To think you should leave the room with your screaming baby?

[reventiania]

DS nativity today, 120 kids in the performance.

Throughout 75% of it, there were two babies (aged around 12 months) that were screaming and crying. It made it impossible to hear what the children were saying, and it essentially ruined the whole thing.

AIBU to think they should have left the room with them? I'm so cross for the children as they've worked so hard, just for crying babies to drown out their voices.

Yes, absolutely they should.

From the title I was ready to say YABU but given the circumstances yes I completely agree with you it’s very unfair on the children.

Yes they should and the teachers should have asked them to leave

Yes, you should leave if your baby starts screaming. It happened at one of our school plays and eventually the head teacher stopped the performance and politely asked the parent to leave. Harsh but fair.

Yes, so unfair, all the children worked hard all term and nobody could hear them!

I have a baby and I would 100% have left the room in this scenario!

When my children were small they used to have 2 separate performances, and siblings ( assume the babies were siblings) were only allowed at one.
It was still pretty demoralising for the children performing that for much of one performance no one could hear the lines they had spent so long learning, but at least the second was more successful.

Agreed. I don't object to a child's noise or unacceptable behaviour, but do object to a parent not acting to reduce it.

I mostly agree with you but…if it’s a nativity then I’m guessing reception age at the oldest? If this is the case then I can imagine it being very upsetting for the child whose mum/dad left the room with the baby…particularly if there wasn’t another parent/grandparent there to watch so although I would leave, I can also see why some wouldn’t want to.

I thought you were going to say they were newborns! Babies have a well developed pair of lungs at 12 months and should absolutely have been taken out.

Our HT always used to say, before the performance ‘if a little one gets upset or unsettled, please don’t worry about taking them out - take them out, settle them, and then come back’.
Worked perfectly! People took the hint, and because it was given in advance it didn’t hurt either

Yanbu

Came to basically say this. Yes, I'd have left and I don't think it's fair on the kids / other parents, BUT I'd feel really sorry for the parent having to leave and miss out on their eldest child's nativity. They would be upset and so would the child.

At DD's nativity today (Year 1), the headteacher made a point of saying in her welcome speech that if younger siblings got unsettled they should be taken out.

To be fair it wasn't an issue today...the guy behind who took a phone call during the show was a different matter 🙄

I've been there when someone else's baby was screaming during their older child's performance. They took the baby outside for a bit, but it hit their older DC's confidence massively.

If the family dynamic is already stretched at home due to a new baby I'm not sure I would want older DC feeling pushed aside by the younger again.

No one chooses to make their child cry.

YABU.

Yes, get the school to put a note in the reminder email next year

Better than upsetting the entire class and all parents though!

That is really frustrating and rude of them not to have taken them out. Our school doesn’t allow siblings at concerts to stop them detracting from the child you’re there to see, it works really well

I am pretty sure babies and toddlers weren't allowed at the evening performance when mine were little.

YANBU it's selfish. We always had someone recording or waving a camera about despite being told that it wasn't allowed. Some people just don't think about anyone else.

This is wrong.

The feelings of one child who is a disappointed sibling do not trump every other child in the nativity, and the teachers who’ve worked hard, and the parents watching.

I don’t care if your “family dynamic is stretched” or your older DC is feeling pushed aside. All the other children will be very upset and put-off having a baby scream over their lines. Just take the baby out of the room.

Also as humans we are programmed to be disturbed by a baby crying so it’s a difficult noise to tune out.

Wow that must have been an epic performance. Kudos to the teachers!
and yes the parents should have taken the babies out.

Yanbu. We did our nativity today one baby got a bit grizzly so her dad took her out. It’s the only sensible thing to do if you have to take baby with you.

Yep. I took baby dd to her big brothers nativity and thankfully she was silent throughout but me and dh had an agreement from the outset that if she started to cry I'd fuck off with her in my arms immediately!

She's a toddler now and ds' year 2 xmas singing is next week. The same courtesy applies, if she has a tantrum or whatever she is gone!

Agree with you OP - & would remove DC if they were like that in any performance.

But on another point - were all 120 kids in the same performance?? How do you even do that? Were there multiple Mary's?
Our school has less than 50 in total - so all performances require each child to take part or even have multiple parts.