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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

not to want to go out for dinner with my friend's baby?

121 replies

bitannoyedaboutthis · 15/09/2009 11:43

I have moved recently and have a friend with 3 children who happens to be in the area. We have seen each other a couple of times with kids, and said we'd like to have dinner without children/husbands one evening.

So I saw her the other day and she drops in that she'll of course have to bring the baby as she's breastfeeding.

Well, each to their own, but the lo is 10 months old ffs. The whole point of going out just the 2 of us was to be able to have uninterrupted conversation. I also breastfed all of mine the first year, but by that age I fed them at 7pm and put them to bed. Surely her dh can manage her from 8-11pm even if she's not asleep (seems a bit unlikely anyway).

So is she really annoying or aibu? I don't much want to go now anyway.

OP posts:

pooexplosions · 15/09/2009 14:03

Its not like she just turned up with the baby, she said it to you first. What did you say back? I'm guessing not much, but venting about it here.

You want different things, nothing wrong with either viewpoint. If you don't want to hae dinner with the baby there, just say so, she can choose whether she wants to go or not. Or you can cancel, or change to a different plan. No big deal.

I think a bigger problem is that you don't seem to be that friendly with your friend, if you were you would already hae sorted it with her and wouldn't be here. "FFS, she should do this not that, is she annoying, I don't want to go" etc etc. Doesn't sound that friendly to me.

curiositykilled · 15/09/2009 14:05

Hi pooexplosions!

cjones2979 · 15/09/2009 14:06

Also, the friend didn't say at the time "Lets have dinner, just the 2 of us.....oh and my 10 month old"

If I felt for whatever reason that I had to take my baby on a night out with me after suggesting it was just going to be me & 1 friend, I would have the courtesy of calling that friend & saying "Would you mind if I brought baby with me as I am still breastfeeding, I understand totally though if you'd rather I didn't as I was the one who suggested it being a child free evening, or we could arrange another date " and then leave the ball in her court to say whether I should bring the baby or not.

curiositykilled · 15/09/2009 14:29

sounds like the friend was planning to bring the baby all along though. I don't know how the subject was actually broached in the first place. It sound like it grew from the last meal they had. pooexplosions does make a good point though. I don't think the baby is even really the real issue. The OP sounds like how I feel sometimes if an old school friend I have no wish to spend time with asks to meet up - a bit obligated but reluctant. I always think there's a reason why you have grown apart from people, I'm not so keen on trying to rebuild friendships just for the sake of it. I think the issue is whether the OP should attempt to rebuild the friendship rather than anything to do with the baby.

thesecondcoming · 15/09/2009 14:30

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

saintlydamemrsturnip · 15/09/2009 14:35

Gosh I think you're projecting there curiosity. I'd be feeling fairly hurumphy if a friend had said childfree then mentioned baby as I'd have to find a way of getting out of the invitation without offending her or use up a valuable evening out with a 10 month old. It wouldn't mean I didn't like the friend, or that I never wanted to see her again.

People rarely invite me along to groups of family type days out because they don't want to have to deal with ds1 - or because they know he can't manage it. I'd have no friends left at all if I got all offended about it or assumed they were saying something about our friendship.

curiositykilled · 15/09/2009 14:46

I am projecting? What and to where?

I agreed with assumption pooexplosions made as I thought it sounded likely. This is partly based on what the OP said earlier in the thread:

'I suppose IABU really, as I just find people who obsess over their children all the time really irritating, and she is definitely one of them. We are friends from years before we had children, and I don't think the friendship is dealing with the change very well.'

It sound likely to me that what is really going on is that the OP is unsure about rekindling the friendship. It is hardly a completely unfounded assumption as the OP is the one who said she is a friend from years before. She and friend have different parenting ideas and the friendship is perhaps not standing the test of time.

saintlydamemrsturnip · 15/09/2009 14:48

apologies - I missed that post. I thought you were drawing conclusions from her not wanting her friend's baby present.

