Given soooo many clothes - am I being unreasonable?!

[Sunnylands27]

I’m currently 35wks, being induced at 37 due to T1DM.
A friend of the family has very generously given us baby clothes.. however there’s literally tons of it and none of it, bar 1x cardigan and 2x leggings, are for less than 12mnths old.. now I know this will be controversial but I’ve spent days going through the lot and I can’t help but feel we’re just an excuse to get rid of the stuff they can’t find time to dispose of or donate - I mean do I seriously need to be thinking about 2-4yr old clothes right now?
We live in a tiny prefab 2 2bed house with no storage or loft and honestly besides the bits I’ve got for baby’s first year we’ve got no room for anything else, at all.. even the pram is in our bedroom!
I was so happy when they said they had ‘some’ bits for us as it’s quite exciting, like a surprise bag, and I was really grateful and know they would have had to get out all those bits and go through them.. However, I’m really exhausted and uncomfortable at the mo and having to now take bags and bags of clothes to charity shops and clothing bins for someone else’s child is a job I could really have done without!
So either I’m being an unreasonable moany B and need to have a word with myself OR I need to ask if they can stop giving us bits for ages >12mnths until baby’s a bit older or our living situation changes. But, then comes the question of how do you address this without sounding like an ungrateful cow?

Just be honest! Say how kind it was to think of you but you don't have space to store it as you won't need that size for another year - ask if they want it back and if not then charity shop the lot (unless there's anything you particularly want to keep). They probably just weren't thinking or didn't realise you couldn't store them. And then refuse if they try to give you anything else.

A lot of people will give older clothes they no longer need and if you had the room you might be thankful in a couple of years when you are replacing clothes so often. I would just thank her and return them saying you wanting to give her the chance to give them to someone else who might need them as you don't have the room to keep them until baby will need them. I think she was trying to be nice though not offload junk.

YADNBU. There’s a very fine line between being generous and helpful, and just dumping a load of stuff on someone so that you can get rid of it.

I haven’t had a baby but I bought my first home recently and lots of friends of relatives kindly offered me their old furniture. Some of it was genuinely really helpful but a few definitely saw us as an opportunity to finally get rid of any old junk they hadn’t had time to take to the dump!

I have this problem with my SIL, she looked out some of my nephews clothes for my DS when he was around 6 months but everything was age 3-4 years. I felt a bit trapped into taking it and felt I couldn't refuse. I didnt want to complain either because she had taken the time to do it. Recently she bought new clothes as a gift for DS. She sent a giant padded winter jacket and a couple of outfits, all age 3, and a pair of shoes that must be for around 3 or 4 year olds too.i thanked her but instead of feeling grateful I was annoyed. She knows we don't have a lot of storage. Equally I know she doesnt have a lot of money and I hate that she is wasting it. I've just had to put everything on top of a wardrobe and hope I remember we have it when DS finally reaches the correct age.

Be honest.

Say thanks but you don't have storage space.

You'd love it in a year time, but understand that she might not want to hold onto it, in which case also fine

If you are being induced due to diabetes this could be one big baby and needing 12 month clothes by 6 months, so save what you like and give back the rest. Boxes under the bed is needed.

My 20 month old has been in clothes for 3 to 4 year olds for a while now. We have tall children.

But if you don’t want the clothes then polite decline and say you haven’t got the space.

YANBU. I always asked before donating to anyone and was very clear that refusal would not at all offend. Dumping tons of stuff on you is really lazy.

But to make donating stuff onwards a bit easier you can get the Red Cross to send you donation bags in the post that you can post back to save you a trip to a shop.

Bin it and think no more about it. Your heavily pregnant, you don’t need the hassle.

I think YABVU, baby clothes are expensive and harder shop for so I'd be grateful for the clothes. My DD is 14 months and we're finally getting to the end of our gifted clothes and I'm now digging around Facebook and charity shops to save costs.
Don't bin them like pp said or even take the yem straight to charity, that's really disrespectful. Get some of those hoover bags and slot them in somewhere for now, or can you keep them at grandparents. I'd keep up until 6 months to hand incase you have a big baby, they grow out them of quicker than you think.

YANBU

It's rude to treat other people as your convenient waste disposal.

I have a couple of friends that I offer first dibs on items to and ask if they want something. They don't have much space so I keep it for a stage when they're more likely to need it in the future rather than expecting them to store it.

Thank her, explain that you can't store it and what would she like you to do with it.

You need to be honest with people and say although you are grateful, you are bursting at the seams with clothes that aren't suitable/too big etc.

I was in the same situation - I am now 37 weeks pregnant and was given 13 bin bags of clothes from different people (under the impression that it was a few "bits").

I checked that they didn't want them back first, and then also checked that they would be happy for any I didn't want to go to a local womens refuge or charity donation box.

It's a difficult situation because I struggle to say no as well, and I did feel like people were just looking for an excuse to clear out their junk cupboards/attics etc. The same happened when we bought our first house. People came around with bags of crap that we didn't need but couldn't refuse.

