I have to preface this by saying that I love my brother deeply, and I am so so glad he loves being an uncle and that he is so attentive to my daughter. He is one of her absolute favorite people, and it is really sweet to watch... but also annoying and sometimes concerning.My brother has severe depression, anxiety, OCD, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he were somewhere on the autism spectrum. He’s always liked kids, but never had much experience with them until my daughter was born. It was love at first sight for him. At least once a day I get a text asking how she is/for pictures, often he FaceTimes me multiple times a day to talk to her. She’s barely 3, so she’s not really interested in interacting over FaceTime. He just wants me to sit next to her and point the phone at her so he can feel like he’s there. It’s exhausting, but I feel obligated to answer because he is so sad all the time.Other things are starting to get annoying, too. He constantly talks about how excited he is for her to grow up and for them to be friends. He’s told me once before that when he’s thought about suicide, she’s the only thing that brings him out of it. He tells her she’s his best friend all the time. He cries almost every time she gives him a hug or says “I love you.” It makes my husband and I both uncomfortable, because that’s a lot of pressure to put on a 3 year old. Not that she really feels it yet, but I don’t want her to grow up feeling smothered by her uncle.He also brags about her all the time to anyone who will listen. At first it was cute, but 3 years in its embarrassing, because I know MOST people don’t want to spend 30 minutes talking about the various tiny things a toddler has done that day, no matter how “amazing” they are. But it’s also kind of frustrating when we’re around family and friends who ask about her, he doesn’t let me get a word in edgewise. He just starts bragging about how cute and smart and funny she is, and totally dominates the conversation. And then he brags SO much I feel the need to downplay it so whoever we’re talking to doesn’t think I’m one of those parents who thinks the sun shines out of their kids ass. It’s like he’s stealing some of the joy of having my first baby. And I try so hard to just not let it bother me, but it just DOES.He’s also a total junior parent. Whenever I tell her not to do something, he immediately jumps in after me and says something like “[daughter] listen to mommy!” Or just repeats what I’ve said. I’ll often remind him that I’m her mom and I’ve got it covered, but he’ll just either ignore me or say he’s just trying to help and then pout.The most recent big issue was a few weeks ago, he was at our house when I put her to bed. She cried for a couple minutes, when he said “she just doesn’t want to go to bed!! She’s just a baby!” And I reminded him that no kid wants to go to bed, but I would be a bad mom if I just let her stay up as late as she wanted. And I specifically said “I’m her mom, I have to do what’s best for her” HE STARTED TO CRY and said “well I’m her UNCLE and I hate hearing her cry!” It was absolutely infuriating.How do I ask him to tone it down without completely crushing him? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/3a86h6w
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