AIBU for not being firmer when a child grabbed my baby?

[Dinosaurhearmeroar]

Wasn’t sure where to put this but it’s a
bit of a ‘what would you have done?’ situation.

was at the park this afternoon - sunny day so busy and filled with kids. My daughter (4) went down the slide 🛝 as did DH and a girl was at the bottom helping people off eg grabbing hands and pulling them up with a cheer.

I was sitting nearby with my 5 month old having finished a feed. The girl came
bouncing over to me as did her mum and I realised she had learning difficulties. She was 9 and very friendly but with no boundaries - mum was hovering very nearby. Said girl put her hands on my baby and started saying how cute she was etc. all fine. She then asked if she could feed her and I said no she’s just fed and she proceeded to shove the bottle in her mouth. mum was standing right next to her and just said platitudes like ‘be careful’ etc. I was trying to get her to stop which eventually she did. I kept calm as she was quite erratic in her behaviour so I didn’t think raising my voice etc would help.

she then asked if she could hold my baby to which I said ‘no.’ The girl then grabbed her arm and leg and tried to cradle her to her chest. I was trying my best to keep the mood calm because when I said ‘no’ she would raise her voice and do it anyway - a behaviour that happened several times during this incident.

at this point DH and big sister (4) came to see me and baby (they’d been on the swings) and big sister was immediately unsettled by the girl. The girl was trying to hold baby again on her own and pulling her out of my arms - I was equally holding onto my baby pulling her to me. Big sister was now sitting next to me and started to cry hysterically at the scene as she was scared. The girl said “it’s my baby” and kept pulling her to me. I didn’t want to hurt my baby (!) in this tug of war and by now a scene was being made.

I kept calm throughout and said, “be gentle, let her go” etc but none of it worked. Mum was there the whole time letting it happen, occasionally interjecting with “be careful” etc. mum eventually got the girl off my baby and we walked away a little shaken by the whole thing. I felt sorry for the girl as she wasn’t quite sure what she was doing hence my patience.

in the car on the way home I chastised myself for not being firmer and asking mum to take the girl away but, weirdly, because mum was there allowing it all I thought perhaps that was the right thing to do/ best way to handle this little girl.

yabu - I did best I could do in that situation.

Yanbu - you should have told the little girl to get off regardless of her subsequent outburst.

The mother should have been aware of her behaviour and stopped it before it started. I have worked with children displaying this kind of behaviour and there are cues when the behaviour will escalate. I always stopped the behaviour before it started.

I think that’s a really good idea thank you. Saying it out loud would help me I think.

Don't beat yourself up. It is better to be a fawn than a nasty, rude, hateful person. In the past, maybe women in particular were "too nice" and yes, in hindsight this was one time where your natural response to be kind should have been different, but you'll be a much better mum than selfish, entitled people who never care about the feelings of others.

It’s easy for others to advise when they weren’t there,. You were trying to protect your baby without upsetting the little girl and making her more aggressive, and the situation worse.
No harm came to your baby, the little girl wasn’t upset so I think you did well in the circumstances.

The op’s assumption, guided by normal social conventions, would have been that the other mother would immediately act, if the interaction started to get difficult. By the time it became obvious that this wasn’t going to happen, the op was at a disadvantage, presumably unable to stand up easily without putting herself and her baby in a potentially more vulnerable position - all the while assuming that the mother would surely intervene at some point. She has nothing to blame herself for, and she successfully protected her baby.

I think it can be very difficult with additional needs, and I say that as a parent of a child with additional needs. A lot of people don't want to be seen to react badly and be ableist. When my dd was very small, she grabbed another small child in the park (wanting to say hello), I quickly removed her and got her to "say" sorry. The other parent kept telling me not to worry, it was alright! Firstly, it's not - I don't want my child to scare/hurt others and secondly, what kind of message is that to the poor child that was grabbed?

Think you’re being too hard on yourself. Your older child was already upset so you getting firmer with the girl could have made everything worse. Easy to have 20/20 hindsight

It all worked out fine so you did the right thing.

Yes, maybe you could have done xyz and maybe if you had things wouldn't have worked out so well.
No point dwelling on it though!

