AIBU to be upset by Mamas & Papas Staff

[SammieJean]

The other day DH and I ordered a Doona Nitro car seat/stroller as it’s compact enough for me to manage by myself. It’s very early days, still first trimester, but we wanted to make the most of the brand having a sale.

Yesterday I was in Mamas & Papas for a look around and I got chatting to a woman who works there about items we’d bought/were thinking of. I mentioned that we’d just bought the Doona and she started talking about how dangerous that model would be for my baby - that I should instead buy one of their travel systems (keeping in mind these are over a grand!)

I guess I just want to know if I’m being unreasonable to be upset by this? I’m aware that my hormones are going crazy at the moment, and I’m a FTM so I have no idea what I’m doing.

But it felt very much like she was trying to scare me in order to make an expensive sale. It half worked — I’m very scared that the model we chose is going to harm the baby, but it didn’t make me want to buy anything from there!

What an absolutely vile comment.

What the fucking hell is wrong with you?

Doona's are ideal for the school run (and posing on insta) but not great for anything else and they don't score brilliantly in safety tests. You'd be best placed with a good quality car seat such as a Maxi Cosi and a travel system (you can pick up some great lightly used options 2nd hand). You'll then have best of both worlds as you can click your car seat into the pram wheels if you are just popping into a corner shop or use your pram so baby can lie flat. I actually swapped mine out for a single fold buggy a bit further down the line but I wouldn't have been without in in the first 6 months or so. And of course a carrier is super handy too.

I don't like mamas and papas travel systems as I find them heavy but each to their own! I found going to a large John Lewis really helpful when I was pram shopping.

You really have to wonder don’t you.

I am way past this stage so I have no idea what the Doona is like but why the vitriol? Surely if it's sold here it must pass all safety regulations. Why the hate? People seem to react like it's worse than feeding babies marbles

Ooh do we finally have sometime from the 'I had one and couldn't see the point of it' group (of one), or are you another who hasn't ever had one, hasn't even used one, but somehow had an option on how useful they are?

By all means, say you don't like them on the ground of safety, or price, or because you don't like that they can't recline. But as to how good they actually function, maybe that's something for those of us that actually have experience of then functioning.

I don't use Instagram and my Doona has never been in a school run. It's been on pretty much every form of transport though, been on sand, off the track in forests, cities and was an amazing every day workhorse for almost 4 years.

It also meant I could keep my children parent facing for 18m, whilst also being light and manoeuvrable with one hand.

I mean yeah I left the house but I was so sleep deprived I wasn’t really functional. I definitely wasn’t breezily nipping to shops and every outing for definitely the first couple of months involved starting about one hour in advance so baby could feed, then nappy change for inevitable poo, then get everything else together, probable change baby’s clothes if there was a boke etc.

Boomtastic you need to work for Doona.

Also shouldn’t they face outward when old enough to take an interest?

Frankly, they made my life so much easier in those few years, I'd happily work for them 😂 I don't rave about most products I use in the same way BTW. Just this one.

Re forward facing, traditionally it's been about 6m, but now many parents keep them parent facing for upto 2 years. It's really good for their speech and social development as there's a lot more interaction.

The research backs this up - mums of babies (between 9-24m in the study) were more likely to speak to their babies/toddlers when parent facing, and their heart rates were lower and they slept better, possibly indicating greater contentment.

My 5yo still uses a stroller sometimes (mobility issues) and it's so hard to have a conversation with her whilst on the move, compared with when she was parent facing in the doona. It wouldn't be appropriate at her age to have her parent facing, but I feel I stop every 30 seconds to get her to repeat something. I can only imagine how frustrating that would be for both parent and child with a toddler learning to talk.

Baby number 1 born in warm spring - started venturing out after about a week and was doing short walks most days.

Baby number 2 born in the middle of a cold, wet winter - I come from a culture that has a 40 day confinement period after you give birth. Well I duly followed that, popping out only when absolutely needed!

