Friends child hurting my baby

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We are currently on holiday in a lodge. There are 4 adults and 7 kids. One of my friends, let's call her Sarah, has two boys, 7 and 3. I have a 3 month old baby.

My friends child, the 3 year old, is, in my opinion, out of control. He has constant tantrums, if you ask him to do anything, he screams and shouts. He wanted to come to the shops with me yesterday, I had no car seat for him to come so I said to him 'I'm sorry sweetheart but I don't have a car seat for you but I'll bring you back a treat'. Well, he started pulling on and swinging on my car door handle, kicking the car, screaming the place down. I genuinely thought he was going going pull the handle off and do damage. Another time my baby was in his bouncy chair and he began grabbing it and violently bouncing it up and down. His mum told him to stop but he just defiantly looked her in the eye, maintaining eye contact while bouncing it even harder. I had to run over to physically intervene.

Anyway these are just a few examples of his behaviour to give background to his behaviour in general. The situation broke down last night. Her 3 year old boy keeps throwing things at my baby. I don't know if it's jealousy or whatever but he'll pick up hairbrushes, remote controls, just anything and lob them at him. His mum weakly says 'no, don't do that' but he continues. Over and over. I'll be holding my baby and have to turn my back to protect him yet the avalanch of things being chucked at us continues. It isn't just on holiday this has happened. Well the throwing things hasn't happened before but he has threatened to kick my baby and always does sly little things like pretending to put a blanket on him to keep him warm and actually slamming it down on him, hurting him, lying on the settee beside us 'accidentally' moving his legs but actually kicking my baby....etc.

Yesterday it came to a head. I have had to continuously say to the kid, come on 'Paul' (not his real name), come on, stop that, you're going to hurt baby, you can't do that etc etc...but he doesn't care about getting in trouble. Anyway, yesterday, his mum, 'Sarah', confronted me, saying "you're always nipping at him, he's just doing it because he is hot/bored/wanting attention etc". I said yes, that's all very well, but the fact still remains that whatever the reason is behind his behaviour, he is deliberately hurting my baby and he knows what he is doing. She got extremely defensive and it came to a bit of a head. We are OK now but I'm currently packing to go home today (we aren't meant to leave till Sunday) just so that I can protect my baby from this.

I realise that kids do behave badly at times , I realise it's normal but I don't know what level is normal? Is this normal behaviour? I don't have a 3 year old myself so I don't know. Am I being unreasonable by nipping at him to stop? Am I bring unreasonable to expect him to not act like this? As I say, his mum does say 'no, don't do that' but that does absolutely nothing to control or curb his behaviour.

Going home is a bit drastic.
No way would a 3 yo be ruining my holiday..
How big is the place? Alternate using indoor /outdoor space. Imo you need to get tough on her dc if she won't...
And post trip find a better friend.

YANBU, but you're also extremely game to take a 3mo on a holiday like that. 4 adults and 7 kids that little in a lodge sounds like a recipe for hell. Fair enough if they were school age, ideally the age they could play independently while the parents hung out together, but a tiny baby and tantrumming tots?? Fuck that! Quite right to head home and even wiser to stay there and only do hols where you can focus on your own DC and not have this kind of inevitable crap to handle.

She basically said 'come on, we'll go inside with the other kids, she'll be back in a little while' or words to that affect. I had to pull him off my car.

It would be friendship over for me.

And what the hell were the other adults doing?

eek, you sound like THAT parent noKnit, the one that blames the baby rather than her own little cherub.

Nothing justifies not reining in your demon child from hitting a baby.

I think you were right to not accept this behaviour and you are right to leave. At the end of the day your priority has to be your baby and keeping him safe. It seems to be more than an bit of rough behaviour from the three year old and poor parenting. Once he started throwing things around he should have been removed from the room etc. To be honest I think this friendship might be over.

