Friend telling my DS off - did I overreact?

[Skippu]

Hello, I went to see a friend with my DS the other day and left feeling really upset. Looking for some honest opinions on whether I overreacted though!
My friend is child-free and lives alone with her puppy. We do meet up and it's usually either at my place or out for lunch. I try and make things fun for her when we do meet up and am not one of those mums who talks about her DC all the time. I also do meet her quite often without my DS as we've been friends for a long time and I didnt want me being a mother to affect our long standing friendship just because she doesn't have DC.
She's been asking me for a long time to go see her at her flat and to take my 20 month old DS with me. I'd been trying to avoid it for a long time and warned her several times that I didn't think it was a good idea as i was worried that DS would make a mess there etc etc but she has still been insisting that we go over there. So we went along the other day. I am quite an anxious parent in the sense that I watch my DS closely and tend to follow him around and stop him from touching things rather than just letting him run riot like some parents might do... especially in someone else's home. I also constantly clear up after him when we are in anyone else's home.
Anyway....we were only there for an hour and a half and I just had to leave quite abruptly because I'd had enough of the constant comments.

First he was eating blueberries and dropped 2 on the floor. Immediately she said to pick them up as she was worried about her puppy eating them as he's on a strict routine with his snacks and she didn't want him to become ill. Ok no problem at this point. Then there was some polystyrene left on the floor from one of her deliveries and h DS had literally just touched it and she immediately freaked out and told DS off and said to stop touching it as she didn't want the polystyrene scattered around her flat (which btw was messy anyway, I could understand her being uncomfortable if it was spotless!). He then had another snack where I cleared up the crumbs immediately from the floor. The last straw for me was when he started opening and closing the door of her dog's cage. Honestly....he was doing this very slowly and gently and not slamming the door at all. If he had been I would have stopped him immediately. Friend tells me that she's fine with DS doing that but if the cage door breaks then her puppy would have nowhere to sleep.
I had enough at that point and said I would just leave as in the space of an hour and a half I just felt constantly on edge there. She was a little taken aback but is now acting like everything is fine.

I am supposed to be meeting her soon without DS, but I am thinking to cancel as I feel so upset and angry after our visit as I don't think he was behaving terribly and also it's not like I was just letting him run wild around her flat ...he just wasn't behaving perfectly which is expected for a toddler. She used to come and stay over at mine all the time and if she ever spilt anything I never freaked out and tried my best to be a good host. Am I overreacting?? Happy to be told if I'm being silly.

@Differentnamedifferentplace - eh?? How is my friend "always the one making the effort"?? I mentioned in my OP that I meet her without my DS quite often.....

You said, 'it's usually at my place or out for lunch'. So yes, she is the one making the effort most of the time.

YANBU child free friends can be EXHAUSTING. It's not their fault, they just don't get it and tbh why should they!

Agree with pp give yourself some space and time to calm down and in future definitely meet up without DC.

I will be honest though I don't see much mileage in the friendship longer term if you are already so heavily barred from talking about / bringing DC along. Not in an unkind way just having to put that particular friendship in a box and not being able to be yourself around her.

You sound a really thoughtful and loyal friend btw.

@Differentnamedifferentplace - LOL you're ignoring the bit where I say that I meet her without DS A LOT. I spend a lot of my limited child free time with her which does take a lot of effort. Anyway ....some of these comments have been very interesting. It's been good to get other perspectives on this.

This is MN so everyone will say that your friend was totally fine and how dare your toddler drop anything/fiddle with a dog cage/touch anything. In the real world toddler play with things, things get messy and get dropped. They are still learning and are fascinated by the world around them and it’s really unpleasant to have to giver and tell them off for every love they make. You were right on your instincts not to go round and your friend was naive for thinking it would be fine. She owes you an apology for making things uncomfortable when she assured you it wouldn’t be.

Like - this is insane. Two blueberries and some crumbs is not ‘twice tipping food in the floor’. He’s a small child FFS.

I'm not ignoring it. You said that she usually comes to you, or you go out, which suggests you rarely if ever go to her house. It doesn't matter whether you have your child with you or not. She makes more effort to travel to your house.

Interestingly, you haven't addressed any of my other comments...

