Are there just some places you should never take a baby?

A mum and a baby walked into a concert, and a bar, and a bottle shop…

So a mum has been kicked out of a concert for bringing her four-month-old baby into the mosh pit. California mum Megan Christopherson, 30, earlier this month tried to accuse police of kicking her out of country singer Brad Paisley’s concert for breastfeeding but they explained they had simply asked her to move to a safer location at the venue, as the pit wasn’t an appropriate location due to safety concerns.

According to NBC Los Angeles, they told the mum:

“Your child doesn’t have hearing protection on. The crowd is going to start surging forward. Where you’re at, your child could get crushed,” a security officer told the mother on the video. “We’re afraid of your child’s eardrums being hurt.”

She continued to protest, saying she'd taken him into the pit at a Tim McGraw concert and her baby had been fine.

I can understand the temptation to take your child to a concert. Once you confront the scary prospect of first leaving the house with your baby and you manage to return with them unharmed it's natural to want to go a bit further, like say, grocery shopping or a 'Mums and Bubs' session at the cinema. Then, you might think, "Yeah, they'll be okay at the concert" but your more sensible self normally steps in and says, "Hey, actually, that isn't the best idea. Let's sit this one out for now."

But sometimes that just doesn't happen.

A quick survey of IV parents have come up with 7 different venues parents have brought their small babies and later thought, "Hmmm, this may not have been the best idea". They are:

1. The hairdresser.

The baby in question was sleeping and the mum was desperate for a haircut so in she went. Her baby woke up mid-cut and the mum tried to give her a bit of a breastfeed so the hairdresser could finish the cut and hair went all over the baby. The mum was picking it off for days.

2. The bottle shop.

A mum got in trouble recently for taking her toddler into the bottle shop but an IV mum does this regularly. "It's right next to Coles so I duck in after my shop and buy some wine. It's not like it's a bar or anything. Why put it near Coles if we can't buy it with our kids?" But at some bottle shops, taking minors in is strictly against their rules, and you can be asked to leave. Awkward

3. A bar or club.

Okay, not at 11pm on a Friday night, but lots of  clubs and pubs have great family meal deals these days. It's nice to get out for an affordable lunch, althought sure it's not the best look to be pushing a pram past the pokies and the tap beer to get to the bistro. But who can go past the giant schnitzel and fries. And a beer. Just one beer.

4. The hospital.

A friend of mine wanted to visit her dying grandmother, just weeks after giving birth to her first child. She rang the hospital ahead of time to ask if it was okay and was assured it was perfectly safe. When she turned up, she was told off by a nurse working in her grandmother's ward, saying babies shouldn't be in a hospital full of sick people due to the germs.

5. The bus or train.

I see them all the time. Parents putting their prams on the bus in their quest to have a life and get places without having to drive and in theory, this is perfectly fine, except most bus drivers have no concept of how to drive and break gently so take off before the mum has a chance to fold up the seats, position the pram and put the brakes on. Or the time an IV mum became flustered and got stuck getting off a train. "A man ran up and helped me. The whistle had been blown and everything. I've never been so scared."

6. Firework displays.

This is another 'it seemed like a good idea at the time' idea but an IV mum regretted taking her family to a local show. It was going well - breastfeeding and nappy changes taken care of, nap time taken care of - until the 7.30pm fireworks began. This IV mum was feeling quite relaxed, "My baby was just four weeks and I was so happy to get out of the house. She was fast asleep in her pram when the first firework went off. The entire pram just shook and that was her waking up at shock at the enormous sound filling her delicate ear drums. I felt terrible."

7. A nail bar.

The temptation to get your nails done while you're out shopping can prove too great for some mums who sit down for a quick mani-pedi, completely forgetting the effect toxic fumes can have on little lungs. You try and prop the pram in the doorway a bit so their baby isn't exposed too much but you know they're thinking they probably shouldn't be doing this, at the same time as being happy to be getting it done.

So while in theory we should have the right to take our baby everywhere, should that little voice inside our heads sometimes step in and say, maybe not?

Have you ever taken your child somewhere only to regret it later?

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