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.

@Twinkletwinklelil do you think no one said anything because your baby was right there. At the end hen do? Didn't it change the vibe? Or was it ok because you couldn't leave your baby and so they became the centre of attention on your best friends hen do?

I’m not sure if you’ve even read the thread but OP was not even expecting her to come - and especially not bring the baby - at the friends request ….

I think the simple answer is she misses the hen do and she is being selfish to insist anything otherwise. The only options are 1) she comes and leaves baby. 2) she doesn’t come. I wouldn’t be happy to attend a “baby friendly” hen do if I was paying lots of money to go and having to leave my own kids at home!

Your friend is being an idiot.
An entitled “I’m the first woman to ever push out a baby” type of idiot.
Sorry to be blunt.
id be telling her quite frankly that she can’t come then if her baby is just so much more special than all the other women that go on hen dos ALL the time and manage to arrange childcare 🤦🏻‍♀️
I also wouldn’t have her as my maid of honour anymore either if I’m being completely honest. She’ll probably want to carry her baby up the aisle with her too

How is the Op being selfish?

I breastfed and went to a hen for 1 night when he was 10 weeks, I pumped in the loo. BUT it was a 2 hr drive, I'm not sure how I would have felt about a flight, all be it a very short one.

I think it's a bit unfair of her to ask for your hen to changed to suit her. If I was in her position I'd either go and leave baby with dad. Or bow out and take you up on your offer for you to come to Dublin for a meet the baby/ mini hen.

I do get that she probably feels left out, she's the 1st with a baby and have moved away from home, that's difficult but still I wouldn't go changing your hen.

Yeah I've been to a hen do with a baby and it was pointless. The bride and the maid of honour kept wandering off to find baby friendly things to go and eat so we all just left In the end.

The friend hasn't even had the baby, she's in the early stages of pregnancy. OP is accepting that she might not be able to come, but friend wants to come and bring (unborn) baby. Did you even read the thread or did you just want to call OP names?

This is the only option that would work.

It will be so much easier for you to go to her & have a catch up.

With the best will in the world the baby isn't even here yet so what she wants to do /feels she can do could easily change.

Even if you said for example you'd do an afternoon tea that baby could come to she's probably still going to be distracted & the other women might feel that they "rein it in a bit".

You can't have a baby at a hen party! I should know - I've been attending hen parties since I was 10 (DON'T ASK!) and none of the ones I've been to would have coped with a baby there.
(Do we know the sex of the baby anyway?)

I took my 2 mo to a hen do afternoon tea. The bride had an older daughter of her own and this was an event planned for those who wouldn't want to join the big night out hen, eg brides daughter, mob and her friend etc, so it wasn't awkward. Luckily it was in a private room with plenty of space for the buggy and ds actually slept through most of it. I was lucky with that though. If anything less baby friendly was planned I wouldn't have gone as I couldn't have left him for more than an hour or so at that stage, as he refused a bottle and was unpredictable in feeding. Also because I was local I could just have left if he was crying etc and disrupting things, so it was worth the risk . I wouldn't have travelled for it.

Would she be coming back to Bristol to see other friends or family too? If so I would try and include a small bit of the day they could come to, e.g coffee, afternoon tea (it won't hurt you if the baby gets a bit of attention surely!). But not encourage her to come over just for your hen as you'd feel obliged to make too much of it baby friendly then.

if she is breast feeding she won't want to leave her, I certainly wouldn't leave a baby that small.
Whether its ok to bring the baby depends what you are planning to do. My DD went to a hen weekend where there were two babies in slings (one was hers). They didn't go to the night club part of the hen party but did go to the other more sedate parts,

Yes, 3 months would be too young for most Mums and if the baby is EBF it's completely impossible. If you don't want the baby there then you'll have to accept she can't come.

bride doesnt want a baby there and i oubt anyone else going will either!

i thhin it a bit cf to ask to change an even just to suit a baby

I've been on hen dos with children and pregnant brides too. It's perfectly possible to do. But it's your hen do and you don't have to accommodate her if you don't want to.

I’d compromise with a baby friendly event during the day - afternoon tea, so she can attend part of day, or she’s with you for lunch. Then the child free hens can go and enjoy the rest if the day with more lively activities.

I can understand why she wouldn’t want to leave her baby at such a young age.

My baby was 2 months old at my friends hen do. My husband travelled down for the day with me and basically popped in so I could feed the baby.
I fed them in the morning, then went out for lunch for the hen do, my husband came by at the end of lunch so I could feed the baby. We did an activity then went back to a friends house for pre drinks where my husband brought the baby so I could feed her again. He stayed in the hosts bedroom while she napped and then when the girls went for the night out, I went home with my husband and baby. (I had planned to go out for a few hours but I was absolutely drained)
So it is possible but it relies on everyone to be motivated to compromise to be able to include the mum. Reading these responses I'm feeling really grateful to my friend. We (bridesmaids) organised the hen for her and only chose activities we thought she'd enjoy but the location was driveable from my home for the day and the pre drinks at a local friends house made it more possible for me to be involved for the whole day.
Incidentally she was the only one of my friends who didn't live close enough to have met my baby yet and she was so excited to meet her for the first time even if it was at her hen party. She's so lovely!
Maybe you could ask if the husband could travel too? As if my friend hadn't wanted to see the baby at all, I could have made it work that I went away from the group to feed her. My husband was super accommodating though, following us round with the baby but not being with us. Without my husband's and all my friends support it probably wouldn't have been possible.
I would never have left my 3 month old at home without me though, especially not overnight whilst I was in another country. Not for any reason. So you need to make it clear that you 100% don't expect that of her.
Before I had my baby I was desperate to make these sorts of things work, but once you have the baby, you realise that some things just aren't possible, but you don't know that until it happens and depends on birth, baby's temperament etc.
I would have missed a friends wedding at 9 months if I couldn't take my baby, or had to do a similar thing with my husband being nearby so I could go out and feed but I would probably leave early.

IMHO you are being unreasonable expecting her to leave her baby. I never left mine overnight until much older, because I didn’t want to, partly because I was breastfeeding. I wouldn’t want to be overseas without them, in case anything happened. Appreciate other mothers feel differently.

Can’t a compromise be struck whereby she and her DP come over from Dublin and stay in a holiday rental or with family/friends? Then, she can leave her baby for a few hours for both daytime and evening activities, but still be able to be with him/her the rest of the time and know they’re close by.

Why are you having the hen do 6 months before the wedding?

The simple solution is to have the hen do much closer to the wedding- even it’s a month before, the baby will be 8 months old and much easier to leave with the dad for a weekend.

Ridiculous. The only rational solution is that she skips the hen do. Hopefully the two of you will have a lifetime of other events together. This is just one evening.

Don't make your other friends subject to a baby-friendly hen do. Have some consideration for them.

Omg the people calling bride a bridezilla or questioning why OP won’t accommodate the 3 month old.

This is brides hen do, she’s not being unreasonable not wanting a small baby there. This is your day. You’re allowed to be “selfish”

Friend is cheeky asking if baby can come and to make it baby friendly. Sorry but she is, I would never expect friends to change their hen do / wedding for me.

I wouldn’t even be offended if someone invited me to childfree wedding. I’d understand it’s their wedding and either decline if I had no childcare or leave DS with someone to attend.

I think your the one being unreasonable not even bothering to read the thread, the Op.has repeatedly said she doesn't expect her friend to come to the hen night
It was the friend who wanted to ro come with the baby

90% of mums wouldn’t want to leave a 3month old.

Life changes when you have children. That's a fact. It's unfair on the other participants as well!