Mum on the train

[MumTrain]

Yesterday I was coming home from a day out with DS, aged 3 on the train. We had been out all morning and he was in top form but by the time we got on the train he was understandably tired.

It was a modern train you can walk through with no doors and spacious, wide aisles but still some seats free and no one had to stand.

DS was in the window seat and was standing up so I asked him to sit down and to keep him occupied I gave him my phone to watch a video with on silent so as not to disturb the other passengers. When we were nearly at our stop, I asked for my phone to check the time of our connection and he proceeded to cry as he was watching a cartoon.

A mum who was sat behind me heard all this and came to the aisle, bent down beside us, leaned in. I thought she was going to offer DS a toy or a sweet to cheer him up but instead and said “do you think you could be quiet? My baby is asleep”.

I told her in no uncertain terms that I would not be asking him to stop crying and that we have a baby at home too. She isn’t the first person to have a baby asleep on public transport. She could easily have walked the baby in the buggy further down the train.

AIBU to think that asking a toddler who is crying and having a tantrum to not cry is batshit crazy?

Clearly, not.
Perhaps you don't have experience with toddlers.
They're not usually able to rationalize their behaviour. It's a child acting like a child.

Zombie thread, btw.

To the contrary , I’m currently parenting two toddlers.
the boy didn’t need to be able to “rationalise” his behaviour, he just needed to understand that him making a loud noise might wake a sleeping baby, and that might upset people. My three year old is perfectly capable of understanding that. Of course she doesn’t behave perfectly all the time, and I don’t expect her to, but part of parenting is helping her to learn overtime what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour and the reasons for that (eg impact on others).
If my toddler was behaving like that on a train and a stranger said that to her, most likely it would snap her out of her tantrum- because of the surprise factor. Many other parents on this thread have said the same.
In OPs case we don’t know what affect this intervention had on her tot, as OP didn’t share that, she was entirely wrapped up in her own reaction.

I know it’s a zombie thread- I commented on it at the time, I just felt compelled to respond to your comment.

Zombie

@Tandora I appreciate your perspective. I'm still siding with the mum of the toddler. Too many of us are criticized for our parenting. If someone walked up to me like that saying My baby is sleeping, depending on the day, I might say Lucky you. Mine isn't. I'm more than willing to defend my child. I bet you are, too.

@Mumtobabyhavoc i do agree there’s far too much criticism of parents , and I’d always stick up for my child, of course, but I think where we differ is I don’t think that woman was being critical in any way. If she was criticising mum she surely would have addressed her and asked her to keep her child quiet. I think she understood mum was doing her best and toddler was being a normal toddler , so thought best thing to do was speak directly to the child and give him unknown information (baby is sleeping) and made a direct and polite request (please could you be quiet) . I don’t think what she said was wrong or impolite or intended to be rude/ critical.

Anyways, like you said, zombie thread 😅. Appreciate your perspective too.

This thread is responsible for all the train strikes.

Her problem its life that if your out in public your gonna get inconvenienced by a crying toddler or otherwise. People need to learn to be more tolerant. She needs to get a life.

@Anotherproblem totally agree. But this is child-hating mumsnet. Groups of loud drunken adults otoh are allowed to inconvenience others because they are having a good time.