Man Criticizes Pregnant Sister Who Refuses To Babysit His Newborn Daughter Since It Will Be 'Past Her Bedtime'
She already has four other children to look after.
Alena Ozerova / Shutterstock A man asked his pregnant sister to help him out and babysit his newborn daughter so that he and his wife could celebrate their anniversary.
However, his sister refused due to schedule conflicts.
When the man pointed out that he would babysit her children despite his own schedule, she became upset with her brother.
Now he is wondering if he should apologize.
The man’s sister said she could not babysit her niece because it interfered with her own ‘bedtime.’
Sharing his story to the subreddit "r/AmItheA–-hole" (AITA), the 27-year-old man sought the advice of other Redditors regarding the situation.
He began his post by revealing that he and his wife are celebrating their five-year anniversary and made dinner reservations three months in advance.
They have a 12-week daughter whom they are searching for a babysitter for since their usual sitters will be out of town.
He wrote that they would be out from about 6:45 pm to 11:30 pm.
“I reached out to my older sister (35) to ask if we can leave our baby daughter by her house for that time,” the man wrote.
“I said that she is generally a well-behaved baby but there is no guarantee that she'll be asleep by 10 pm which is my sister's usual bedtime.”
The man added that his sister has four sons, ages ranging from 16 to four years old, and is nine months pregnant with her fifth child.
He assumed that his sister would gladly take on the responsibility since he spent years assisting with his nephews, including picking them up from school, helping them with their homework, and even moving into her house to help look after them on three separate occasions.
“All the while we never complained and we were happy to do it because family is family,” he wrote.
So the man was surprised when his sister suggested finding another sitter for his daughter once it hit 10 pm since it was her bedtime.
"She tells me in no uncertain terms (but very nicely) 'I need my sleep so if you want to leave her here until 10:00 you can,'" he shared.
"I passive-aggressively responded to her 'most babies are born sleep trained and go to sleep at around 10:00 so you having a baby soon won't pose any problem for you.'"
The man’s sister became upset with him and told him that he was “making her feel bad that she needed sleep.”
He believed that after everything he had done for her over the years with her own children that his sister could sacrifice an hour of sleep to help him with his own baby.
“She wants me to apologize but I think I did nothing wrong,” he wrote.
Most Redditors criticized the man for expecting his sister to babysit his daughter when she needed sleep.
“She's nine-freakin' months pregnant. She's not feeling her best, and is exhausted all the time from the human being still inside her,” one user commented.
“You tried guilting a nine-month pregnant lady into watching your baby. No is a complete sentence,” another user pointed out.
“You helped her out, but you weren't nine months pregnant and I wonder how much notice she gave you or if yours was a regular arrangement?” another user noted.
"Hey, sis, can you disrupt all your kids and lose sleep when you could go into labor any day now?" another user sarcastically wrote referring to the man’s ignorance.
Others believed that the man and his wife should have planned better.
“Why, if you had this planned for three months, did you only just now look for a babysitter?” one user pressed.
“There are also a lot of Facebook groups, on-call services, etc, etc that you could have utilized,” another user pointed out. “There’s really no excuse for waiting till the literal last second.”
“Go out at 6 and pick the baby up NO LATER THAN 10:00,” another user suggested. “That's still plenty of time out.”
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.