'AITA for telling my friends their baby put a damper on my husband's birthday party?'

"AITA for telling my friends they kind of put a damper on my husbands birthday weekend by bringing their baby"

No-Light-9486 writes:

Last weekend my husband turned 35. We had two things planned: Friday, a dinner with some friends, and Sunday, an outdoor festival. We invited our two friends who have a 1-year-old daughter.

The restaurant we chose was not kid-friendly. It’s super small and the main draw is the chef. There is no set menu, and the seats are all like a bar around a little kitchen where you can watch him cook and he plates the food for you right there. The festival is outdoors in the middle of the woods, not stroller-friendly. Kids are allowed, but it’s more of an adult event. They have been there before, so it’s not a surprise to them.

When we invited them to both days, we told them both things were not kid-friendly, explained the restaurant to them, and sent them the website so they could see what it was all about.

We told them we understood if they couldn’t make it because of the baby. They said they would be at both. I assumed his parents, who live around the corner, were watching the baby. We made reservations for the restaurant and bought our tickets.

Friday night comes, and they show up to the restaurant with their daughter. I didn’t include her in the reservation, and they did not have any high chairs, so she had to sit in her mom’s lap the entire time. She usually gets pretty overwhelmed with the baby to begin with.

She was annoyed about the baby sitting in her lap and not being able to enjoy her dinner, annoyed there was no kids’ menu, and was just in a bad mood the entire time. It really put a downer on the entire dinner.

The baby cried, she had to get up and go outside at one point, and her husband asked me to go check on her outside. They kind of left quickly when dinner was over and said, “We will see you Sunday.”

Then Sunday comes, and again they show up with the baby. They again are annoyed that it’s not stroller-friendly. Constantly stopping: baby needs to eat, baby needs to be changed, baby is crying.

We kept telling them that we would share our location and they could meet up with us after they did whatever they had to do with the baby, but they would get all huffy, so we ended up staying with them. We didn’t get to do half the things there because we were parked under a tent at the table most of the time.

Parts of the festival they couldn’t bring the stroller because, once again, it was in the woods. At one point I had to hold the baby while she fed her. Just the entire day was centered around taking care of their baby, and it was not fun at all. Once again, they have come to this festival with us in previous years, so they knew what it was all about.

She texted me yesterday saying she had fun over the weekend and she was sorry if the baby ruined everything. I told her it wasn’t ruined, but it was a little frustrating because we warned them the activities weren’t baby-friendly and we missed out on a lot of things.

The festival is once a year, so it’s not like we can go back another time. She got super defensive and said sorry, they are parents now and have more important things to worry about. We haven’t talked since, and I feel bad and like everything is super awkward now and I should have kept my mouth shut.

Here are the comments from the post.

Stock-Cell1556 says:

NTA. They are parents now, but not all events are child-friendly. They should have known better and either declined or gotten a babysitter.

coconut_curry_sauce says:

Please. Her husband asked you to check on his wife. Same guy who let his wife hold the baby the whole time. Tell your friend to make her husband be a dad and stay home with the baby cause he clearly don’t care about his wife and she needs the break.

FormSuccessful1122 says:

NTA I would have been livid. Saying "These places aren't child friendly" translates to "Leave your kid home or don't come." They were rude and you were kinder than I'd have been.

JuucedIn says:

NTA. Your friends were. No need to feel bad about it. No more dinners with them unless they get a sitter.

What do you think?