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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Needed the toilet while shopping with pram… was I unreasonable?

167 replies

feelingbaddd · 22/05/2025 16:22

I was out shopping with my baby earlier today and I feel really bad about a split second decision that I made. I needed the toilet and it was one in a coffee shop where 3 individual toilet cubicles were behind a door with a keypad, so toilet use was customer only. I have been using this coffee shop for 2 years. I am a regular customer and used to get a coffee most days on my commute to work pre mat leave and would chat to the manager every day.

She followed me to the toilet today to unlock the door with the code, and then told me apologetically that the disabled toilet was out of order. I wouldn’t have been able to fit the buggy in the normal cubicle that was available. She offered to wait right outside the toilet with the pram (ie behind the main door, but outside the cubicle). I immediately said yes and thanked her and went to the toilet. At the time I thought nothing of it. I know she has a son of her own and always seems friendly. I could hear her chatting away to my baby the whole time but I have reflected on this since and feel like it was such a poor judgement call. Sure I talk to the woman but I don’t KNOW her personally.

I don’t know where my sense of safety was and I feel so terrible about it, I basically left my child with a stranger! Would anyone else have done the same or was it as bad of me as I am thinking it was?

I might be being dramatic, I am really sleep deprived. I can’t help feeling like a bad mum.

YABU - I wouldn’t have done this
YANBU - nothing wrong with this, forget about it!

OP posts:
Cloudyvibes · 22/05/2025 17:26

Give yourself a break. I would have done the same thing. You left baby with a woman who works in the coffee shop who you have had conversations with over a long period of time.
You never asked a random stranger at the next table to mind your baby.

Think no more of it, your fine you didn’t wet yourself and baby is all good as well. Win win.

TossieFleacake · 22/05/2025 17:28

I had to leave my 6 week old son in the trolley cot along with all my shopping with a complete stranger in Tesco once.

My potty training toddler announced loudly that she needed a poo, I panicked as I knew I couldn't deal with toddler poo while holding my newborn ... a (thankfully) lovely, kind lady overheard and offered to stand with my baby while I took DD to the toilet. I didn't really have much of a choice.

Sometimes you have to make a judgement call and trust that there are some good people left out there.
You didn't do anything wrong.

YellowPostIts · 22/05/2025 17:29

When your baby is a little bit older you are going to tell them, “if you get separated from me in the shop go to the desk and ask a lady to help you”

The reason you will say this is that statistically the risk of a woman hurting a child is really really low.

What you did was not only fine, it was quite sensible and practical.

FancyCatSlave · 22/05/2025 17:31

I had to rush my sick, elderly cat to the vet suddenly when DD was about 6 weeks old. I had to have the cat PTS there and then, DD was crying and I let one of the nurses wheel her around the building (large vet hospital) completely out of sight while I said my goodbyes to Dcat and spoke to vet.

I felt absolutely awful about it afterwards but it was one of those things, I know some of the vet nurse’s personally through a hobby but not the one that looked after DD. It was only for 10 mins max but I did beat myself up about it for a while.

In reality I know that the place is full of CCTV, the staff just all cooed over her and were kind and helpful and nothing bad happened but I get the feeling @feelingbaddd

Natsku · 22/05/2025 17:31

Absolutely fine, the chances that she was going to run off with your baby or something are beyond miniscule.

And its something many of us have had to do at some point, due to toilets not having room for prams. I had to ask a complete stranger, in the waiting room at the doctors to watch my newborn while I went to the loo because there wasn't room to get the pram in. I came out and she was smiling and chatting away at him.

Communitywebbing · 22/05/2025 17:32

She’s not going to assault or kidnap your child with you two feet away and her colleagues and customers right outside. It was a perfectly sensible thing to do.

Lavenderfarmcottage · 22/05/2025 17:33

You’re feeling far too guilty and you need to be more concerned about your level of anxiety and worry. Parenting can’t always be a perfect and risk free thing. It was a few minutes & peeing is a necessity.

Lavenderfarmcottage · 22/05/2025 17:33

I am not saying that to be mean - I just relate to that level of guilt and anxiety and it makes parenting really hard in the long term.

Yes in an ideal world you would do things in the safest and best way but this is not the ideal world and we are not super humans - just tired, exhausted Mums with only a certain amount of resources and doing our best. You made a fine decision and out of necessity - completely normal and fine.