So no, you are not being unreasonable (in my opinion) and you could try something along the lines "thank you thinking of us, but we just don't have the space to store clothes for a year. If you have the space you could keep hold of them for us, or just donate to a childrens charity etc if you would like to"

I’d make sure they don’t want them back first!

YANBU, my 'friend' left 5 bags of clothes on my doorstep then legged it because covid and it was all for older kids, or threadbare/horribly stained, and there was an adult jumper in there too for good measure! Took almost all of it to a clothing bank bin thingy which I felt like she really should have done herself! The problem is once its in your house it becomes yours to deal with. I'm going to be firmly rejecting anything else I get offered in future unless its literally one or two things.

I wouldn't take them to charity, I'd give them back.

If you want them for when your baby is older, that's different, you should store them, not the original owner, but it's not your job to get rid of their rubbish.

You’re not being unreasonable. My SIL and to a lesser extent my BIL offload any old shit into us. We get filthy broken toys, wrecked rotten clothes, all because they can’t bring themselves/can’t be arsed to toss it out. And when I politely declined the last bag load of shit when we visited, I was told by my PIL that I was being ungrateful and that it was bound to come in handy. The parents in law are basically hoarders (their kids are following suit it seems). We wound up taking the huge bag of crap and it’s now in the garage waiting for me to be the one to dispose of it in landfill 🙄 it’s no good even for textile charities because it’s all so dirty.

I had similar deluge to deal with, and a lot of it went straight to Oxfam. What I found though was not that people were dumping stuff on us, so much as some people find it emotionally difficult to give away their children's clothes (and often only do so when they are letting go the possibility of further children).

Giving familiar little garments to someone they know is easier than heaving them into a donated clothes bin. I find the same thing myself now!

Thank her and say sorry but having gone through them I've realised they're for a 1 year old. I don't have space to store these bags for a year, would you like them back or should I send them to a charity shop?

I have a 2 year old boy and a 3 year old girl and another girl en route.

We've had various hand me downs. A lot of the stuff from SIL gets rebagged and popped in one of the rag bag collections, but its always worth going through for a few useful bits and bobs. My best friend has a boy almost exactly a year older than my son and has another boy 18 months younger. So between us we box the stuff up by age group and then hand it back and forth. That has been a god send for extra wellies, sleeping bags or jackets for grandparents houses, shoes (a pair of Clarks shoes will cost you £40+ and last about 6 months).

We are fortunate that we have the space to store stuff. But to be honest most of the stuff we store is the stuff our kids have grown out of (in case we had another or to share with others). The stuff they are waiting to grow into is normally only an underbed storage box worth per child (and some of that is 2 years ahead).

I am careful to chuck anything that is stained or damaged though, that doesn't go into our storage boxes so most of what I share should be in decent nick.

I agree, it is a pain to sort through but for the most part has been worth the hassle for us (cos it is also pretty painful to go to the shops/trawl online for their clothes anyway... especially when it comes to paying).

Oh and kids wreck clothes! So extras that you don't care about are brilliant!

You'll be gutted in a couple of years that you didn't keep it. PS: get some storage or you're gonna have a tough few years!

I passed a lot of stuff to a friend who recently had a baby but I told her when I was passing it along that if there was anything she didn't like or want to pass it on. That I'd rather she didn't sell it but to feel free to either pass it on to someone she knew or a charity shop or a donation bin thing. Whatever was easier for her. I didn't want her stuck with piles of things she wouldn't use.

You may not have realised but bin bags of outgrown baby clothes are a thing - especially in the first 2/3 years when they grow so quickly.

However that's the giver's problem not yours. Practice some tiger mama skills. Ring up, say it was a kind offer but what she gave you was far more than expected, wrong age group and you have no storage. So actually you can't use it at all. Could they please pop round and pick it up becuase you would hate to put them in the bin and you aren't able to take it to charity shop etc. If they are wobbling say that's fine you/your DP will leave it outside their house next time you are heading to supermarket.

They most likely didn't spend a long time sorting - they will have had it bagged up in a wardrobe and jumped at the chance to get rid of it to a good home. You'll be in that position one day, it's understandable but they were a bit cheeky.

They were being nice. Ask them
If they’d like anything back if you won’t keep it or shall you pass it on? If you join local mum’s group on Facebook you’ll see plenty of charities asking for donations and other mums that would be happy to take the lot.

@Voomster953

You’re not being unreasonable. My SIL and to a lesser extent my BIL offload any old shit into us. We get filthy broken toys, wrecked rotten clothes, all because they can’t bring themselves/can’t be arsed to toss it out. And when I politely declined the last bag load of shit when we visited, I was told by my PIL that I was being ungrateful and that it was bound to come in handy. The parents in law are basically hoarders (their kids are following suit it seems). We wound up taking the huge bag of crap and it’s now in the garage waiting for me to be the one to dispose of it in landfill 🙄 it’s no good even for textile charities because it’s all so dirty.

Some charity shops will take bags of “rags” which they sell by weight, and get a few quid for so they might want it