"She said it was inappropriate for a man to go into the women's bathroom and offered to change my baby again. When I refused, she said she's a woman so she knows more about being a parent than me and called me a pervert." 

A single father was left reeling after a stranger insisted on changing his baby’s nappy and accused him of being “a pervert” when he refused.

The 28-year-old explained that he is the sole carer for his four-month-old after his wife tragically died from pregnancy complications. Given the trauma, he hasn't trusted anyone else to look after his little girl yet. 

On a recent outing to get groceries, his baby did what all babies like to do at the most inconvenient time and did a huge poo. 

But when there was no change table in the men’s bathroom, he asked staff to check if the women’s bathroom was empty so he could go in and change his daughter.

“A woman nearby heard our exchange and came over with her three kids. She offered to change my child for me,” the dad explained in his Reddit post.

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The new dad said he wasn’t comfortable even leaving his daughter with friends yet, so declined the offer.

“(She) says it’s inappropriate for a man to go into a women's bathroom and offered to change my baby again,” he said.

“I refused, and said that she's a stranger and I'd rather not leave her with my child.I guess this made her tick because she started to go off on this tangent about how I'm a man and she's a woman and she knows more than me when it comes to being a parent (which is probably true as I'm still new to this) and I should just let her change my baby as ‘the smell could cause a disturbance’.”

With the baby getting more upset by the minute – and the smell getting worse – the dad went to make his way into the bathroom anyway.

“She blocks my way with her shopping cart and calls me a pervert,” he said.

“There's a small crowd gathering from all the commotion and I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea so I walk into the family bathroom (which didn’t have a change table) and change her on my lap.”

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The single dad said even some of his friends said he should've let the woman help him, but Reddit users agreed he was completely justified in not letting a stranger take his baby.

“No one in their right mind would hand over their 4 month old to a total stranger and let them change their nappy. It drives me bonkers that changing facilities aren’t available in every bathroom, dads need to change their kids too. It’s not the 50’s anymore it’s time for society to catch up and update the infrastructure,” said one person.

“Would this woman have been comfortable with handing one of her kids over to a complete stranger if the roles were reversed? Probably not," added another. 

Another person said: “To this day I still don't understand why there's no changing station in men's bathrooms. It's beyond me that they are only located in the womens bathrooms." 

What do you think?