Satsuma1 · 15/09/2009 14:51

Some breastfed babies are OK to be left for a few hours and others not.

I don't think your friend is being unreasonable to want to bring her baby, but I can understand you wanting to have some baby free time with her.

I think you'll have to accept she wants to bring her baby or maybe have something at her house instead? Only other option would be to postpone for a while.

Jude68 · 15/09/2009 14:58

I'd cancel. My 12 month old will sleep from 8pm through till 7am but only if she's in her cot. In a restuarant she'd be all over the place, awake, messing about and pulling all the cutlery off the table.
Hardly makes for a calm, adult, peaceful evening.
A childfree meal is precious. That's what the plan was and bringing a baby is hardly on.

Sure, it's this mother's choice but it's a selfish one.

BethNoire · 15/09/2009 15:02

Porto- perhaps, but I canimagine someone with a bit of a useless Dh making excuses.Well they do, don't they?

BethNoire · 15/09/2009 15:07

thesecond

of course a baby can be left anywhere- you just take them and leave them.

It's whether that person will take them- Mum had ds4 for an hour and decided she couldn't handle his screaming. She had the older 3 (including the SN ones), but she found it too draining.

Now, I would dearly love a night out without DS4- we had to take him to balllast year and it wasn't the great night it usually is. But I am lucky to have had babysitting at all, I can't make them do it and it is totally tehir decision. I know they would take him like a shotr if he didn't cry so much, but it's a good 90 minute drive and a lot of eptrol /tolls to drive down often enough; when we had the older we lived roads away.

So you can refuse to believe a baby can't be left- but if babysitter says no becuase of the way theyr eact, then it'sthat simple really. I can'trsend the asd boys to anyone other than Mum and DH's parents are an absoluite no-go so it's just the way it is.

BethNoire · 15/09/2009 15:07

(BTW that was entirely a response to a specific comment, not a point of anything to dow tih OP btw)

Yorky · 15/09/2009 15:09

My baby is 10mo and breastfed, she still feeds at 10pm and doesn't sleep through from then I totally see where your friend is coming from, but I am also starting to hope for nights out without baby in tow!

hippomother · 15/09/2009 15:10

YANBU.

sweethoney · 15/09/2009 15:12

It is not unreasonable to expect your friend to come out for an eve meal and not have to bring her 10 month old baby. I BF all my children and by the time they were 10 months they went to bed at 7pm and didn't wake up until the next day.
Can't she put baby and children to bed at 7pm and meet you for dinner at 8pm? If you book a restaurant close to her home, if needs be she could pop back if baby wakes up (unlikely as her husband should be able to care for the baby).
Alternatively, you will just have to rearrange until she is happy to leave baby. Some parents seem to feel uncomfortable leaving their baby even if it is with their husband!

pregnantpeppa · 15/09/2009 15:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

pooexplosions · 15/09/2009 15:28

I don't understand all this "surely she can do this...why doesn't she do that....of course she doesn't need to bring...."
It isn't a matter of what is possible, or what anyone else might do, or whatever. Its a simple case of the mother can do as she pleases for her and her baby, and if the friend doesn't like it she can say so and change plans. It doesn't matter what any of the rest of us might or might not do in the same situation, does it?
Nobody is being unreasonable in that situation, until you get to the point where people start commenting on her parenting and what her and her baby should and should not be doing, then those people are being vvv unreasonable.

(Hiss, curiosity!)

diddl · 15/09/2009 15:33

Well if she can´t leave baby yet, why didn´t she just say so at the time that evenings out were being discussed.

Can´t help thinking her hubby doesn´t want to look after baby, and she will be expected to get the other two settled in bed before she goes out.

curiositykilled · 15/09/2009 15:35

hiss

I think I love you and your name... you are so right. Nothing to do with anything what anyone thinks anyone else should or shouldn't do.

curiositykilled · 15/09/2009 15:36

lol... I am becoming illiterate again, time for a sleep.

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