You sound like a wonderful Mum but do take it easy on yourself xxx

SummerIce · 22/05/2025 17:36

Oh OP, I did worse. When DS2 was just 2 months I was at a soft play for the first time ever with DS1, who was 2.5 years old. He was so excited that he ended up having an accident. The stress of him wetting himself in the middle of the floor and holding a baby who had just fallen sleep left me puzzled on what to do. A kind lady with several children of her own held my baby whilst I took DS1 to the bathroom to clean him up and get him changed.

I didn’t know this lady. I had never spoken to her. And I left her holding 2 month old whilst I went off to the bathroom. It was only later in the day that I realised what I had done and felt awful that my son could have been kidnapped.

I wasn’t even a new mum! But every now and then, we have moments where we lose our senses. So we all make silly mistakes sometimes.

But I think really, deep down, you knew you could trust the manager of the cafe and knew your child would be safe. She wasn’t a complete stranger.

H0tLatteHot · 22/05/2025 17:37

In Iceland babies are left outside cafes in the cold to sleep.

Nobody runs off with the children

Hankunamatata · 22/05/2025 17:41

I had to do similar as had 3 under 5. You did nothing wrong op

AndImBrit · 22/05/2025 17:41

You hardly left the baby with her, it sounds like you never more than 2 metres away from the baby and could hear them. What do you think could possibly happen?

It was a perfectly normal, safe and risk assessed thing to do. It’s more saddening that you’re second guessing this now and wouldn’t do it in future.

WhatdoesitmeanKeith · 22/05/2025 17:42

Hi @feelingbaddd I also think that what you did was fine.

I think that her talking to your baby was to be nice, but also to reassure you that she was still there and haven’t wandered off or anything like that.

Neemie · 22/05/2025 17:43

Why are you worried about this? There is virtually zero risk. You’ll put your baby in more danger every time you cross a road or walk down a pavement.

Enthusiasticcarrotgrower · 22/05/2025 17:45

I did this with a nice Granny in M&S once and similarly mulled it over and chastised myself afterwards. But you are a human: what else are you supposed to do?!

She works in the coffee shop. Other people were around. There will be CCTV. Of course it’s not impossible that something terrible could happen but I think less bad than what I did since the old lady was a literal stranger albeit very nice.

dickiedavisthunderthighs · 22/05/2025 17:49

An incredibly famous UK actress literally handed her baby to my sister in law with a "would you mind?" outside the door to the toilets in a cafe in Richmond. We've all been there.

Flipslop · 22/05/2025 17:51

feelingbaddd · 22/05/2025 16:24

I didn’t even hesitate though, which is not like me. I just feel horrendous.

Show quote history

Because your instincts told you it was safe

oustedbymymate · 22/05/2025 17:51

You are over thinking this.

Unlike my DH who when he had both DC for the first time on his own (they were 3 months and 2.5) realised he couldn't fit in a cubical with the pram so left both children outside the toilet block outside on their own Confused

It was only after he was telling me the story he realised how badly that could have ended. He hasn't done it since Grin

EmeraldShamrock000 · 22/05/2025 17:53

You're being dramatic.

knittasgonna · 22/05/2025 17:53

I believe that the average person (especially one you've seen regularly and who is in their workplace) is basically good and perfectly safe to trust with your baby for just a moment in a pinch. If it were someone you'd just met who had been following you around or otherwise acting odd, that would be very different.

Silvertulips · 22/05/2025 17:56

I hope you said thank you!

When does being kind become a suspicious act? You needed the loo and she did you a favour.

Total over reaction.

StScholastica · 22/05/2025 17:57

When did we all become do paranoid.

uuuuu · 22/05/2025 17:58

This wasn't a problem. The woman wasn't a stranger, you'd seen her consistently for 2 years. You must have been in the toilet about 1 minute and could hear her and the baby. It was a common sense judgement that was correct.

eggandonion · 22/05/2025 17:59

I'm a nice granny who looked after baby twins because their mum needed a wee, and our local museum has toilets accessible by a tiny lift.
About 40 years ago I worked in a small branch of a local chain, and a customer was going to the main branch about ten minutes walk away. So she left her toddler with my colleague, a young man who was rendered speechless!

JIMER202 · 22/05/2025 18:00

This is totally fine OP! Also normal to be overthinking things when your baby is little. I bet nearly all mums have had to do something similar! Better you did this than had to leave the pram out there alone and you do know the lady works there etc. Once my 4yr old took off sprinting for a busy main road and I had to in a split decision run and grab him which left my new baby in a park where we live. I beat myself up after it too but I couldn’t have let my 4yr old get ran over and sometimes it’s split decisions.