Infant at a hen do

[BrislingtonCat]

We are in our late 20s and I have recently got engaged, and I don’t have children yet. My oldest and closest friend has just told me that she’s pregnant. She also moved to Dublin with her husband for their work.

She is a co-MOH. The current plan is for the hen to be a night out in Bristol (where I live and where she is from), and I believe my other MOH is planning some sort of activity during the day as well. None of my other friends have children.

Her child will be 3 months by the time we have the hen do, and she has said she cannot come unless the baby can come too. I feel strongly that a hen do is no place for a child, but I also desperately want her to be there as I so rarely get to see her given she has moved abroad.

so I am turning to the mums out there! Is 3m too young to leave and AIBU by telling her that her baby cannot come? I understand if that means she cannot come at all and would respect that.

So you've now admitted you know nothing about what you're talking about if you've only ever been to one hen in your life?

You seem to be doing a lot of extrapolating from the fact that none of your super cool feminist friends have got married = everyone who does get married and participates in associated traditional activities like a hen party is some sort of boring 1950s Stepford wife, whereas several of the 'hen do's I've been on have been for gay marriages, some were joint bride and groom's friends together, one was a pagan wedding...

You also seem to assume because the ONE hen do you have been seems to have consisted of tea and cakes in the afternoon then that's what they all are and therefore OF COURSE there's no issue with bringing a baby.

Off the top of my head the 'day' part of the various hen dos I have been on included:
cocktail making class (in bar, no
nude model drawing
city wide treasure hunt
escape room
comedy club
outdoor obstacle course
white water rafting/coasteering
circus skills class
theatre trip
salsa dancing class
spa (16 plus)
Can you see NOW why these activities aren't suitable for a baby?

You still compared the two things. Having a "feeling" doesn't make it real. I could say something ridiculous like I feel being blonde is as discriminated against as being Muslim, it's still offensive!

I'm also confused now that you've said you don't personally have any experience of being excluded from hen do's what exactly your feels of being discriminated against as a breastfeeding mother come from? What were you actually excluded from? Because in my experience for the comparatively short time most women breastfeed there are hardly any things they are excluded from that they would want to do 3 months post partum - it's not like most groups of friends are doing things from the list above on a weekly basis, which is why people like to do something special, different, and above all WITHOUT KIDS on a hen party, to mark the occasion!

It's the fact that the poster who keeps asking that has since confirmed she didn't have a hen do, none of her friends had hen dos and she's only every been to one, for me.

I've never been to a motorsport rally/safari/midnight mass so personally I wouldn't be arrogant enough to jump on a thread about them and provide my expert opinion about whether they are/are not suitable events to take small children to, but hey...

I explicitly said being a breastfeeding mother isn’t a disability but it can feel just as exclusionary.

What a disgusting, ill thought out comment.

My 4 month old niece came to my hen do. We were having a weekend away on Glasgow (2hrs from me/my sister’s home) and she was EBF. My sister expressed with the intention of leaving her but for the month before she point blank refused a bottle so my sister wasn’t comfortable leaving her.

We had a meal/cocktails at TGI one night, cake decorating and a MU artist to get us dolled up for going out, we did cocktail making in a private venue that allowed my sister to bring my niece then a meal/karaoke, again private room. After that my sister took the baby back to the hotel and we all went on to a gin bar then a nightclub.

It was an absolutely brilliant weekend and if anything having my niece there made it better. She had a sash on her pram that said Flowergirl and we had her a baby grow made with ‘little chick’ on it. Babies might change the dynamic, but not necessarily for the worse. You might have to accept that your MOH will probably ‘retire’ for the night reasonably early. Although, she’ll have a 3 month old, whether or not baby is with her, so she’ll probably be done by 10pm anyway!

If it’s important to you that she’s there, don’t let baby coming put you off. It was more important to me to have my sister there than to say no babies and in the end it worked out!

What you’re saying is contradictory so yeah, sorry, it’s unreasonable. Though I appreciate why - you’re not a parent (or parent-to-be) so can’t understand. It’s defo one of those IYKYK things. Regardless of how the baby ends up being fed, leaving a three month old overnight is rare/unlikely. A breastfed baby defo can’t be with anyone else as, to support supply regulation and establish BF, it’s best to avoid bottles and baby won’t take one from Dad. People often think a baby will just a have a bottle. Ha! No chance. Your friend is probably expecting a heck of a lot of exclusion if she’s one of the first among you to become a mummy; plus she’s also about to enter a whole world of potential loneliness because dealing with a newborn is HARD AF. So, if you want your friend there, she comes with a baby. That’s the new ‘terms and conditions’ of your friendship with her, until she gets a bit more liberation back - and even then, you can’t put a timeline on that. She can get involved with the bits that are suitable and leave you girls to the more ‘disorderly’ fun stuff without cramping your Hen vibe, I’m sure. Years down the line, how do you want to feel about your friendship?

Neither of you are being unreasonable, I wouldn't want a baby on a night out in a big city for my hen do either and its totally ok for you to want that. Also, no way would I fly abroad and be away overnight from a 3 mth old, i dont think thats an unreasonable thing for her to stick to her guns on.

So... decide what you want to do. You could;
Not have her come on the hen do at all.
Arrange something separate with her and the baby on a different day (afternoon tea etc).
Postpone till after the wedding as a sort of newly wed night out (sounds mad, but did this with a friend for covid reasons and it was awesome as we could discuss honeymoon etc).
Accept it is annoying and let her bring the baby and arrange things around this.

