Soft play showdown

[ThisWildHedgehog]

Sorry this is long; if you make it to the end, you deserve a medal for patience and probably a biscuit. 😂

I took my toddler and baby to soft play yesterday to meet a friend with her two little ones, who are around the same ages.

Now, before anyone tells me “you knew what you were walking into…” YES. I absolutely did. I understand that soft play is essentially a mum’s version of full-contact dodgeball, complete with sticky hands, rogue socks and the desperate hope that ear defenders will be a trend for fall 2026…

HOWEVER, yesterday was particularly unhinged.

We were all sitting on a baby sensory mat when my baby started crawling around. A two-year-old girl came over and immediately grabbed him by the leg from underneath him, causing him to flop onto the mat. Thankfully, he was completely unbothered. I picked him up and she came back and tried to grab his leg again. This time I was holding him, so I moved him out of reach and said, “That’s not kind. We don’t pull other people.”

She then came over again and tried to kick my friend’s baby. We blocked her because, by this point, we were starting to see a pattern.

A little while later my older son was happily shovelling sand from one section of the indoor sandpit to another when she grabbed the shovel and tried to wrestle it away from him. I stepped in again and said, “We don’t snatch. That isn’t kind.”

At this point, I was getting a little fed up with spending my playdate supervising a child who wasn’t mine, so I went to find her mum. She was stood about 30 metres away, around a corner, in the café area.
I approached her and said, “Have you got a daughter in a pink top?”
She immediately replied, “Oh no, is she being naughty?”
I said, “I think she’s needing some supervision.”
She asked what had happened and I just said, “She just needs someone with her.”

So Mum came over and stood outside the sandpit.
In the most monotone voice I have ever had the displeasure of hearing, she repeatedly said:
“I told you no sandpit. Come here.”
The child completely ignored her.
This continued for what felt like the length of the first Avatar film.
Eventually another mum in the sandpit actually offered, “Did you need someone to pass her to you?”
Honestly, I nearly applauded.
Eventually Mum got hold of her and wandered off muttering “You are a good girl” to her.

Fine. Situation over. We can all go back to enjoying our children.

Except… apparently not.

We then noticed Mum going around speaking to the owner, then the mum who had helped her retrieve her daughter and, finally, she approached my friend.
It was essentially an investigation into the alleged crimes committed by her two-year-old.

She wanted to establish exactly what her daughter had supposedly been accused of, followed by the declaration that “her daughter would never do those things.”

Okay. 🤷‍♀️

Nobody was trying to cause a scene. We just wanted her to stop kicking/grabbing/snatching from our children.

But then she came over to me and repeated the same bizarre assertion, despite not having witnessed any of it, that she was absolutely sure her daughter hadn’t done anything.
At this point I said:
“If you had been watching your child, you wouldn’t have to interview the entire soft play to find out what happened.”
She replied:
“I can’t watch her 24/7.”
She also said “it’s hard to teach a two-year-old right and wrong.”

Yes. I agree.
That’s generally why we… supervise them and teach them.

The conversation was becoming heated and I didn’t want to stand there arguing in front of my children, so I ended it with:
“I politely came to get you, I was respectful and calm with you, and you are making a mountain out of a molehill. Please leave us alone.”

And then came her closing statement:
“Well, I won’t have my daughter apologise for something she hasn’t done, so I take back our sorry.”

There was never even an apology to retract…

At this point we just wanted to get on with our playdate without either her or her daughter bothering us.

The owner then came over, apologised to us, invited us back for another playdate and explicitly said that, of course, children need to be supervised.

And the other thing that really struck me was the layout of this place. There were loads of stairs, raised platforms and areas where a two-year-old could quite easily get herself into trouble.

So even putting aside the behaviour towards other children, I genuinely don’t understand how you can be 30 metres away around a corner while your two-year-old is roaming around a large soft play independently.

I completely accept that two-year-olds grab things, snatch, push, kick ect. I don’t expect toddlers to behave perfectly. I do expect their parent to be somewhere nearby when they’re doing it, though.

Right, where are those biscuits? 🫣🤣

I have no criticisms of your post other than using the word Fall, when I assume you mean Autumn. Unless you're American of course.

Every time I read "diaper", "sidewalk", "fall" on MN, I feel a little bit sad that our language is being replaced by American.

This. So odd.

Yes, AI produces a bland, middle-of-the-road tone that it thinks mimics closely whatever prompt you’ve given it (professional, humorous, casual) but always lacks a decent human ear for rhythm and wit.

