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.

Dear op, cut the contract with this friend of yours, her son is out of control and she's denial about it and trust me it's gonna be worse and worse.
I'm taking from my own experience- my friend's son used to be like that, violent and bullying towards other children, she was in pure denial about that and thought that her son is just the most perfect boy in the whole world, her son had a plenty behavioural issues that continued even in the school, once he bite mo son that much it left horrible dark bruise on his arm for two weeks- when I address it with her later, she was very annoyed at me and just said "He said sorry to your son, so what else you want from me?"

Honestly such a friendship doesn't have a future and you gonna be pissed more and more at her for her laid back parenting imo.
I wouldn't waste my time anymore be in your position op.🌻

This isn't normal, imo. She's not intervening sharply enough. Simply saying, "No, don't," with no consequences if he continues to disobey the rules clearly isn't working. He has to know that if he doesn't do as he's told, there will be consequences. Usually this means he's removed from the situation, his attention redirected, etc.

I'd see this friend less until her child is better behaved. It's nonsense to say that a child that age can't control themselves. They can. If he's clever enough to come up with sly ways to try to hurt your baby "under the radar", then he knows that what he's doing is not allowed. He's intelligent enough to know that he's getting away with it, since his mum won't actually stop him. His mother should be intervening more often and coming up with ways to stop him, not just making the minimum effort and sitting back and letting him misbehave.

YANBU. I have got a 3 year old boy who is being a bit of a rascal at the moment (cutting stuff up with scissors, drawing on things, eating ALL of the chocolate when we are out of the room). He doesn't generally get physical with others though, except his older brother, but he has recently hit and bit him when he's been annoyed at him. Although I think it's quite typical behaviour for this age, (he is learning about boundaries, he doesn't have the vocab to fully express himself, he wants attention, etc), we do not ever let this or any physical, hurty behaviour pass by and make sure he gets sat down, we explain that we don't hit or throw metal cars for e.g., we use our words and show him how much he has hurt or could potentially hurt others if he does it again. He has never done the likes of what you are describing but if he did, I would remove him and make sure I kept him away from the other child/baby, as well as being apologetic to the other family, and show examples of kindness towards the baby, so he knew how to behave towards it. If this boys parents don't teach him that this type of behaviour is unacceptable, who do they expect will teach him?
I would probably leave too and would give this family a wide berth for the time being or generally.

The mother's responses are shocking. What she SHOULD have done, is the very first time her son threw something at your baby she should have intervened physically, removed any missiles from his hands, removed him from the baby's reach, with a firm warning that if he so much as thinks about doing it again he’ll be removed from the room. Then follow through with it. And keep following through for as long as he keeps trying it. Hurting much younger children deliberately should be a firm boundary, an “absolute no", not a wishy-washy “aw poppet, don’t do that… no, I said no didn’t I… come on…”

It is normal for toddlers to have poor impulse control, but the woeful parenting is telling him it’s acceptable (or at least not that bad), which is why he is continuing the behaviour and escalating.

Your friend’s response to you leaving is equally disappointing. Most parents would be absolutely mortified if their friend had to leave a holiday early due to their own child making it unsafe for her baby. But she just seems to think it’s normal. She should be embarrassed.

Your response to her saying you were nipping at her son should have been “well someone had to because you obviously weren’t going to bother parenting your kid, were you?” (Not actually suggesting you say that, unless you don’t care about the friendship).

I've had to end a friendship where the mother apparently couldn't see her child attacking my kids right in front of her. It happened repeatedly until I just opted out. Her kids were notorious at the local school.

I am slightly uncomfortable with the way some posters are talking about a 3 year old child. Not sure it’s even relevant whether the behaviour is ‘normal’ ( whatever that even means for a 3 year old)
The issue is completely with the parent, who should be parenting the child and ensuring he doesn’t hurt your baby.

Yanbu. Yes 3 year olds get jealous and behave anti socially, but it's our job to stop them hurting others

Yanbu I would have already torn her a new one cheeky cow.

I have a very strong-willed toddler and a young baby. When the toddler has occasionally tried to hurt the baby because she's frustrated (mainly hitting), it's been a very strong abd clear 'No, no hitting!' and I immediately move the baby away. DH and I have both made clear that hurting the baby is not acceptable and now we have very rare incidents with this.

