A woman has taken to Reddit to vent after she says her mom and sister (wrongly) assumed she would breastfeed her nephew while babysitting. The anonymous woman, who is a mother herself, added that when she refused to nurse the 3-month-old, both her mom and her sister were kind of ticked — which only made the entire situation even more awkward. Now, she's asking Reddit what to make of the whole thing.
The poster had agreed to help her mother watch her nephew, but was totally unaware that her sister and mother had a "plan."
"What I didn't know is that my mom and sister discussed between themselves that if he didn't take the bottle I would be there to nurse him if I had to," the woman explained, in a post that has since been deleted.
Lo and behold, the baby refused a bottle when it came time to eat — at which point, her mother looked at her and said, "'Poor baby, you should nurse your nephew.'"
Yikes.
The poster immediately told her mother that she wasn't comfortable nursing a child that wasn't hers, but that didn't seem to satisfy Grandma.
"After that she continued to ask me to nurse him four more times each time me responding back with no," the woman continued.
But it wasn't just the woman's personal comfort level that made her refuse the request.
As she explained, she has her own newborn at home who is just under 1 month old and was born at 6 lbs. "So I felt that the milk I make is solely for my newborn," she explained.
(She's not wrong — breast milk changes as a baby ages, so the breast milk produced for an infant would be somewhat different than that of a 3-month-old.)
"I felt I was getting guilt tripped and that I should've fed my nephew, but also felt that it wasn't my responsibility," the woman continued. "My sister chose to go to a holiday party instead of stay home and tend and care to her 3-month-old."
That is why she's turning to Reddit for a second opinion. Was she wrong to say no?
Most people in the comments thread agreed: Her tatas, her choice.
"It's your boobs, your milk," one commenter stated. "But it's so weird how they decided unilaterally that you were gonna nurse him without talking to you first. Like how could your sister not ask first? Bizarre."
"If she was going to leave her baby for an extended period of time, she should have prepared him for it," another person wrote.
"Not your baby not your problem," a third person chimed in. "You don't know if this child is ill and not showing [symptoms that] can affect your child. Your sister and mom had no right to discuss that decision without you much less assume you would. You had every right to say no. She could have stayed home and taken care of her own baby."
Others urged the woman to think about her poor, hungry, nephew -- who's just a baby, after all.
"Your sister obviously shouldn’t have put you in that position, but it wasn’t the 3-month-old's fault and the baby is the one who paid the price," one commenter wrote. "Your sister and mother should have discussed plan B with since you were it, but you should have gotten past that for your infant nephew."
"Your nephew isn’t at fault," another said. "Hunger is literally painful for babies this young, and if you had the option to help — even if you were put into this position against your will — your nephew shouldn’t have suffered the consequences. You should have at least demanded that your sister be called back to feed her child."
"Of course they shouldn't have decided this without consulting you and of course it's your body and you have the right to say no," someone else added. "But seriously, a baby was hungry and crying and all people on here can say is: not your baby, not your problem. This sub[reddit] is a sick place sometimes."
The woman later explained that she was especially puzzled after previously telling her sister she would never breastfeed another child.
"I've mentioned to her that it's something I wouldn't ever do unless it was a life and death situation," she wrote. "Other than that, I don't know where she got the impression I would do it right away when asked."
And ultimately, the poster found the idea to be uncomfortable.
"It's just a weird thing for me," she admitted.
When all is said and done, no one can blame her for that.
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
