Mom Gets Angry At Her Sister For Not Using Baby Talk When Babysitting Her 3-Year-Old Niece

Watching over kids is hard. Watching other people's kids is even tougher.

Every parent has their own set of rules, and they expect them to be followed. It's acceptable when it involves things like, "Don't let the kid go out on the street," or, "Don't let him fire a gun," and, "Never let him play with boiling water."

But these are general rules that we all know without someone mentioning them to us (hopefully). What about family-specific rules?

Should we question them if they seem ridiculous? If we are getting paid for babysitting, probably not.

But if we are babysitting our nieces, nephews, or grandkids, is it okay to question our loved ones' parenting methods?

One mother was irritated by her sister's stubborn refusal to use baby talk when talking with her niece. The fact that she used baby talk with her pets bothered her the most.

She went online to see if she was being unreasonable in her anger toward her sister. According to Reddit, she had no right to demand such a thing and should apologize for being unreasonable.

Read her story and take notes on how not to make a big issue out of a minor problem (even though we are not sure that's even a problem).

Mom went online to see if she was being unreasonable for being irritated with her sister for not using baby talk with her daughter.

According to KidsHealth.org:

"By age 3, a toddler's vocabulary usually consists of 200 or more words, and many kids can string together three- or four-word sentences. Kids at this stage of language development can understand more and speak more clearly. By now, you should be able to understand about 75% of what your toddler says."Nenad Stojkovic (not the actual photo)

The OP's sister occasionally babysits her 3-year-old niece and is the one she turns to in an emergency.

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She is backup for a backup babysitter. OP is really bothered by the fact that her sister won't use baby talk with her 3 Y.O. niece.

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She says that's because she is trying to treat her as a person.

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OP mentioned to her sister that she has no problem using baby talk with her cats, thus unconsciously sending a message that she likes them more than she likes her niece.

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OP gives this issue way too much attention (although it can hardly be called an issue), and her sister doesn’t want to comply with her wishes.

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OP’s husband told her she is overreacting.

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Now she asks the Internet if she is wrong.

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And Redditors were not kind to OP.

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Kids learn to speak faster if they are spoken to like a person.

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Some puns were also featured, but, to be honest, OP was asking for it...

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Listen to the experts...

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Who isn't jealous of cats?

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"Dumb one." Well said.

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Niece and cats are not the same.

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Some people don't like baby talk, even with animals.

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Babies require a different and softer tone, not a different language.

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Non-words are not desirable.

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"Really silly" is an understatement...

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The bottom line:

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OP here obviously has nothing better to do but invent problems. The very fact that she demands that people use baby talk with her 3-year-old is worrying.

Some kids speak fluently at this age, and using baby talk could slow down her speech development. Some people believe that her sister was subtly trying to convey a message that the child should listen to more adult talk so she wouldn’t fall behind other kids.