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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Baby clothes - strange

62 replies

Chocchoc88 · 11/10/2021 18:45

Friend told me this story and I’m confused and pissed off for her! A mutual friend of ours dropped off a big bag of baby clothes (some new, with tags, some not) a while back saying ‘your baby is bigger than mine so the clothes will fit them sooner, do you want them?’ My friend said yeah, accepted and took the bag off her. Fast forward a few months and our mutual friend is now asking for the bag of clothes back, saying ‘my baby will fit into them now, can I have them back?’ My friend is worried that she’s just mixed all the clothes in the wardrobe and drawers together etc and has to now try and remember what was in the bag and give it all back.

YABU - my mate should have kept the clothes to one side and given them back when asked
YANBU - she’s right to feel uncomfortable about it and it is a bit strange?

OP posts:

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 12/10/2021 00:55

Is she hard up on money OP? sounds like she wants stuff back she's given away to sell.

Eh? So she would be wanting to sell clothes the right size for her baby - second-hand - and then use the money to buy new clothes that are the right size for her baby?!

Suzi888 · 12/10/2021 01:00

Weird thing to do. If someone offered me a lend of clothing I wouldn’t bother accepting, clothes can easily be ruined.
Do not accept any further borrowings! Nightmare!

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 12/10/2021 01:07

The clothes were obviously a loan. I'm loaned lots of clothes from family (who want them back either to sell or for younger child). I label them all with a clothes marker. Not hard - is a pain sorting them but saved me loads of money over the years.

This makes perfect sense to me. Except for the odd very special item that you may want to set aside to keep, surely you would be sorting items out by the size they are and not by where they came from?

If your toddler is now 3 and you have a load of 12-18m baby clothes that you no longer need, would you not just sort them and put them all in a bag labelled '12-18m' and then pass them on to somebody with a baby fitting 12-18m clothes, rather than based on which parents of (now) older children originally passed them on to you?

Except for clothes that are genuinely completely ruined through torrential sick or poonamis (and I'm a bit sceptical about the sheer number of people who claim to have washing machines that seemingly can't do a standard washing machine's job), you are going to have to, one way or another, check all the labels and sort them before long, to eliminate the clothes that your child has now outgrown; so why is it such a monumental task to bag them up to pass on to a parent who can use them (when you eventually grab a spare half-hour), but not to randomly return them to somebody who no longer needs them or to give to charity?

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 12/10/2021 01:09

Actually, my last reply claiming complete agreement sort of diverged a bit from the poster's actual comments - but you get the idea, I hope

WTF475878237NC · 12/10/2021 04:11

Your friend is BU. To me, "sooner" implied they were being lent not gifted and your friend should have explicitly asked at the time will you want any of this back? I was lent baby clothes from a friend who intended to have another baby in a year and I asked if she wanted them back, to which the answer was yes. I then took a photo of them laid on the bed so I could easily identify them.

SnowyPetals · 12/10/2021 04:49

This sounds like one to chalk up to experience and move on. Whilst it's obvious the woman wanted her stuff back, I would have declined the loan on the basis that keeping track of the things is a hassle and there is the risk of them being ruined anyway. Give back what she can remember as being in the bag, plus the stairgate, and don't accept things from this person again - too much hard work!

Original poster

Chocchoc88 · 12/10/2021 07:22

@AwkwardPaws27 yeah that’s what she’s done - she’s bagged a ton of stuff ready to give to her now x

OP posts:

Bunnycat101 · 12/10/2021 07:25

I think from her phrasing it was obvious she wanted them back but I also think she was odd loaning out clothes before her own baby had even worn them.

Re The stairgate that sounds a bit more ambiguous but your friend should have checked if she was likely to need it back later on.

Kk789 · 12/10/2021 09:25

"These will fit your baby FIRST". How on earth would your friend then not realise that the bog pile of brand new baby clothes were then going to be worn by the other baby SECOND?

This has to be a reverse.

Kk789 · 12/10/2021 09:25

@Kk789

"These will fit your baby FIRST". How on earth would your friend then not realise that the bog pile of brand new baby clothes were then going to be worn by the other baby SECOND?

This has to be a reverse.

This should say big! Not bog

TheKeatingFive · 12/10/2021 09:30

The terms were pretty clear from what you've put in your OP. I had a similar arrangement with a friend and it was practical and a good use of resources.

Perhaps some way of keeping track of the clothes would have helped, but YABU to suggest there's anything outrageous about the original request.

sashh · 12/10/2021 09:48

@Chocchoc88

Yeah she’s said she’s going to try and remember what she gave her and dig out what she can.

I’ve never heard of giving clothes for them to grow into though? When my baby was born I was gifted a few bits I wasn’t keen on, maybe it was that?

When my brother's 3 were small a bundle of clothes was passed between quite a few parents as children grew.

yes the giver should have been clearer but if someone has a baby they are going to grow.

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