Lol. Just the one child? By the time my 3rd was born eldest two were at 2 different schools and I was working after 2 weeks as self employed. Also needed to do shopping , take elder 2 to clubs etc. and he was born mid November so all Xmas stuff to do lol

Really wouldn't have have time to afford about for ages before going anywhere

When my son was born prematurely, Iade the mistake of letting my husband pick the pram/pushchair/travel system. He bought this MASSIVE one, and due to the weird layout of the house we lived in then, when it was in pram mode it didn't fit through the bloody front door! I had to take the carrycot bit in separately, then bring the frame in. If the baby was asleep when I got in, it was an absolute pain in the arse!

Email the head office asking them to verify these claims!

What? Why? The claims are true. Those car seat prams are not safe, definitely not for using for the majority of trips and the OP sounds like she plans to use it anytime her husband can’t come out with her.

The OP has bought an unsafe product. It’s legal because the say on it that it shouldn’t be used for more than a short period of time, short trips only etc. But we’ve all seen them being used on day trips. Not safe.

First baby I stuffed about for ages before going anywhere. Thereafter got wise and had my mum come for first weeks so I wasn’t dragging them out in cold during nursery runs. I also wasn’t super keen on carting mine about before fully vaccinated. Pram definitely became more used from about two months .

I have a Doona and it’s been a godsend. I use it in the same way you would a car seat in a travel system. We live in a very rural area with no pavements for miles from our house so I bought a second hand off terrain pram for walks around the lanes and fields, and use the Doona when I go in the car and want to pop into the post office, or short walk from the car park to babygroup etc. It just didn’t make sense for us to spend upwards of a thousand pounds on a travel system we would never use. As long as you stick to the time limits you’re fine. Ignore those who criticise- they don’t know your circumstances and will just jump on the anti Doona bandwagon.

Glad you find it funny. Of course we adapt
to our circumstances. I’m pleased for you that you are so greatly competent and wonderful at motherhood. I struggled. Why is that lol-worthy?

I know I’m double posting but I’m just so incensed by your smugness.

”what, ha ha, did you find it overwhelming ha ha, imagine that, you should be more like me and get all this stuff done, ha ha”.

this is like when my sister in law told me that I should drive 1h to see her with a newborn because “she never let babies or tiredness get in the way of living my life”. Way to kick me when I’m down, and I’ll never forget how she made me feel. Prob why I’m so triggered by you being all smugly competent and getting the oar in because I was too sleep deprived and mentally drained to pop and nip and breezily shop.

They are not safe car seats and it’s not good for new borns to be in a seat for longer than 30 mins at a time really. They should be laying flat.

if you join car seat safety uk on Facebook you can get good advice about safe care seats.

It isn’t lol- worthy Queen: just ignore the boasters. Tbh that way of nurturing a newborn isn’t even something I’d aspire to.

I drove over 400 miles a few days after I had 2 of my children and they were in a car seat for about 8 hours off an on, the only time they were not in a car seat was when I was feeding or changing them, don't pay too much attention to 30 minutes.

just going into my second trimester and all I bought was a book for First times mums…. Not helpful I know..

It's hardly a case of being smug it's a case of having no bloody choice. What was the alternative? Not take older ones to school? Not work so have nothing to live in? So come on ms incensed and tell me my options

One option that you did not take is not to laugh at other people who are different from you?

I said that I overestimated the amount of zipping about I would be able to do in the first few months post partum because I felt so awful. You had a good old laugh at me because you had to do the school run and go to work. Would you laugh in my face, or is it just online you mock strangers?

I didn't laugh for heavens sake. Just have a habit of putting lol in most posts. Get over yourself

You still haven't managed to say what else I should've done. Feeling a bit rough or not if the situation calls for it you would have to do this stuff . Hence why I asked first baby. Most second time ( or mare ) parents still have to get on with normal routines for other kids

i am not saying you should have done anything else, at no stage did I criticise what you did.

i said - I overestimated the amount I would feel able to get out and about in the early months.

you replied saying “lol” several times.
I was annoyed that you were laughing at me for not feeling able to get out and about, because you had to, so it was funny that I couldn’t?

And now you are annoyed that I thought “lol” meant “laugh out loud”. (Which it does).

to resume:

you think it is ridiculous that I found looking after a newborn for the first time ever difficult, because other people have more than one child. even though the OP is having her first child so will not have other children to force her out.