The decision of whether to breast feed or formula feed your child is a highly personal one, and often many factors come into play. Regardless of personal preference, at the end of the day, as long as a baby is cared for and fed it really isn’t anyone else’s business how a mum chooses to feed her child. Parenting is challenging enough without having to worry about being judged for every choice you make. But sadly, that doesn’t stop some people thinking that they know better than mum.

One mum recently took to the ever-popular AITA subreddit to ask if she overreacted by calling the police on her older sister. The new mum had left her newborn son with her sister and her partner for 3 days when she went into hospital for surgery. The problem was, the sisters had delivered babies within just two weeks of one another, and the elder of the two had very specific ideas on how a baby should be fed.

I’m 22f. My sister is 27f. We had babies within two weeks of each other, and our sons are now 3 and 5 weeks old. Her son is breastfed and mine is not. I needed to get surgery recently, and because my sons father isn’t around, my sister and BIL offered to babysit my son while I was in the hospital (3 days total) free of charge.

When I came home today, I walked into my son on my sisters breast, which I actually didn’t have an issue with to begin with because it was probably easier to BF him than make bottles but she told me after she had thrown out all of the “garbage” I was feeding him and she was going to pump+donate milk to him.

I was kind of in shock so I didn’t react straight away but I went to the bathroom and called the police on her. Apparently, what she did wasn’t a crime, and the child is being fed so they couldn’t even do anything about it.

At this point we are thinking it may have been a little excessive, that is until we learn it wasn’t just one or two cans of formula but 14! Does her sister even know how expensive that stuff is?

My sister then blew up at me, saying it was completely wrong of me to call the police on her when she was just trying to help, I told her she dumped 14 cans of formula without even consulting me and currently had nothing to replace it with, just plans to. She now wants me to pay her for the babysitting she did but I told her I can’t even afford to replace the formula while I’m on maternity leave so I won’t be paying her for the babysitting.

She ended up storming out, and blocked me on everything. Our parents were able to replace 2 of the cans she threw out but can’t do much else. They also think I was a dick for calling the police on her because getting a record could affect her government job and therefore my Nephew. aita?

Edit: there’s no way my sister would have replaced the formula, she is completely against it, and has heen vocal about her dislike for me using it

Given the recent formula shortages, commenters were outraged on the new mother’s behalf and were quick to do the math.

“That’s $700 worth of the formula my baby drinks. I would be livid,” @kdawson602 exclasimed.

“NTA. She just literally dumped hundreds of dollars of formula that YOU BOUGHT because of her own personal opinions on formul,” agreed @Dregothedragon..” I would have done the same thing, in your situation.”

“Did she TRASH IT when so many people are in need?” Carriere asked. “Please God, tell me she DONATED it at least. FED IS BEST.”

“My heart is legit hurting. Even before the formula crisis, 14 CANS of formula was expensive as fuck. I would be ready to commit some crimes over this situation,” @TheRealEleanor said.

Other commenters were bemused as to why the police had not intervened in what others saw as a clear case of theft.

“She may not have told them anything clearly. “I found my sister breastfeeding my baby and says she threw out my formula” doesn’t particularly sound like a criminal matter if you don’t specify it was $xxx hundreds of dollars worth of destroyed property. (apri08101989)

“Also I’d wager most police officers don’t know that it’s criminal assault to breast feed someone else’s child without their consent,” pointed out @Careless_League_9494.

What do you think? Was the new mum well within her rights to call the police on her sister and to also expect them to follow through and charge her sister with something?