It's difficult isn't. If it happens again and you don't want the difficulty or awkwardness of saying no, get off (even though you're well within your right to) say oh don't touch, she's getting over d&v/hand foot and mouth/ebola or whatever with a smile to mum. She'll move the child then!

I have a very tall and sturdy 8 yr old with ASD and if he even looked like trying to take a baby from their mum I'd pick him up and leave. He's about 5 foot and 7 stone so it's an undertaking but it'd be what I would do (that m the Lord he's amazing with small children and babies and a rule follower but I'm always on high alert Incase he has a meltdown or could lash out so I'd be at his shoulder, I'd apologize and remove him immediately thTs what her mum should have done.

In your case it's 100% acceptable to ask the mum to step in and stop her child. 100%!

I agree with this. I had a situation at an ASD friendly meet up where I had to repeatedly remove an older child's hands from my 3 yr olds curly hair. His mum was miles behind him and when she did catch up just brightly said he was obsessed with hair. It's hard because my son is also likely ASD but when he was in his throwing and grabbing phase I was never more than arms length from him and would intervene before there was any risk to another child.

Don't be hard on yourself OP, you were in a vulnerable position. Similar happened to me when my DS was literally about 2 weeks old, I took him and my toddler to a park.
Baby was in the car seat, I put the seat down to help toddler.
Next thing a small child came up and grabbed his face! I instinctively pulled his arm away and he ran off. Then his mother and her friend started having a go at me for being rough with her child! You couldn't make it up.
I got upset and ended up leaving the park although I shouted at them to keep and eye on their child. Still really annoys me. A mother's instinct is to protect their child or it should be.

This is not a situation where hindsight helps.

Look to how you can become more assertive. There are online courses.

OP, know this post is a couple of months old now, but just wanted to share that i had a very similar experience to this recently, and also regretted my response.

We were at a museum and a young girl maybe 7 or 8 came up to us and started making a fuss of my 4 year old then my 10wk old baby.She was asking if she could hold him and initially the mum said maybe not to as he seemed settled in the pram, but she kept asking about it, clearly very keen, so I said how about i sit on a chair nearby and I could hold the baby on her lap quickly, but explained i would need to be the one to support his head (I LOVED holding babies at that sort of age which I think was making me more willing to let her, obviously with my very close supervision) So we sat down and she quickly said 'can I hold him properly' wanting me to let go of his head which I said i wouldn't.He began grizzling abit and she then began to quite forcefully hug him in a sort of squeezing way, and began gritting her teeth asif angry! (my 4yo does the gritting teeth thing sometimes too and not sure if it's overexcitement or annoyance but she certainly doesn't squeeze him that hard)

DS began to cry loudly (which i think was more shock than being hurt thank goodness, as he was fine soon after when she had gone!) I told her she needed to be gentle and said i would take him now, then quickly whipped him away and stood up as she was still trying to fuss him touching his face etc despite him clearly being very upset.I think she knew she had done something wrong as she said sorry repeatedly to me, and during the incident I realised she wasn't just a confident, outgoing child who wanted to be sociable,but that it seemed she might have mild learning difficulties of some sort.

The mum was very passive- she was attempting in a rather too calm and inaffective way to tell her to come away from DS afew times, but she didn't strongly express that there would be a problem with her helping to hold DS, mentioning that she loves babies etc, and didn't react in the strong way I would have done if my child had squeezed someone's baby in what seemed like quite angry manner and made them cry! I would have been mortified and would really tell them off, especially at that age!

Luckily DS hasn't shown any signs of being harmed, thank god, but when it first happened I was panicking just incase she had given him internal injuries or something! It has certainly taught me a lesson to be careful with unknown kids and DS, and not let them get so close next time!

We live and we learn....I am naturally quite passive and a people pleaser, and whilst I have generally come along way to overcome that, I still slip up sometimes! So you have my understanding for sure.It is not easy to be assertive and also make in the moment decisions if it doesn't come naturally!

You did your best but I feel like you should have told the mum to intervene, not that you should have had to as mum should have done that herself.

My little girl is 9 is very much like the little girl you describe and would have potentially behaved very much the same way, I however would have moved my child on with a gentle "yes the baby is very lovely but baby sleep time now say bye bye baby and we will go play/go home/to the car" or something similar. Whilst the childs behaviour is explained by their disability, the mum shouldn't have just stood there.