noisy babies/toddlers in public

I remember Infant One for two things - loads of crying kids and the scratchy green seats. Both intensely annoying even to me as a 4 year old :) . 

I think it is very dependent on the situation. For example if you are in the cinema then yes absolutely the parent should take the screaming baby out as it is unfair on those watching the film.

If the baby is hungry or need a changing then that should be dealt with.

However babies cry a lot. Some babies can be particularly difficult to settle. I think it is unreasonable to think that a parent is going to leave a shop every time their baby cries. They may have a short time in which to do their shopping before having to be somewhere else like pick up children from school. 

I often where my headphones and listen to music when I'm out and about. This helps to take the edge of sounds that I find difficult.

I think people do need to be understanding that their children's noises can bother others but at the end of the day children are children and they make noise. People's lives can't come to a stop because of it. There has to be some give and take.

im with you on this i cannot stand screaming children or ones that run around it really aggrivates me almost to the point of physical discomfort that i have to remove myself from their presence

I would've like a child or two.  But I think I could probably only have coped with it in my 20s and it wasn't an option then.  By the time it potentially became an option, albeit tricky and uncertain, we had a neighbour downstairs with a very distressed child.  We realised we probably wouldn't be able to cope with the interrupted sleep at that point in our lives, so it made it easier to accept not having them. 

I've always hated it, even when I was a kid myself. Apparently I didn't like children, even when I was one. Needless to say, I never had any. I can't think of anything worse!

Yes, both I and my partner find agitated children of various forms difficult, which is where the gin thing came from :-).  For some reason, most parents seem to laugh at my suggestion of "have you considered  feeding it more gin?"  Apparently that's not the sort of thing a responsible parent should do! 

But I don't generally blame anybody for it.  If it's getting too much we try and take ourselves out of the situation if we can.  I can appreciate in an enclosed space with no-where to run it can be very challenging.  But as long as they haven't abandoned the children, I've observed it seems generally difficult for the parents too.  That's why I advocate gin for them too!

I would also say, I found it much easier to deal with when I was younger - in my 20s/early 30s maybe.  As I've gotten older I'm finding my "frazzle point" seems to be dropping :-(.

I am exactly the same. The sound of babies and children crying is the most unpleasant noise ever. I had a meltdown on a plane once that was triggered by a screaming baby. OK, lots of other things had got me to that point, but when the baby started screaming, that was the tipping point. 

Also make sure you have adequate Gin stocks!  It works for you as well at the child.  I can imagine running out of gin as a parent can be a massively traumatic event! :-D

Well it's getting your attention, so that bit's working.  It's just you're not exhibiting the expected response!

Ehm noooo, I doubt whether my response of wanting to kill that which makes the noise is the right approach.

No, it's working as designed and expected - you find it draws your attention.  That's what it's intended to do!  The follow-on expected response is that you go and investigate and try and work out what the thing wants/needs so that it goes back to being content and quiet again.

Well, then there is something definitely wrong with me. I agree it should be an evolution thing but it doesn't work that way for me. If you follow that line of reasoning, I shouldn't be here

And I guess I should be biologically programmed to be able to stand the sound of crying babies, but I am not. It also gets me really aggressive, which is terrible.

@qwerty I have a real issue with noise and crying babies are eapecially bad unfortunately.

Yeah it's normally paying that I get caught out to! But to be honest it's the older one struggles but she just hates waiting and has issues standing still but wouldn't change them for the world 

Thanks for your reply, @Blank. Wow, it's so amazing that we think so similarly. I was going to reply something similar. 

I love your description of a crying child I will have to remember that one when mine is having a bad day!

I suspect they are designed by evolution to be difficult to ignore!  I sometimes refer to them as "un-ignorable biological alarm clocks" :-).

It is a very harsh sound, and I suspect it's designed to cause some sort of emotional pull on us.  But I wonder if our slightly differing wiring can impact how that is perceived?

I often joke that such loud children occur because their parents have gotten the gin dosage wrong and they need more gin :-D.

But I think it's something that happens and we should try and adjust for it.  If you find it particularly distressing then the idea of ear-plugs sounds good.  I think someone suggested recently there are good ones available for musicians?  Maybe that can dull the sound down to a tolerable level for you.

As much as it's tempting I think it's best to try and be reasonably non-judgemental about the parents.  You don't know what's led up to them being in that situation, and potentially there could be a good reason for what's happening - such as their child is autistic and having a meltdown due to over-stimulation.

I'm not saying it is always easy either...

I've timed doing groceries and then getting stuck waiting to pay. And then ofcourse it took too long and you end up with a crying baby... Sometimes it's unavoidable.

I see your point as I said I also try to limit it but with my eldest I did not have the option of one parent staying behind so it was unavoidable sometimes,