Posting for traffic/I’m not sure where else this belongs..
Background if it helps: I’m a mum of a nearly 4 year old. She is very bright, happy, outgoing, completely normal development wise and attends nursery full time. I met dh when she was 2 and they have a great relationship, which has grown over time, i can honestly say I really trust him and she has started to call him daddy which feels natural for us all. Her dad has never been in the picture and we have no contact with him.
I have recently begun to have real worries about her relationship with my dh’s brother. He is 31, unmarried, no kids. Generally quite an immature guy (loves gaming, works minimum wage job and lives in a flat share) but seems pleasant enough since I’ve known him. However, since he met dd at a family gathering probably a year ago, alarm bells are ringing for me more and more and I don’t know if it’s instinct or paranoia. Every time he sees her he picks her ups lot, tickles her, cuddles her, he addresses her as “friend” (seems odd for a 3 year old), he always buys her extravagant presents whenever we see him. She is a trusting kid and I’m beginning to think, too trusting- because of all the positive attention he gives her (and maybe because she lacked a “dad figure” the first couple years of her life?) she absolutely loves him, talks about him loads, nowadays whenever he is there at a family gathering she just wants to go to him and has a tantrum if I say no or keep her next to me. It seems really excessive that she is so into him and that he had instigated this type of relationship with her- dh’s sister, who has kids, has what I would consider a more normal relationship with my dd and is lovely to her but definitely doesn’t push the boundaries. He has now offered to babysit a few times and I refuse point blank each time which I think dh is a little upset by (dh idolises his brother and I can’t talk to him about ANY of this). It happened again yesterday with lots of cuddling, sitting on his knee. My own brothers don’t do this with my dd and I feel like I can’t put a stop to it, but she is so trusting and I don’t know how to protect her. Whenever she needs a male figure she seems to get overly attached anyway, but for me this is going too far. She doesn’t want to be near me or dh when his brother is around, the amount of presents makes me uncomfortable and I feel like the physical stuff in public is a possible first step of grooming. Can anyone please help me understand what to do, it’s a really sensitive situation. Does this sound odd? I would appreciate anyone who knows about signs of grooming etc to weigh in. Do I sound crazy?
Fwiw my mum and sister are both teachers and having witnessed the interactions said that their own instincts were kicking in too and that the developing relationship wasn’t necessarily appropriate/he seemed a little over interested in kids.
Please help, this is stressing me out so much whenever we are around family.