I (29M) live in a small two-bedroom apartment with my wife and our two kids (5 and 7). Our kids already share a bedroom because there’s simply no extra space.
My sister is currently pregnant with her FIFTH child and is due very soon. Out of our entire family, she and I are the only relatives who live nearby. Our parents live about an hour and a half away, so apparently that automatically made me her default childcare plan.
A few days ago she called and asked if my wife and I could take all four of her kids while she’s in the hospital giving birth. At first I assumed she meant for one night only during labor, which honestly already sounded chaotic considering her kids are 12, 10, 8, and 2 years old.
But then she explained she also wanted us to keep them for the entire following day too.
That’s SIX kids total in our tiny apartment.
I tried to be careful with how I responded because I know she’s heavily pregnant and stressed, but I told her honestly that I really didn’t think it was realistic space-wise. My wife would end up overwhelmed, I work weekdays, and we simply do not have room for four extra children to sleep comfortably or safely.
Instead of understanding, she immediately started trying to “solve” my objections for me.
She told me to just take days off work.
Then she said the kids could “just squish together somewhere” and it’d be fine for two days.
I explained again that this wasn’t just about inconvenience — it genuinely sounded unmanageable. We don’t have extra beds. We don’t even really have floor space for that many people. Her youngest is 2 years old and still requires constant attention. Meanwhile my wife would basically become responsible for six children by herself while I’m either working or using PTO.
That’s when she started getting emotional and said she was stressed because she needed reliable childcare.
So I asked about her babysitter because she actually DOES have a sitter she uses regularly.
That’s when the real issue came out.
She admitted she didn’t want to pay the sitter because after the birth she wanted a full extra day alone at home with just her husband and the new baby before dealing with the older kids again.
So to be clear:
This wasn’t an emergency situation where she had absolutely no options.
She had childcare available.
She just didn’t want to spend money on it because she preferred free childcare from me while she got private bonding time at home.
I told her I understood wanting alone time after giving birth, but I still didn’t think we could realistically handle four additional kids in our apartment for two days.
She kept pushing.
At one point she literally said, “Family helps family.”
And honestly, that annoyed me because it felt less like a request and more like guilt-tripping me into fixing a problem she already had a paid solution for.
Eventually I stood firm and said no.
The conversation ended awkwardly, and since then she’s barely spoken to me. We usually talk almost every day, but it’s now been two days of silence except for one cold response to a text.
Now I’m starting to feel guilty because she is pregnant and clearly stressed, but at the same time I genuinely don’t understand what she expected us to do.
People keep acting like saying “family helps family” magically creates extra bedrooms.
EDIT:
Because people keep asking:
No, we cannot stay at HER house with the kids instead. The reason she wanted the second day specifically was because she wanted uninterrupted alone time at home with her husband and the newborn before the older kids came back.
AITA?