Original postHey everyone. Apologies to those who have been asking me what happened. I got really distracted with Christmas prep and forgot about updating the post (it actually got more attention than I was expecting and I appreciate all of the attention and support).I’ve listed some new info below.#1:My husband wasn’t being 100% transparent about his feelings on this entire situation with SIL (as I suspected). As many indicated, there was actually a safety concern. Apparently SIL made a “joke” to him about herself and the baby. I probably shouldn’t repeat it here because it might disturb some people.But it freaked him out a lot and he told her that she couldn’t say anything like that to him again. (He didn’t tell me any of this until after I made my last post - I may have interrogated him a little). He says he didn’t plan to do anything about it because he figured she’d just had a momentary lapse in judgment. But I guess when I said we could take my niece for a bit to give SIL a break, he was secretly super grateful. Then, when SIL never brought her back home, I guess it solidified his previous concerns.#2:SIL finally told us she’s been smoking cigarettes. We don’t know for sure if that was negatively affecting the breast milk, but we all decided it would be best to try a slow/gradual switch to formula. Things have actually started to improve somewhat so I’m hoping that means it’s working. My niece has an appointment with the pediatrician at the end of this week. (That was the earliest they could do with the holidays and everything. I’m going to go with SIL so I can take my own notes but I’m thinking it will go alright).#3:My husband and I had a long talk with SIL on Christmas Eve. I asked her point blank what her ideal timeline was in terms of this childcare arrangement. She got sort of teary and flustered and started apologizing repeatedly about “dumping her kid” on us. She then started going on about being stressed about having enough money for Christmas presents. We told her that she didn’t have to worry about buying gifts and that we especially didn’t want anything. But she wouldn’t accept that and said she’d be “humiliated” because everyone would be buying gifts for the baby and she needed to have gifts to give out in return.Then she asked if she could pay us to keep my niece until after New Year’s. She said after that she’d have a friend of hers who does home day care help out during the day while she worked.I felt a little uneasy since this is the first I’m hearing of this friend. (She always complained before that she had no friends, so this was sort of out of the blue). I said maybe we should just continue to take it day by day while she got herself into therapy. Thankfully she was fine with that and didn’t get defensive at all. She says she’s been doing some online counseling thing, which is good, I guess, but I’m not sure how well that’s working (I actually didn’t even know online therapy was a thing until now).~Thanks to everyone for all of the advice thus far. This has been a difficult and ongoing journey for everyone involved. Comments, of course, are still welcome.TLDR: We got through Christmas and had a long talk with SIL. As of now, we still have my niece. There’s still no timeline and no real resolution. We’re just taking it day by day. But I decided to update anyway for those that were concerned. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2zzJyfA
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