Woman bans SIL from seeing niece after she puts breastmilk in her ear to 'cure' ear infection.
Home remedies for sickness are not universal, and can be controversial in nature. What one person swears has healing properties might sound downright creepy or ridiculous to someone else.
In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she was wrong for banning her SIL from babysitting after she put breastmilk in her daughter's ears. She wrote:
"AITA for banning my SIL from babysitting after she put breastmilk in my child’s ears?"
I have a 7-year-old daughter, Rose. Rose is prone to ear infections. She had a double ear infection recently and couldn’t go to school on Friday because she had a low-grade fever. I had to go to work and couldn’t get a babysitter so my SIL offered to keep her for me.
Everything seemed to go well until I picked Rose up and my SIL told me she had put breastmilk (she has a 12-week-old) in Rose’s ears to help with the ear infection. She even offered to send some home in a dropper bottle so I can keep giving it to her. She claims it’s a great remedy and that Rose was already starting to feel better. I couldn’t believe that she did this to my child without asking.
I yelled at her for it, we argued, and I told her she will no longer be able to babysit/be around Rose unsupervised. Now Rose is upset that she can’t go to her auntie’s house anymore and my brother called me to say that I upset his wife, she was just trying to help, and that I overreacted. This is a woman putting her bodily fluids in my child’s ear. I think I have a right to be upset.
It seems that everyone is against me on this so I wanted to know if I was the AH for banning her from babysitting or being near Rose unsupervised.
The internet weighed in with all of the thoughts.
arterialrainbow wrote:
Jfc Reddit is wild. Any other post where a family member babysitter gives a kid baby Tylenol without permission and those people are AHs, but according to Reddit you overreacted because it’s breast milk this time. NTA. Babysitters shouldn’t be giving any medicine or home remedies without permission. No matter how normal and fine people apparently think it is.
HepKhajiit wrote:
Ehhh soft NTA but this does seem like an overreaction. Yes, she definitely should have asked first. I think labeling breastmilk bodily fluids while accurate is sort of lumping it in with unsanitary things you'd never put in a kids body. I've had pediatricians recommended putting breastmilk in ears for ear infections, in eyes to clear eye boogers, and bathing them in it to help eczema.
It's not like she was putting pee in your kids ear, this is something that's pretty common and recommended by some doctors. Again, she should have asked first, but never letting your kid see them again for this seems extreme. She was just trying to help, it wasn't malicious.
whateverisstupid wrote:
NTA, I see the comments calling out that the breast milk is fine and all that but that's NOT the issue, it's about someone ELSE'S breast milk, who knows if they have any health issues/sickness to make it worse?! Also, it was a decision about your child that she didn't have the right to make, providing medical help in any way requires parental consent.
HurricaneBells wrote:
NTA because it's your child and your rules but I do question if it's worth all the angst you are causing in turn. Wasn't the best idea but is not the worst thing in the world either. I would have just made it clear things like this, especially anything medical related are not to happen without permission and please don't do it again, not gone nuclear.
Grouchywhennhungry wrote:
NTA. Breast milk does contain lots of great stuff for your baby. But you don't put body fluids on other people's kids. It's f#$ked up. Putting fluid in an infected ear will likely cause pain. Putting milk which contains sugars and nutrients will feed infection.
OP is NTA here, her SIL definitely should have asked her first.