OH wants custody of baby niece?

[milkshakess]

So OH's younger sister has recently had a baby and there is possibility that the baby may end up in care.

She already has an 18 year olds on who has lived with their mum since he was 8.

She dips in and out of his life, she even forgot his last birthday, she hasn't really been a mum to him at all. Despite this he has turned out to be a lovely, smart and hard working lad.

Everyone was so surprised by the pregnancy.

From what we understand she was kept in hospital for 2 weeks whilst some kind of team were getting stuff ready for the baby.

I think the hospital staff were monitoring and observing her interact with the baby and something must of been flagged?

Her mum has sold her house and was due to move abroad in September but she had been visiting her and the baby at the hospital daily and helping.

OH isn't really close to his sister but he is close to her son, he calls OH the "best uncle" as him and the other uncles have all chipped into help raise him.
OH would sometimes not see his sister for years and she was always changing her number and would have to talk to her though her son.

Anyway the family don't want the baby to end up in care but everyone has young kids themselves ( we have toddlers and are trying for a 3rd).

OH wants to go for custody but the care would really fall on me and I work from home and have a very flexible job.

Just wanted input on the situation as OH and the family don't want the baby to go into care

I know! Sometimes it's hard to believe people can be so stupid.

All very well saying DP will "have to step up" etc however the reality is that the OP will very likely end up as the primary carer given she has the flexible job.

It all sounds like a recipe for chaos and heartache and, as hard a decision as it may be, I would be firmly in the 'no' camp.

I dunno. You’ll have to ask the OP.

I agree. Too many of the posts here wildly naive and based mostly on assumptions, even before the OPs update.

Oh gosh, I couldn’t not help this poor baby in your shoes, especially as you’re trying for another baby of your own.
How would you ever feel if the poor mite went into care? If your OH wants them and you oppose, it could cause quite some grief in your marriage.
I appreciate that’s an emotional response and I am normally very rational, but you gave such an opportunity to change a life here, especially if you can have the baby from babyhood xxx

Why is your husband jumping ahead and speculating that he can foster this child? The mother has said she wants to keep her. Is your husband going to wrestle the baby from his sister because he thinks he (you) can do a better job?

How many babies did you end up adopting?

I wonder whether he even knows. He's showing no evidence of having thought through the practicalities, and I've learned on this thread that some people think they can just get paid leave for kinship care the same as with their own baby. Maybe he's one of them.

I don't think you should put baby 3 on hold.

There's not an adoption here anytime soon, it's messy and there would be uncertainty for years. If you feel strongly that you want another child then have one, and manage things with DNiece around that.

No one is guaranteed a singleton. Your baby 3 could turn out to be twins anyway. If they do then probably you won't have the capacity to help much but if they don't then you could muddle through making some space for DNiece like twins' parents do.

I don't think you want to take on DNiece, and her mum doesn't want to give you DNiece, which are 2 excellent reasons why this should not be a plan A. Also it would not be fair on her to make her the reason you delay a wanted child. You'd end up resenting her even if subconsciously. Have the child you want, and extend help to your niece in whatever capacity you feel you can around that.

What will happen if she has another baby?
So it seems your partner isn't suggesting taking on the baby himself as he's asking you if you want to take the baby?

This is what I'm finding to be odd.

If she wants to keep her baby, she is unlikely to still be a small baby if it ever got to the point of sister having her parental rights removed because social services will try and keep sister and baby together and forcibly removing baby will be a last resort.

Read this OP's updates. This is a bizarre situation in which the baby's bio mum doesn't want the baby to be adopted, she just wants an unspecified quantity of help because she "forgot how hard it was" to have a baby.

In OP's shoes, I would only consider taking on the niece if I was going to get full parental responsibility, so that the bio mum can't keep dipping in and out of the child's life and making silly demands when she feels like it. However this doesn't seem to be what's being offered/asked of OP - instead it's more of a "can you do most of the grunt work of raising the child, but without her actually being yours". Which is of course totally unreasonable.

She is a newborn. She will be adopted.

