

Fuck me, has some sort of bat signal gone out? The thread is suddenly full of the hard-of-comprehension-skills wanging on about the need for OP to be a "good friend" and how babies need to be with their mother if they're being breast fed (really, I don't think anyone knew that before you so generously educated us all Hmm ).

Garnish all that with yet more "You'll finally understand when you knuckle down to motherhood in a few years, you thoughtless flibbertigibbet" and, well, you hear that whooshing noise? That's people spectacularly missing the point and piling in with their own agenda probably because they behave as shittily as OP's Flaky Friend and don't want to admit it.

Don’t forget the cries of BEEE KIINNNDD OP and ‘your friend sounds depressed’
EmmaH2022 · 12/02/2022 20:46

OP I don't suppose you are on the market for a new friend? I can't abide flakey either!

saraclara · 12/02/2022 20:54

@EmmaH2022

OP I don't suppose you are on the market for a new friend? I can't abide flakey either!
I think there's a bunch of us ready to have a night out with OP. I seem to have found a group of people to be my new friends!

And the "when you're a mum you'll understand" drinks kitty is absolutely overflowing after this evening's posts.

timeisnotaline · 12/02/2022 20:56

@surreygirl1987

Honestly I would have felt the same as you. And I swore nothing would change. And THEN I had children. Now I am your friend - the one who brings my baby everywhere. That's just how it is. If you don't like it I guess you can stop meeting up with her. I have a friend who clearly doesn't like me bringing my toddler or baby along when I see her... fair enough. We just meet up less. I'm waiting for her to have children and then I suspect we'll be bringing kids to everything all the time.
Are you saying you regularly make plans to meet in childfree in bars, all your suggestion, then a couple of hours before every single meet up you message to change the venue to somehweee child friendly and bring your baby, saying actually it’s really important to your dh to go out drinking and your mum so this is the plan now, then you turn up and talk non stop about your baby, never asking any questions about how your friend is going? Good luck keeping those friends…
anotherheadache · 12/02/2022 20:57

@Fluffykins2020 if your friends know your baby is coming along.. all good. If you tell your friend baby is not going so you can go somewhere not child friendly and have time without baby there... and then turn up with baby (which is what is happening to op) then you're a self involved fool for presuming that your friends wouldn't mind this. They may be polite, but the very presence of the baby, even if it's asleep, changes the dynamic. Your baby means everything to you. To everyone else it's just another baby.

Fossie · 12/02/2022 20:58

[quote MabelsApron]@StickyToffeePuddingAndIceCream What patronising dreck.[/quote]
Yep

EmmaH2022 · 12/02/2022 20:59

saraclara we can have a Thoughtless Flibbertigibits night out! 😂

CantStartaFireWithoutaSpark · 12/02/2022 21:06

I have an 11 month old. I wouldn’t do this to my friends. A coffee or lunch yes, an evening in the pub, absolutely not. If I wasn’t able to go alone, i wouldn’t make the plans. I do not want to be that annoying friend. I think my baby is marvellous but I know others don’t don’t feel the same way.
I also trust my DH compels to take care of my 11 month old since a newborn for a couple of hours.
So no you’re not being unreasonable to want a baby free night out from time to time. It’s weird your friend does this with her baby.

DilyteGelyte · 12/02/2022 21:12

YANBU to not want DF to bring her baby, but YABU to not expect her to want to/bring her baby.

ToykotoLosAngeles · 12/02/2022 21:15

@DilyteGelyte

YANBU to not want DF to bring her baby, but YABU to not expect her to want to/bring her baby.
Even when she says she's not bringing the baby?
RachelGreeneGreep · 12/02/2022 21:23

@EmmaH2022

saraclara we can have a Thoughtless Flibbertigibits night out! 😂
Oh yes! Grin

Count me in!

User1706 · 12/02/2022 21:23

I don't think your being unreasonable to not want to meet in child friendly places or constantly have a baby out with you I'm the same and I'm the one with the baby in my friendship group. However my 6 month old is also breastfed and he like other breastfed babies needs me to feed, keep him hydrated, comfort him and help him sleep so yes i pretty much do take him to all my day time coffee meet ups etc. However whilst i think he's gorgeous i don't want to sit there listening to people coo over him because im excited to get out and speak to my friends and i want to chat about adult things it also means that certain plans like late night drinking or meal out around his bedtime i do usually decline as to be quite honest right now sleep is precious and i don't want to loose any more than i currently am!