Unfortunately, you can't have your night out in Bristol and expect her to be there baby free, sorry it won't be exactly how you planned, so you'll have to accept some form of compromise on it (whether that's enjoying it exactly as you planned but without her, or altering the way it is to work for her and the baby is up to you).

why are you responding as though OP expects her to be there baby free?
She said in her OP and in her subsequent post that when she found out friend wasn't pregnant her assumption was that friend wouldn't be able to come, and although that was a shame she was perfectly fine with that. She's also already tried your compromise of saying she would come and do something special with friend, and friend has shut that down too because she has FOMO.

It's friend who isn't accepting either come alone/don't come at all and wants to come with baby and have the whole hen do changed to accommodate her, fuck what OP, the friends who have actually spent time and effort arranging it and every other attendee wants to do. It's incredibly selfish of the friend to even ask, let alone keep insisting.

Has she still got family near where you live?

I would suggest to her that she leaves the decision until the baby is here. If she wants to come then do a bottomless brunch type thing in the afternoon that she can bring the baby to. I can’t believe that people are suggesting you should be worried about being upstaged by a baby! You’re not six!

If she is the first to have a baby then I don’t think the other hens will be too bothered. It’s after you have your own kids that you crave child-free time!

Also agree with a previous poster that if you are allowing her baby to the wedding, then make it that all under ones are also allowed. It will cause bad feeling otherwise.

This is so lovely.

Bloody hell, people are not reading!

The mother to be lives in DUBLIN not Dubai.

The mother to be had a hen do, planned by the OP, to her wishes. So the mother to be had the hen do that she wanted!

The OP does NOT EXPECT the mother to be to come, or leave her baby. She appreciates that her friend may not be able to come and wants to organise a separate meet up with her. It’s the MTB that wants to come and asked that the hen plans are changed to be baby friendly, because she has FOMO.

Great that some hen dos consist of afternoon tea but most do not and that is OK! It’s likely a once in a lifetime event, so should be what you want.

Men definitely would never even consider taking a baby on a stag do, and the other stags would probably be appalled at the idea.

When you have a baby, your life changes. I missed many events in the first 6 months of my sons life because my head was up my arse and I had slept about 7 hours total. I’d never ask my friends to change their (definitely not child friendly) plans to involve me.

It's pointless I have pointed these facts out repeatedly, but posters are still msking up their own narrative.

For my sisters hen do one of her friends was breastfeeding and bought baby and hubby along. They stayed at a local hotel and she just popped back to feed then carried on with the hen do. Hubby stayed with baby. No issues no baby in tow.

I often wonder why people don't just start their own threads if they want to make up their own scenarios and provide answers to situations that don't exist...

Not quite. The mother to be is not asking for any plans to be changed. She would like to come to the day time activity which is yet to be confirmed. She is asking if this could be something baby friendly. (See OPs second post.) OP hasn’t actually said what she wants this activity to be so we have no idea whether or not it’s “definitely not child friendly”.

I agree there are many people on this thread who are not reading it properly. You are one of them.

Of course she’s asking it to be changed. Hen dos by default are NOT baby or child friendly. The OP clearly doesn’t have a baby friendly activity or hen do planned otherwise she wouldn’t have written her post. She’s having a massive dilemma because her friend wants to bring her baby to what she sees as an adult only event.
Mother to he has asked can the OP make it baby friendly so she could attend, suggesting it’s not currently planned to be baby friendly.
Babies and kids don’t belong at hen or stag dos.

@Noshowlomo In the first post OP says she believes her other MOH is planning an activity for the day time. You can’t change what hasn’t yet been planned. In her second post she says the mother to be has asked whether this activity could be baby friendly. There are many ways to celebrate a hen do. They don’t have to be “default” anything.

Of course this doesn’t mean the OP has to make it baby friendly, that’s entirely her choice. But it’s ridiculous to say that at least part of it can’t be.

Not necessarily, pumps are a thing!

A lot of these posts are very bitter ‘I missed out when I had a baby, so this new mother should accept missing out too.’ Nice. Personally, I think we should be supporting each other in motherhood, instead of being jealous that we missed out when our babies were small.

Babies this age could easily attend an afternoon event. They mostly sleep, you don’t have to tailor your speech around them (the way you would with a toddler). And you wouldn’t have to explain why the bride to be was wearing a willy hat (if that’s your thing).

At the end of the day the question is ‘does the bride want this friend at the hen do enough to put up with the baby attending?’ It’s her decision & she needs to own it.

I think a lot of posters are missing that she lives in Dublin and the Hen do is in Bristol so it's not easy to just come for the afternoon part of of the hen do ,the friend wants to come to all of it with baby in tow.

I don’t think it’s fair to pull the “we should all be supporting each other in motherhood” card.

OP sounds like a considerate friend - she obviously values this friendship. She has given options all of which the MTB has said no to because she doesn’t want to miss out.

I don’t think pointing out that sometimes you have to miss out on things is a bad lesson for anyone in life. It’s true whether you like it or not. As a parent the MTB will be teaching her children that at some point.

Just because OP has been put in this position doesn’t mean that she won’t support her friend or doesn’t care about her. I would say from the sounds of her post, quite the opposite.

I think a lot of posters are missing that the friend is originally from Bristol, which suggests that she will still have family there. Combining a family visit with an afternoon out with friends sounds quite do-able.

Could you explain why?

Breastfeeding is a choice ,for a relatively short period of time ,having a disability is not a choice and usually life long.

She can't go. Obviously. Just tell her no babies at your hen do, politely.

Not seeing any bitterness just reality that as a parent sometimes you can’t have it all your own way and for a short period of time you might have to miss out on an occasion or two.

Nothing bitter or jealous about adults wanting childfree, adult only events.

The baby isn’t even here yet so mum yo be has absolutely no idea of what an impact this could have on her life around that 3 month mark