How to stop stranger toddler touching my baby…

[SomethingYum]

Please be gentle, I already feel like sh!t

ive taken my baby twice now to a playgroup type place. Every time a little girl aged 2+ (I’d say 2.5/3) came up to us multiple times, like every 3 mins, and kept saying, “baby baby baby baby” whilst touching my baby on the head/stroking.

The first time I thought she’d say hello and be off. But after the next and the next return I told the girl no touching but she either doesn’t understand or doesn’t listen. No parent in sight.

today I saw the mum, she’s either busy chatting to another mum or is on her phone. She said something to me about how the toddler just likes babies. The toddler again kept doing the same thing, and I was visibly uncomfortable the whole time. My baby didn’t cry was withdrew every time the toddler reached for her and looked confused and a bit intimidated. It culminated in the toddler throwing (thankfully a soft) ball at me and my baby (I hold her the whole time and feel very on edge). The ball hit my baby but she didn’t react as it was soft rubber.

I am very annoyed with myself. I am not ok with my daughter’s head being stroked. I don’t want objects thrown at us. I am upset because as I walked away today I realised I was teaching my baby girl unwanted physical contact should be tolerated. I feel awful.

I don’t want to stop going to this place, it’s a nice setting. How would you respond in my shoes? How can I stop this?

today my baby was the only one there but last week there were quite a few others but still the toddler only wanted mine

Exactly how I feel, and thank you, that’s reassuring!

How old is your baby OP?

If you have another baby, this one is going to be grabbing/poking/prodding it's sibling pretty soon

When you are 2 it is COMPLETELY and ENTIRELY normal to do anything because you want to!
When you are you won't really know what "touching someone physically" is. You will only just be associating what it feels like when your body comes into contact with another surface (deliberately or accidently) and just be starting to understand that you can consciously touch or not touch something, You will most likely have no understanding that another person will feel what you are doing, much less that they will then have an emotional response to that feeling, as in enjoying, or disliking it.

I get that you (and your baby) doesn't like it and totally agree that the parent should be teaching their child not to touch other children, especially babies, without permission, but I find your suggestion that the child is being odd by doing it is quite disturbing.

Kindly OP I think this might not be the setting for you. Maybe you want something for babies where it’s more about the parents socialising? Toddlers are often just a bit chaotic and just do things - many things, all the time. When yours is a toddler you’ll see this yourself every single day. The point of free flow playgroups like this are precisely for children to interact without parents having to hover. Your baby might not be old enough for this and maybe you aren’t ready either. I certainly wasn’t with my first (but delighted to have these sorts of options when I had my second!). That’s totally fine, your wee one won’t be missing out at all.

How old is your baby?

some replies are unhinged, quite frankly. I’ve been told I’ll be on here complaining about school gate mums being cliquey. Well that’s a spiral of imagination. I go because I want to go and my daughter loves socialising. I see many other mums and we chat. Babies play alongside each other considering they can’t yet play together. We have a coffee sometimes. It is not a playgroup as I said in my OP, it is a playgroup type setting. I won’t be stopping going anywhere I like to go. In this particular place we stay in a specially equipped baby area, it’s tiny and full of toys and books that aren’t interesting to toddlers. This girl keeps coming for us on and on and instantly reaches for my daughter whilst repeating baby baby baby, which can be startling. I am not looking to parent this girl, I just about have enough energy for my own, even less so am I looking to tell her off. I realise she is a child however I am not her parent. I am left sitting there with a child who appears to be deaf and makes no eye contact whilst her mum is starting into her phone. I cannot even finish my sentence whilst chatting to other mums because the toddler is already back again. Thank you to all the sane posters and ideas on how to speak to a toddler.

I love that you are ignoring all requests re the age of your baby. It's quite amusing now.

Im going to guess 18. 😁

Gosh everyone needs to stop piling on the OP….

OP, I would feel exactly the same. The biggest issue here is the fact the mum isn’t supervising. I would say ‘no, we don’t touch’ and move away. However times it takes for the toddler to stop.

It sounds annoying but do try to have some compassion for the toddler - it sounds as though mum ignores her and she's desperate for some attention poor thing

How old is your baby op.

Sorry but how can a baby look intimidated… you just have to move away. The toddler isn’t doing anything wrong, you just wait until you have a toddler; you seem to expect they have far greater understanding than they do. It sounds like the toddler is being gentle shes just interested.

I think you might save yourself some stress and attend some groups which are limited to babies only.

Of course babies can show emotion, and mothers are pretty good at interpreting how their babies are feeling.

Absolutely nothing wrong with being an introvert. Do you think I should be disappointed in my kid because she prefers a small group of close friends rather than a large gang of acquaintances when socialising?

Why does the toddler need to make eye contact? 🤔

It’s actually really making me laugh now 🤣

I think the OP should try to encourage her child out of it as she grows.

Then if it doesn’t happen it doesn’t happen but at least she would have tried.

You’re in a battle of wits with a two and a half year old, and you’re losing!

Waiting for the OP to confirm that “my baby” is 224 months old.

The OP is doing fine. She goes to baby groups and her child plays alongside other babies. That’s what they do. She just doesn’t like this particular toddler, who sounds pretty full-on. No one can possibly make any inferences about the baby, the OP’s parenting, her ability to make friends, how she will parent her toddler when she has her hypothetical second baby, or any other nonsense speculation on this crazy thread.

I think she’s more likely to make her child afraid of making friends with this strange no touching rule.

I can totally understand why you don’t want a random child at a playgroup touching your baby. But this is a small child who has taken a shine to your baby and isn’t that quite sweet?

If you don’t like the way she is interacting with your baby (the touching and stroking), why not show her how she can interact with your baby in a way you are more comfortable with? Distract her with a toy and then maybe talk to her. Ask her her name, tell her your baby’s name and maybe suggest a toy or book they could look at together. My DC are well out of playgroup age but that’s what I would have done.

Playgroups are not meant to be about avoiding other children.

I'm with you OP, the toddler is not bring supervised properly so is becoming your problem. I agree with being really cheerful about saying no. Also, it's fine to ask the toddler's mum 'for a hand as I don't want to upset your DD but my baby is grouchy today and needs some space' or something like that.

The point of a playgroup is for babies and toddlers to get used to being around other babies and toddlers and for them to interact with each other. There is little point going if the children stay with their parents and don't have contact with each other.
I think the toddlers behaviour is normal. But if it bothers you just nicely tell the toddler that your baby doesn't like being touched and suggest she interacts with your baby in another way.

To be honest I find kids annoying in any setting where their parents aren’t paying attention. (Or usually childminders IME) If I find someone has taken a shine to us like this little girl has with you, I would let them interact and as they are doing so, try to distract/direct e.g this is Matilda, you can say hello but actually she doesn’t like her head being touched, what she would love is a teddy bear if you can find her one etc. if that doesn’t work I would probably situate myself near her mum and as she comes over say loudly ‘oh no thank you, Matilda doesn’t actually like being touched. I love your stripey socks though’ etc look at the mum and hope that mum gets the hint? Last resort I would just stand up and walk away every time the girl came over.

How old is your baby? That makes a big difference for any advice.