Their sons are now three and five weeks old and Phoebe’s baby is breastfed while Simone’s isn’t.
Recently, Simone needed surgery and because her son’s father isn’t around, Phoebe and her husband offered to babysit while she was in the hospital.
But while she was away for those three days, her sister decided to take baby-feeding matters into her own hands…
“When I came home, I walked into my son on my sister’s breast,” Simone explained to a forum.
“I called the police but there was nothing they could do”
Simone admitted she “didn’t have an issue with the situation to begin with” as “it was probably easier to breastfeed him than make bottles” but what her sister told her next left Simone completely speechless.
“She said she had thrown out all the ‘garbage’ I was feeding him and she was going to pump and donate milk to him.”
While Simone was in the hospital, Phoebe was breastfeeding Simone’s child.Getty Images/iStockphoto
The mom didn’t react straight away but instead, went into the bathroom and called the police, only to find out what her sister did wasn’t a crime.
“Apparently, the child is being fed so they couldn’t do anything about it,” she explained.
When Phoebe learnt what Simone did, she blew up at her and told her she was “just trying to help.”
But Simone wasn’t buying it and told her sister: “You dumped 14 cans of formula without even consulting me and currently have nothing to replace it with, just plans to.”
Phoebe ended up storming out and blocking Simone on everything.
The mom concluded: “Our parents were able to replace two of the cans she threw out but can’t do much else. They also think I was a d**k for calling the police on her because getting a record could affect her government job and therefore my nephew.”
Simone emphasized that her sister was staunchly against formula feeding so wouldn’t have replaced them herself. “The only way she could have been feeding my son over the next few weeks would be to put him on the boob, which would take time away from me,” she concluded.
“I would have done the same thing in your situation”
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After sharing her story, the forum rallied around the mom and assured her that she wasn’t in the wrong.
One commenter noted, “She just literally dumped hundreds of dollars of formula that YOU BOUGHT because of her own personal opinions on formula.”
“I would have done the same thing, in your situation.”
A second wrote: “How is that not a crime? It’s straightforward theft. Why did the police do nothing?”
And a third said: “My heart is legit hurting. Even before the formula crisis, 14 CANS of formula were expensive as hell. I would be ready to commit some crimes over this situation.”
Meanwhile, another user remarked: “She owes you for the 14 cans of formula that she stole and threw away. She can disagree with you all she wants, but theft is theft – and now that she’s blocked you everywhere, she’s leaving your child to go hungry.” They then suggested she goes to small claims court.