The more you read lots of good books from all sorts of time periods and countries (and the less you read of social media), the less this tone will appear in your own writing. (If you’ve got time between soft play visits, that is…)

Wrong thread, ignore me

The assumption that AI sounds perfect is one of the craziest things I've read on Mumsnet, and that's saying something! Read the room 🤣

You were obviously right and she was obviously wrong but I am curious why you didn't just tell her what her two year old did when she asked you?

Maybe she thought her daughter was just playing and not bothering anyone and the only problem you had was that she wasn't being supervised. I totally agree that kids especially two year olds need to be supervised at all times but I think it might have helped if you had told what the actual problem was.

I do think there is a bit of feeling like a 2 yr old is massive compared to your baby. But yes they should be supervised. To be fair though if my kids had ever willingly left my side at the soft play meaning I didn't have to get overheated squeezing my arse through tiny gaps in the netted structure accompanied by a constant vague poo-smell I probably would have been a bit negligent of them and let them get on with it too quite honestly.

A good lesson in how to raise your child to be unpopular.

Obviously YANBU, but I would have told the mum what her toddler was doing instead of being cryptic. I regularly go to soft play with a 1 and 3 year old and would want to know if the bigger one was whacking babies when he escapes my view.

Obviously the mum was in the wrong for not watching her daughter, however OP, you started an argument with this woman in front of the entire soft play and included the fucking manager. You both sound like absolute children… then to come home and start a thread about such a non event- get over yourself.

You met a useless parent and it won't be the last time particularly at soft play.

I think you need a cup of tea and a bubble bath…

I did not involve the manager. The other mum went around to people to discuss the situation, this included the manager.

She then tried to start an argument with me and wanted to retract their apology and I excused us from the conversation.

As for the Mumsnet post, I was trying to write something funny. Not everything needs to be a life changing experience to be written about.

I hope your day gets better and you can emotionally recover from the discomfort of reading my post 🫣

Why do you call Autumn ‘Fall’? Are you in America or from America?

Soft play can be hell on earth - especially when you get parents who don't give a stuff where their child is, and what they are doing. But, you can bet your bottom dollar they will be the first to squeal if their child gets hurt.

YANBU in telling this child off - but I, like other posters, agree you could have said a short and very firm "No". The pink and fluffy approach obviously didn't work with that child (which is hardly surprising given what you have said about their mother!)

Having said that, I have spent many hours with my 3 DC over the years at our local soft play centre. The record was 8 hours - first through the door when they opened, and last out the door when they closed! My youngest was only a few weeks old and exclusively BF, my other two, 3 and 6 at the time happily played, came back to the table for drinks and food. I had a prime spot where I could see them all the time. When we left, even the owner said I deserved a medal for being there that long! Boy, did they sleep that night!😂

I think you handled that well! I used to work in a soft play, yuk.

I bet you have some stories… 😂

i personally see too much of people who think that when they go to soft play, they think that they can just dump their kids then go for a coffee, totally ignoring what is happening with their children.
if kids are not given boundaries from the start it will culminate in this kind of behaviour. okay all kids sometimes play up but if this child was not having interaction by the parent, she was probably bored plus knew she could do what she wanted without being admonished by mum.

Next time you get ChatGPT to write a mumsnet post for you, ask it to make it shorter.

It's very dramatic for an everyday tale about a toddler in soft play. I assume you're American by the use of Fall but these things happen the world over.

I think MN needs to have a policy that posters shouting "AI!" at every turn are treated just like those who troll hunt. I mean, bloody hell.

It's been awhile since mine were toddlers but I used to wind myself up terribly when faced with this sort of parent. OP, I applaud you being patient, calm, and really very reasonable with this batshit mother!

There are shitty parents about. Who would of thought it........

Your mistake was trying to communicate with some of these idiots. They just drag the conversation down further and further and trust me, they have had much more practice.

Give over

I think Mumsnet would be better off without posters using AI slop.

It is more than possible that the OP wrote her original post and not AI. I agree with the OP that it's often fun to spend time writing a humorous story, and that accuracy is not necessarily an indicator of AI - some people just like to write properly.

(Mind, it'll have taken some effort for the OP to have composed such a post, mainly due to the use of italics and capitals which are a faff to employ whilst using a phone.)

HOWEVER, my main issue with the post (and the possible indicator that it was written by AI) is the use of the term 'fall' as opposed to autumn.

Tut, tut; I dislike Americanisms.

Who the fuck spat in your tea today? Are you usually so charming?

Chat GPT told me to say it.