RachelGreeneGreep · 12/02/2022 21:25

And the "when you're a mum you'll understand" drinks kitty is absolutely overflowing after this evening's posts.

Grin It must be bursting at the seams by now.

BrightYellowDaffodil · 12/02/2022 21:30

@EmmaH2022

saraclara we can have a Thoughtless Flibbertigibits night out! 😂
We can have t-shirts made so that people know because Lord knows they'll need it pointing out to whom they can direct their spectacularly-missing-the-point comments Grin

#ThoughtlessFlibbertigibbetsOnTour

OnceUponAThread · 12/02/2022 21:31

I think you're getting a lot of silly responses here OP because there's a lack of reading comprehension.

It is infuriating and rude that your friend keeps taking over your evenings - inviting you to fun things that you clear your schedule for and then rearranging at the last moment.

It is absolutely reasonable that you don't want to spend your Friday nights in child-friendly places, unexpectedly with a baby in tow - when that's not what is planned.

It is doubly infuriating that posters keep suggesting that you're putting pressure on her when SHE is suggesting the child free nights.

It's triply frustrating that people have said you don't understand babies when you have repeatedly (from the first post) said you don't mind only seeing her with her child, if that's what she needs, but the swapping around is annoying (especially when it's evenings where you could otherwise do other more adult things.

It would drive me MAD.

Yes - she might not want to leave her baby (in which case she shouldn't suggest child free evenings in the first place).

Yes - she might have a useless partner (he does sound like a bit of an entitled twat riding roughshod over her plans for his own.

Yes - she might be struggling to express and realise she can't do what she'd like.

ALL those things are fine and many fairly common. But that doesn't make changing plans last minute on someone - MULTIPLE times - ok.

There will often be emergencies with children. But she is doing this every single time.

I'd stop making evening child free plans with her and (gently) tell her why.

Frozentoes2 · 12/02/2022 21:38

So tempted not to bite.... but.....

The “you won’t understand until you have one” comment I made (gasps how terrible and outrageous, what an insult to every woman everywhere) is true! It was for me anyway.

I personally didn’t have a clue that a 6 month old baby would need to be breastfed every couple of hours, would REFUSE to take a bottle even if it was expressed milk, or that my baby would cry inconsolably if Dad tried to feed them a bottle of expressed milk whilst i was out. To all those who were breastfeeding and baby experts before they had their own, well fucking done but believe me, not everyone is. And to be honest it doesn’t sound like OP was from her opening post or she’d maybe be a little more sympathetic.

MabelsApron · 12/02/2022 21:39

[quote Namechange8787]@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.[/quote]
That’s you told OP. Not only do you need to not be annoyed at being messed around, you need to become your friend’s indentured servant - where’s dad and why isn’t he cooking meals, booking massages, looking after baby etc.? Why does this expectation always fall on random women unrelated to the baby, over the male parent of the baby?!

Flittingaboutagain · 12/02/2022 21:43

I personally didn’t have a clue that a 6 month old baby would need to be breastfed every couple of hours, would REFUSE to take a bottle even if it was expressed milk, or that my baby would cry inconsolably if Dad tried to feed them a bottle of expressed milk whilst i was out.

^ or that there can be no rhyme or reason to it as my baby is suddenly refusing expressed milk from Dad at almost seven months!

Twinmummy74 · 12/02/2022 21:50

I can see both sides to this. Yes it would be nice to have an evening child free, no doubt you both miss your friendship pre babies. Your friend may feel guilty for leaving baby in the evening, her dh maybe being a bit unreasonable and prefers her to go out in the day so they are home together in the evening. There could be numerous scenarios to this. You could suggest maybe a take away at her house and some wine once baby settles for a few hours in the evening. She could express some milk so she has a break from breast feeding too. Friendship dynamics do alter when you marry, have kids, change jobs, move away. Tackle this with tact and tell her that you really value your friendship, but once in a while you'd like to have some girly time if at all possible. I hope this helps xx

EmmaH2022 · 12/02/2022 21:50

BrightYellowDaffodils

I nearly suggested t shirts but then thought that might be too close to the horrors of a hen night...

I see the lack of reading comprehension continues.

Should we have "cancel the cheque" on the back of the t shirt?

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