If your SIL was clear she didn’t want the baby and was wiling to give her up then I can see that you and OH adopting could be a good solution as you want more children and while it isn’t the same and wouldn’t be easy it probably could work.

What he is suggesting I can’t see working. All other considerations aside (& there are a lot) what if at some point in the future SIL suddenly decides she fancies being a full time mum or event that you and OH split up. You’d not have any real rights to the child you’d raised and you’d quite possibly lose her even if it wasn’t in her own best interests. It just sounds like an inevitable future heartache

She would be your 3rd baby. When I was growing up we had a similar experience. My aunt couldn't look after her son. Extended Family didn't want him to go into care, no one else was willing to take him except my parents. He became my little brother and I still call him that.
I currently am raising 2 children (6 &15 years) of close family and have also adopted them. I wouldn't change it for anything.

So if you do decide to take her in, make sure to get legal guardianship so that you and your husband can make all the decisions for her.

Personally if it were me I wouldn’t try any more for the third child and adopt your niece.
It sounds like you are in part trying for a 3rd because you would love to have a girl, which as you say is not guaranteed.
I had my 3rd the same age as you and pregnancy did take its toll more so then when I had been in my early 30’s.
I appreciate I may be in the minority but if I had 2 biological children of my own already and I had a niece that needed someone I would, I wouldn’t feel the need to continue on trying for the third myself.
If adoption isn’t on the cards and the mum just expects loads of help, then that’s different.

Not if her mother is judged fit to look after her with support. Not if she goes to a kinship care setting.

But how would you go about adopting a baby whose mum doesn't want to give her up?

Her mum wants to keep her, which makes this whole situation far more complex and means it will take far longer before there is any certainty. Uncles and aunts can't just go round claiming children from their mother.

ETA - sorry I missed the last sentence of your post. In my defence I think you missed some of OP's updates too!

Exactly. These 'you want a third child, there is a little baby girl needing adopting, what are you waiting for' comments are tedious and annoying now. Have these posters even attempted to read the OP's posts at ALL?!

The niece isn't up for adoption, this is the problem. Bio mum wants to retain parental responsibility but also wants her brothers to act as "second dads" because she has apparently forgotten that babies are hard work. So the OP is essentially being asked to do a sort of informal kinship care arrangement, without any legal underpinning.

It's terribly sad for the baby but this sounds like it has the potential to become a toxic nightmare of a situation, and I think OP is best off staying out of it.

I completely agree.

I’m a bit confused by this thread tbh.

OP has suggested that the baby may end up in care as SS are involved, so DH wants to adopt it - but then mum wants to keep the baby so it wouldn’t be adopted unless SS force it.
So I guess it depends on how much say SS have.

I guess OP and DH could privately foster it temporarily.

I think you need to either commit to being this baby's permanent home and ask for something called a special guardianship order (I think that's what it is) or say that you can't provide a home for her, but can offer mum support.
No social worker would be on board with the idea of baby being passed around, with all family members chipping in to provide childcare. They might see a big supportive family as a positive factor for baby's mum, and a protective factor for the baby, but there still needs to be a plan for a permanent home.

I would only agree to take the niece if the plan was to legally adopt her and become her parents - she's your child and you make all the decisions.

Anything else is too messy, stressful and setting yourself up for heartbreak.

I certainly wouldn't do all the work of "parenting" with my OH's family sticking their oars in and thinking they can tell me what to do.

This is not a parent role, it's a nanny role.

They can pay a nanny between them to care for the baby if this is what they want, rather than expecting you to do it unpaid.

there is no marriage, they are not married RTFT

The child’s mother sounds like a pain in the arse.

So very blurred lines if she wants to keep the baby. This would not be a straightforward adoption with other family members saying they’ll ’dip in’. Is there any other family member who could familial foster? If staff at the hospital were so concerned they’re looking at foster situations, the mum may never have any kind of custody.

Looking at her history with her son, she might just swing by when she can/feels like it, especially after asking her brothers for help already. Is she expecting to hand over responsibility?