Literally everything you mentioned is something you should have prevented and stepped in for quickly. YABU.

@Differentnamedifferentplace - lol happy to address your other comments too. 2 blueberries isn't "a lot more food than I think" and him opening and closing a cage door isn't quite the same as "chewing" it.

@Hiphopopotamonster - thank you for saying exactly what I was thinking! I'm very happy to accept that I've been overly sensitive but some of these comments are horrible and quite frankly insane.

@Skippu

maybe in future you could give your child his snacks in the car before going into peoples houses to visit or on the train/bus ahead or whatever

Why does he need constant snacks? Couldn't you have just given him a bigger lunch?

Yeah I fed him lunch but he didn't eat well for some reason and then was hungry later hence the snacks.

He's just been a normal toddler - they're messy.
It sounds very stressful and I would have just left too you did well to last an hour. Control the environment not the child at this age isn't it, you can't change someone else's environment which isn't child friendly so it won't lead to a relaxing time for you and she won't really get it I suppose so not really her fault either. I wouldn't take my DC back there if she was that stressed by a couple of crumbs I'm afraid but that doesn't mean you can't meet up on your own with her if you want to in future

When you say she was telling him off too what do you mean? That would have annoyed me !!

Having a toddler in a child free house for 1.5 hours is probadly the max time anyway. Add in a puppy and new house move, seems like both of you were tense

If you value the friendship move on and just know that having a toddler around your friend isn't going to be the best time.

@pamplemoussee I asked that too but there's been no reply.

I actually don't think either of you have BU, this is just the reality of what can happen when one friend has DC and the other doesn't. I agree it is hard to try and think back how you would have felt before having your DS but I know I certainly didn't have a clue how to speak to children or what to expect from them - I'm still learning now with my 15 month old!!

My male best friend told my toddler he was being irritating (he was cooing loudly in a way that as a parent you wouldn't notice but as an outsider might be very irritating). I was hurt and pissed off and left quite abruptly... but at the end of the day it didn't affect our friendship and I know he isn't a child person and will never have children so it's hard to hold it against him.

I'm with your friend tbh.
However I wouldn't fall out over it, just meet up without your kid or go to child friendly places.

You’re over reacting! She didn’t say or do anything really bad but at least you know not to take your son there next time. Think of it as being if she’d brought her puppy to yours (even if you’d asked) and then saw that the puppy was being a bit of a nuisance in that typical puppy-like way.

No, you haven't caused offence. I have 4 DC myself. I just felt it had to be said that I've noticed women who don't have children are often seen as disliking them and men without children feckless. I'm glad that's not what you meant.

If I was taking my toddler to a child free house, I wouldn't be taking messy food that stains or makes a mess (fed twice in an hour?) or letting them play with packaging or dog cages. I would have brought a truck load of toys to distract them during the visit and either sat on the floor with them or had them within arms reach on the floor next to me. Was the dog in the house? Your toddler should have been nowhere near the dog or its cage. tbh I would be making comments too.

I think you knew this was going to happen, learn to trust your gut feeling, it will stand you well in the future 😊

This.

You probably don't know if you don't have dogs (and ones that have been crate trained at that), but the crate should be the dog's safe space where it can retreat from your toddler that's been brought into its home. Your toddler should be nowhere near it let alone playing with it.

Two snacks in an hour is OTT and honestly taking blueberries or other things that easily stain as a snack to have at someone else's house is just silly.

It sounds like your DC was bored tbh - demanding snacks and fiddling with all your friend's stuff. Didn't you take stuff for him to play with?

I think women without children are often portrayed as either hating them, disgusted by them or coveting them. It's just my observation.

In this case however, the OP has said this wasn't her intention so not applicable in this case, good.

yanbu at all!! Your child is 20 months old , they can’t control their natural reflexes and you sound totally on it. What were you supposed to do restrain him ?! Also none of mine would have sat at a table for more than 5 mins at 20 months , they were all v physical and it was impossible for them.
You did your best , your friend doesn’t get it and wants a Victorian version of a child .
Anyone saying you should have been on your dc all the time when you have stated constantly you were haven’t read your op properly. I wouldn’t bother meeting her for a while and definitely not bother with my dc, she has clearly no tolerance.