Niece and inappropriate (?) behaviour?

[TheLongRains]

We are on holiday with my sister and her family, and yesterday her daughter (5) and my daughter (2) had disappeared for a few minutes from the lounge so I went to check where they were. They had gone into my niece's room and she had shut the door (my daughter is a small, only just turned two, so can't shut or open doors yet!) and I found them with my daughter standing in the middle of the room and my niece pulling my daughter's pants/trousers round her knees.

At first she said "her trousers and pants fell down so I was just pulling them up", then I said to my daughter "oh dear, did your pants fall down?" And she said "no, (cousin's name) changing my nappy". To which my niece said "oh yeah, yeah, I was just changing her nappy".

I pointed out to both kids that my daughter doesn't wear a nappy (!), so probably it doesn't need changing so could they both go back and play in the lounge.

I mentioned to my sister that I'd found them with my daughter's pants down, and I said that I'd had mixed stories as to why. She told her daughter that "we don't pretend to change nappies with other people", but she then said to me a couple of times over the afternoon "she was only pretending to change her nappy", despite me not saying anything about it after having mentioned it initially.

I don't know if I'm being over sensitive because of having worked in childcare settings in the past and being used to logging things that might seem insignificant but could build a bigger picture. It's not so much the fact that my niece was undressing my daughter that bothers me, as I know that that may well just be childish play, but my sister seeming so determined to tell me (a few times) that "she was just changing her nappy" makes me feel weirder about the situation. Like she's trying to defend her daughter, even though I hadn't expressed even the slightest anger or upset when mentioning it.

I may be totally wrong, because my 2 year old is my oldest so I'm not an experienced patent, but I think my instinct would have been to at least talk to my child about it a bit more, talk about why it's not appropriate etc.

Would any of this make you think, or am I just being over-the-top sensitive and thinking about it too much?! Willing to accept I'm reading too much into it!

Oh, and I would be saying breasts and boobies and breast feeding and breasts, breasts, BREASTS all the time around your DS!
FFS.
'Chest feeding' indeed

In regards to the niece shutting the door, and that indicates nothing unless it's out of the ordinary, then and only then does it perhaps show that she is trying to hide that she is curious about bodies.

Yo haven't said OP whether having her bedroom door closed is normal for your niece. It certainly is for lots of children.

Thanks for these further thoughts. My instinctive feeling is that it was just curious play, and that perhaps the door shutting and fibbing was, as suggested by someone above, because my niece thinks that things relating to the body are "naughty" because of my sister's attitude towards them.

Having her bedroom door closed is very unusual, which is why I went to see what they were up to in the first place, as so far this week all doors in the holiday cottage have been open and we could normally hear where they were and what they were playing. The fact I couldn't hear anything made me wonder where they'd got to. And my niece is very much a door-open kid. She always wants the door open at night and lights on in the corridor - I've never actually seen her bedroom door shut when we've been at their house in the past, night or day.

I think she is probably curious, but unfortunately ashamed of it due to the family dynamics and "rules" about speaking about it. I totally get that it is normal to be curious - but my memories of that age is a small group of neighbourhoods friends all comparing things on the veranda (!), so hardly something we his away to do!

I'll keep an eye and ear on what she or my daughter might say about it/anything similar, but will assume for now it's all just normal but within the context of my sister's weird rules :) thank you!

Perfect summary OP

This might be a helpful link to help people differentiate between developmentally normal and concerning behaviours. www.brook.org.uk/our-work/the-sexual-behaviours-traffic-light-tool