Absolutely not normal. My middle child was 3 when our youngest arrived, he has never done anything to hurt our youngest, not even a fleeting moment, if he did we absolutely would not have tolerated it (we use the naughty step and remove treats for bad behaviour). We always taught and reinforced him being gentle with our youngest, lots of praise and if he so much as touched their face or their head they were told not to (not in a mean way).

I'd be concerned the child has something wrong with them to be acting like that or the parent is seriously useless. She isn't punishing the behaviour. I'd be absolutely ashamed if that was my child and it'd be me with the out of control child packing to leave not you. You aren't in the wrong here.

Paul needs a bollocking. His Mum sure isn't going to do it as she's completely useless.

I'd be giving her a piece of my mind before I left too

Glad you’ve gone home for your babies sake, but I’d be mightily pissed off. If my child was behaving like this I’d be the one leaving.
I don’t know whether I’d be able to continue being friends with her.

Yes, not our finest idea for a holiday! It's just us mothers on here, 2 of the fathers couldn't get time off work over the summer for a holiday and we've all been friends for years so thought we'd all go away together and have a great time. Not so unfortunately!

You've been very restrained. I'd be tempted to say, 'yes, it's a shame our holiday's been ruined because you're such a poor parent you can't stop your child from hurting mine, isn't it?'

How is anyone saying this is normal behaviour? It most certainly is not.

Swinging off car door handles? Screaming and shouting at someone who isn't even their parent? Repeatedly throwing things at a baby??

What kind of children are you raising if you think this is ok?????

The mother is failing completely in her parenting duties. Teaching children right from wrong starts early and 3 years old is not early. Does she think said child is going to wake up on their 6th or 7th birthday and be magically well behaved?

I can't believe you've lasted 2 days - go home and keep your baby safe

One was in the bedroom with her little one and the other had popped out to the shop.

No excuses. It's simply a lack of inadequate parenting. You're doing right to remove yourself from a situation that boy's parent isn't willing to address properly.

You're obviously right not to let him hurt your baby. I wouldn't even let my nearly 3 year old hurt my 11 year old, I would remove him from the room, which is what this Mum should do IMO. I don't think hurting babies with such persistence is usual/common behaviour in 3 year olds, especially with the other behaviour it seems like he has quite a few challenges.

OP given the number of adults to children and the fact that only one of them is yours I guessed it was all mothers. I'm so sorry your holiday has been spoiled but you're doing the right thing, at best it would be stressful and exhausting for the remainder of the trip.
Your friend has let you, your baby and her child down.

The mother is clueless and failing to deal with her child’s hideous behaviour. I don’t agree at all with others here that kicking a tiny baby and repeatedly throwing things at him is normal 3yo behaviour.

Well done for leaving. It’s all you can do to prevent a potentially serious injury. One of my dc as a toddler was nearly injured very seriously by an older dc of a friend. Another friend saw what was happening and rushed in to save my dc. It would have been a life changing injury. The mother of the older child just sat with cats bum lips, annoyed that someone had “accused” her child of something that was undeniably happening. You can’t trust parents like this, you just have to remove your own child from the danger.

End the friendship, your life would be better for it.

It doesn't Matter why he's behaving the way he is, your friend isn't parenting him.

I had this with a friend. I listened to her meekly tell her child off ...come on D, we use gentle hands... while sitting there like a pathetic wet lettuce while her 6 year old had his hands on my son's neck.

I very firmly told him off and we left the activity. I changed our schedule so we wouldn't be in contact any longer. It's not the child's behaviour particularly, but the way some parents are so pathetic in dealing with it.

That doesn't sound normal for a 3yo, an occasional toy snatch maybe, but the violence is strange as well as horrible. Lots of little kids love babies, showing them toys or giving a hug etc. The car tantrum sounds similarly out of control, and the mother sounds totally ineffective. I would keep the baby away from now on. It may be just that he is searching for boundaries and getting frustrated that the mum doesn't have any, or he may have other issues. Either way, you can't protect the baby if the mother won't even try to parent him.

