'AITA for giving my friend her baby back before I was supposed to?'
"AITA for giving my friend her baby back before I was supposed to?"
I'm genuinely struggling with this, so I'll take any honest/direct feedback I can get. I (F26) am childless (which I think may be relevant here). My close friend "A" (F27) had her second baby ,"R" almost 4 months ago, and her first, "T" (about 7 years old), has been having trouble adjusting to his new sibling.
She'd been feeling a lot of guilt around this, so I let her know that once she's comfortable, I'd be down to babysit "R" so she could have some one-on-one time with "T". She knows I have 12 niblings, (I was literally born an aunt) so she's comfortable with this.
She took me up on the offer on Halloween so she could take "T" trick-or-treating. She asked if I could keep "R" overnight so she and "T" could take part in some tradition or other. I adore the baby, so of course, I said yes.
Halloween rolls around and "A" drops "R" off at my apartment at around 4:00 PM, and everything is fine. After about an hour, "A" FaceTimes me to check on the baby. Another 45 minutes go by; "A" FaceTimes me again. No problem.
This baby is really young, so I totally get the anxiety. She continues to FaceTime me every 30 minutes to an hour, even while she takes "T" trick-or-treating. She'd get to a spot with no signal or wi-fi, try to call, the call would drop, and she'd call back-to-back until facetime stopped dropping the call.
At some point, they finish up trick-or-treating and go to do their Halloween tradition. Whatever it is, it runs late. She's still wide awake (and FaceTiming) at around 10:00 PM when I'm getting ready for bed.
I ask her if she just wants me to bring "R" home. She insists that she doesn't want that. I let her know that both "R" and I are about to be asleep, and (I definitely start getting a little a-holey here) maybe this would be a good time to finally focus on "T".
She continues to FaceTime every 30 minutes to an hour. I answer or call her back every time. The last few calls, I try to break it to her gently that she's keeping both me and "R" awake, and he's already not a great sleeper, so it's getting a little rough settling him back down after her calls wake him up. She does not care.
I finally get fed up at some point. "A" is clearly tired, "R" can't sleep because his mom won't stop calling (I won't put my phone on silent while I'm babysitting someone's newborn, for obvious reasons.), and I'm irritated. After we hang up the last time, I pack up "R" and his things, and I take him home.
She's genuinely upset with me. I thought I was doing the right thing, because she was clearly struggling with being away from the baby. "T" was asleep by the time I dropped "R" back off, so it's not like I disturbed their time. I don't have kids, maybe that's why I can't gauge the issue, but someone please let me know if I was an AH for bringing the baby back home.
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
You did the only thing that made sense. Your friend isn’t ready to be away from her baby and wasn’t letting you or baby sleep. NTA.
You are NTA. The only thing that I think I would have done differently is to warn her: "A, the baby and I *need* to go to sleep and you keep waking us up. If you call again before 7am, I'm going to pack him up and bring him home."
Clearly she wan't really ready to be away from the baby, (which I get) but I really feel bad for T. Because you just know that in between those calls she was most likely distracted with thinking about the baby. So he probably didn't get any real attention from his mom.
Ok_Kitchen6737 (OP)
I definitely should have given her notice before I took him home. Someone else mentioned that that's where I went wrong; how I went about it was probably a little aggressive.
NTA. I’m surprised she would even ask you to watch her baby overnight. She should have asked you to watch the baby at her home so you could leave once she was done with holiday stuff and the baby could sleep in their own bed. I think that was way too young for a baby to be away overnight. She should have stopped calling when it got to bedtime if she wanted the sleepover to be successful.
Ok_Kitchen6737 (OP)
I was surprised when she asked for an overnight too, ngl. The only thing I can think of is that she thought she'd be okay, because "T" was a while ago, but I don't remember her being this anxious at all after having him.
I can see why the older son is having a hard time adjusting to having a new sibling. I think Mom was barely present when she was supposed to be focusing on him during the whole trick-or-treating. OP, you did the only thing that made sense at that time. She is not ready to be away from the baby.
NTA - she was clearly not ready to be away from her baby. You let her know that she was disturbing both you and her baby with the incessant calling. In this scenario you did the only reasonable thing. I feel bad for T - I don’t think he got his alone time since mom was hyper focused on the baby.
I get being worried about your infant, but “A” seems obsessive. Maybe that obsessive attention to the newborn is what is giving her older child some problems adjusting. She’s obviously focusing an inordinate around of her attention on the newborn and “T” might be feeling neglected.
NTA, and if you can gently find a way to check in with her about postpartum anxiety that may end up being helpful. She may be fine but it doesn’t hurt to check in/ bring awareness if she was struggling to go 30 min without checking on baby while knowing they were with a trusted friend.
NTA. She should have known better than to keep bothering you while her baby was supposed to be asleep. You agreed to babysit, not stay up all night give check ins on the half hour, that is totally unreasonable. Let her be mad, you went above and beyond to accommodate an anxious mother and it is obvious that wasn't enough.