OT - A situation that has been bugging me
 

I am wondering if I could get some thoughts or opinions or suggestions on a situation that has been bugging me. Here goes. I have a 2 1/2 year old son, my SIL has a year old son. When I found out she was pregnant I offered her all kinds of stuff, baby clothes, a crib set, baby bottles and probably a bunch of stuff I have forgotten I gave her. It had to have been at least several hundred dollars of stuff. At the time I'm pretty certain that I alluded to the fact that we could exchange baby clothes again if I got pregnant again. At one point she did ask if I wanted the clothes I had given her back as if I did she would sort it out from the other clothes she had. I was a bit put off as I thought we could just exchange all of them and she would get everything back (that wasn't worn out or damaged) when she got pregnant again. At that time I told her no she could just keep it all as my husband and I were pretty certain that we weren't going to have any more children. Then a couple of months ago I found out that she had bags and bags of clothes that she had gotten from several people. In some ways I feel like an idiot as I thought I was doing a huge favour to her by giving her all this stuff and here she has enough clothes for a dozen kids. We are worse off financially than they are so having the clothes back would help as I could take them to a children's used clothing store and probably get at least $100 credit. Most of the clothes were new and brand names. I would feel like a complete fool asking for them back at this point unless I could think of some really, really good excuse (which I can't). So my dilemma at this point is that I don't feel like I need or really want to give her any more clothes. I don't think that it will come up (I can't see her asking why we aren't giving her any clothes) but if it does what do I say and should I ask for the other clothes back? I'm not angry at her, mostly just feel silly but it has been bugging me and I want to know what other people would do. I"m inclined just to let it go as for the other clothes and hang onto what my son has outgrown. It is not outside the realm of possibility that we might have another child though so I suppose if we did have another baby I would get some clothes back. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

I'm not sure if I have the situation down completely, but if I'm reading it right, you gave her a lot of clothes to help her out, she had more than she can handle and now you're thinking that you could have sold them instead for $100?

Well, a hundred bucks isn't enough money for me to ruin a relationship with a SIL if that's what you think would result. Of course, if she has a ton of clothes and no use for them, I'd offer to go through them with her, take them to the shop myself and split the profits. Or make that offer after the new baby starts to grown out of those clothes (and they usually do pretty fast).

I personally wouldn't as for them back. In my case one cousin gave me about 3 boxes of girls clothes, a car seat 2 bassinettes and a bunch of other stuff. Two other cousins gave me 4 big bags full of clothes. A coworker also gave me a couple of bags of clothes. She had a couple of items that she did request back and I have since returned.
The clothes were mostly 0-3, 3-6, 6-9 and a couple of 12 mos. After that, the clothing exchange stopped. Now my first cousin is due to have her baby any day now. I sent over 2 big boxes of clothes, had already returned one bassinette because her sister had her son 3 days after William was born and I will be returning the other bassinette probably this week and I sent back the car seat this week. I also sent over a couple of small bags of clothes to my coworker since her brother had a daughter. I did since one little one piece 6 month bathing suit that I asked for back when they are done but that is it.

It's been my experience that if you pass down clothes to friends or family it becomes theirs to do with what they want unless you specifiy otherwise and since you told her you didn't want them back then I agree with Jessica that it now wouldn't be appropriate to ask for them. I would just stop sending clothes her way and if she actually asks for more, tell her he hasn't grown much and is still using the same clothes since her son should now be close in clothing size to yours soon. If not, tell her it slipped your mind and you already took them to the consignment store and traded them out for more clothes for your son.

Well, she did ask if you want them back, and you said no. The fact that she has more clothes than she really needed is beside the point. Who knows who gave her what when?

If you want them back, then just say, "I changed my mind; I'd like those clothes back."

The issue is not really the money. It is more that I feel like an idiot because I thought I was doing her a favour and it wasn't such a big favour as I thought. I'm probably not going to do anything about it as I think I would feel even more foolish asking for them now particularly as she asked if I wanted them back and I said no. Thanks everyone for their replies.