Mother Knows Best
I’m 19 years old and I have a three-week-old baby girl. I do still live with my parents, but since I pay rent equally, they say I can have just as much of a say in who comes and goes from the house as they do. I’ve never actually taken advantage of this rule until recently.
I have a brother who’s 26 and his wife is 24. They’re “crunchy parents” to an eight-month-old. They use reusable wipes/nappies, think formula is the epitome of evil, the list just goes on. I’m the complete opposite: pacifiers, supplementing with formula due to low supply, disposable wipes, and nappies.
They are completely against the products I use and often give me things like my sister-in-law’s breastmilk in bags, disposable nappies their child has grown out of, etc.
I’ve used some but it’s not really my cup of tea. On Monday night, my brother and sister-in-law were minding my baby for me since it was my birthday and my baby’s father (not together, very close friends and co-parents) took me to get some dinner in one of my favorite fast food places.
It was great and really relaxing. When I got home that evening, my sister-in-law said that she did some cleaning and “threw out anything I don’t need.” This immediately gave me red flags.
They were in a hurry to get out the door and left almost immediately. When I went into the nursery, every disposable nappy and wipe pack was gone and replaced with some reusable cloth ones.
Same with my formula. There were eight tubs and all of it was gone. I’m not able to replace them at the moment and solely breastfeeding isn’t sustainable for us. I was extremely angry and I just turned my phone off to avoid being mean to my sister-in-law.
She and my brother came over yesterday to collect something they forgot and that was when I confronted her. I told her she has to replace everything she dumped.
When she said she can’t afford to, I said fine, just get out and don’t come back until I’ve been reimbursed or everything is replaced with the original items.
My brother thinks I’m being a massive jerk. Our parents think I’m being completely reasonable here but they think telling her essentially not to come back is taking it too far. Story credit: Reddit / CrunchySiL