It isn't just on holiday this has happened. Well the throwing things hasn't happened before but he has threatened to kick my baby and always does sly little things like pretending to put a blanket on him to keep him warm and actually slamming it down on him, hurting him, lying on the settee beside us 'accidentally' moving his legs but actually kicking my baby....etc.

Hmmm right, so the throwing things hasn’t happened before but all the above has?! I wouldn’t have set foot on holiday with them!

Was it just the two of you adults?

You're doing the right thing getting out of there!
I can't believe the mum doesn't pull him away.
How has it all gone down amongst the group with you leaving?
Do all the other mums know why?

Jesus you have the patient of a saint.

Instinctively I would have bollocked him if his Mum didn't. What three year old throws things at a baby (especially if not their sister!) They know that is wrong. He needs to be told.

Unfortunately for Mum playing nicey nicey isn't your job. Your job is protecting your child. Well done for leaving.

@Curiosity101 if by:

"I guess they're all on a spectrum so some are probably more chilled than others"

If you're referring to the autism spectrum, then no. They are not all on it at all. Only autistic people are on the autism spectrum. Neurotypical individuals may share some common traits with autistic individuals as a result of them being common human being traits. This does not mean neurotypical individuals are also somewhere 'on the spectrum'.

Anyway, I digress.

OP I think you need to consider how much you value this friendship. If it's not highly then yep, go home and bin it off. Job done and you don't need to worry about this in future.

If you do value it highly it's probably a better course of action to sit down without the children when you've both calmed down and have a sensitive but frank conversation with your friend about how you're sorry that her feelings were hurt (and I'd expect her to apologise to you too) but that you cannot allow her child to behave like that with/around your baby.

I think the three year olds behaviour is in the realms of normal (having raised two of them and also having worked with early years children with have additional needs). Three year olds are barely out of infanthood. Some three year olds are delights who are more able to be compliant and well behaved and others are absolute rogues. They have pretty much zero impulse control still, poor ability to regulate their emotions/responses and as a result some are still prone so some really quite horrible behaviour. Hence 'threenager'! It is normal. What does need to happen at this age though is firm boundaries and repeated (/'d repeated, and repeated again!) correction of poor behaviour. None of this wasn't washy 'no dear' nonsense.

He wants attention yes of course he does it's their lifeblood at this age! 'Just give it' isn't the answer either actually, they need the correct sort of attention but to a three year old, any attention is good! So it needs to directed depending on the circumstances. If he's acting out because he's bored (and even the nicest three year old will do this) then yep it's the parents job to stop the boredom, which will stop the behaviour of it's not already escalated to a point of no return.

If you were minded to stay, or see this friend in the future then it would, for me, be on the condition that if he starts to do anything even remotely negative towards the baby that he is stopped, moved away, firmly corrected etc every single time.

As others have said, the problem isn't really with the child's behaviour - aside from the fact that it could injure of course - it's with your friends ineffective parenting. You shouldn't be in a position where you need to be telling him off. She should be doing that and if she doesn't so you have to, well that's unfortunate.

I do think though as you do not yet know just how bloody soul destroying and exhausting three year olds can be you should just take a step back, calm down and have a think before you flip out and take yourselves home. Your friend may well be at her wits end with his behaviour and although that obviously is no excuse for letting him behave in a way that could injure without prompt intervention and correction, it does explain why she might be giving in for an easier life. It's very easy to look at three year olds like huge, germy, rough monsters when your baby if so tiny and defenceless and it does make you sensitive to danger etc. When your child is three they'll still seem like a dinky little doll to you and you won't understand why parents of tiny babies at sat for example a soft play centre, are wary of them. You think you'll remember, but when it comes to your own three year old, you won't!

Having dealt with a v difficult 3 yr old (now with an asd diagnosis) yanbu. His mother needs to supervise him more and remove him when he starts throwing etc. Yes, it's exhausting to have to do that and it makes for a rubbish holiday but it's her job to make sure her kid isn't hurting anyone.

@oddoneoutalways I wasn't (see above). Just referring to how behaviour is a spectrum, ie. There is a wide range of normal behaviour.