The toddler's parents are 100% responsible for making sure that he doesn't hurt other children, never mind a little baby. You can make some allowance s for toddler tantrums etc, but not for any kind of violence.

Isn’t this thread interesting the very differing attitudes of parents on here with regard to their 3 year old and the expectation of their behaviour and impulses. It would be so interesting to see what these 3 year olds are like as 7, 10, 13 etc year olds and see what the different parenting styles have brought forth!

This.

You are far too nice.

Get angry.

Bin her off. She's an asshole.

Hi, I've glanced through the thread, and the 1st thing I thought was what was your relationship like with 'Paul' before your baby arrived? Were you by any chance very involved like an aunty type figure, taking out, playing, treats ect. I ask, because his behaviour to your baby reads more like sibling rivalry than anything else. My husband and I struggled to have our children and were in a similar position with a friend's little girl when our daughter arrived, she was also the youngest in her own family and because our relationship had changed she was initially very jealous of our daughter. All is fine now and the children (barring our baby boy 3months too) romp around together having a fab time all together!

I have a 3 year old. Pushes boundaries as they all do. But he would absolutely not get away with that behaviour. No chance. He would have 1 opportunity to apologise and stop what he’s doing before there is consequences (no sweet/toy taken away). He’s very sweet around babies thankfully. But I’d have kept a close eye incase any jealous behaviour erupted and it’s putting a baby (or another person) at risk of injury.

It is not the behaviour of EVERY 3 yo but it's not abnormal behaviour. He is acting out his feelings, he doesn't have full control of his behaviour therefore his parents need to help him.

The mum is a dick.

YRNBU Basically good parenting is getting off your arse. Some toddlers demand more time off your arse than others. I’ve seen poor parenting which amounts to distant whining at them, interspersed with food treats. It doesn’t end well-I know young adults who have virtually zero self esteem and parents STILL don’t get off their backsides to help them move on.

Her allowing him to be throwing stuff at your back while you try to protect your child? OMG! I would have gone home at that point and told her to get to fuck on the way out the door.

You should have told tw* parent and child to f** off from the first instance.
Took you far too long to grow a backbone.
Thankfully for your baby you've done it now.

Lob the control at tw** senior's head on your way out of the house.

Parents being afraid of their kids, like yours clearly is of hers, means that a generation of monsters is being moulded.
Would the OP have been allowed to use "reasonable force" in this instance to protect her baby? Any lawyers out there?

Paul's mum should be dealing with his behaviour though, absolutely. You were very patient with him. Is he their last baby? I wonder if that's why his Mum was snippy with you. You showed her, inadvertantly that he is not a baby anymore and his behaviour needs addressing and of course you have a baby boy, so maybe it highlighted it for her. She should apologise though

My 3 year old would never be allowed to behave like that. Anything she had done would have been dealt with there and then.

I think mum needs to give this kid a bollocking.

I have no idea why my comment got deleted by mumsnet??

It was nowhere near as bad as some of the posters on here

You are not at all unreasonable.

It is a parents job to step in if their child is doing things that hurt others.

Really step in, not that pathetic whine of "don't doooo that darling" followed by fuck all actual parenting.

I wouldn't care why the 3 year old was doing it or what excuses his mother had, I'd protect my baby and never allow him/her in hitting distance of the three year old again.

This reminds me of a friend that didn't have a baby naturally for 10 years and I'm sure underwent IVF and a donor egg finally.
This is relevant.
This friend was the most sensible of all of us.
I met her child when the child was 5-7 years old - can't remember what age exactly.
This kid was so badly behaved, I couldn't believe that this sensible friend was such a rubbish parent.
The other friends who were a bit dopey, carefree, risk takers - their kids were so well behaved.
I was in shock how this woman could allow her kid to throw stuff at people.
(Threw a hard ball at me, I noticed it, but didn't move fast enough, hit my head instead of my nose luckily)

I can only think that she was so desperate for a kid that now this kid is allowed to do whatever.

I really hope I don't become weak and pathetic even though I am desperate for a baby too.