Baby clothes

[BeagleMommy]

POD to those who've said to give them back.  There are too many strings attached and I think I would become nervous about keeping them in good shape.

[TootsNYC]

OP, I don't think you're way off base to be a little annoyed. She has been changing the terms of her offer as time goes along. That's annoying, to have the ground change under your feet.

She isn't really giving you the clothes.  She's loaning them to you. 

But what she's really doing is using your house as storage space for stuff she wants to keep.   

yeah, and that would annoy me too.

[Eeep!]

When my SIL had my nephew 3 months after my son was born, I started passing on his clothes to her and I would put his initials on the tag/collar so that she could give them back to me when he outgrew them as they weren't planning on having anymore and we were.  HOWEVER, we discussed this ahead of time plus I held on to any clothes that I really cared about and the assumption was totally that some of them likely wouldn't make it back to me. Eventually my nephew caught up and passed my son is size so that ended.

That said, I think my situation is completely different than yours.  There was no rush for her to get anything back to me as we were talking distant future. And I honestly didn't care all that much what came back or didn't, since I held onto the ones that mattered to me.  And our kids go to the same daycare so passing the clothes back and forth was just a matter of leaving them there for the other to pick up.  (And I ended up getting the good end of things because, in addition to my son's clothes, she would also pass along my nephew's clothes. So when my now 8-month old was born, we had TONS of clothes! Way more than one baby could wear. heh.)

My arrangement with SIL aside, I think that if I were in your situation I would probably pack everything up and return it. It seems like it is probably more trouble than it's worth. And I would be really annoyed about the added strings to the "giving" after I had agreed to take them.  It really does read as she just didn't want to have them hanging around her house.

[Cami]

I agree with the majority -- this gift has too many strings. I'd also worry about what would happen if my kid irretrievably damaged some items. Would she expect me to replace it? Too much trouble.

[Lynn2000]

Gonna go with the majority... I don't think anyone was necessarily rude--the two of you were just coming at the situation with different expectations. But now that you know her expectations and they seem somewhat onerous to you, it might just be easiest to pack up all her clothes and give them back. You can just tell her thanks and that you realized you didn't need them after all. Personally I wouldn't want that extra stress of keeping track of someone else's stuff and wondering if it was in good enough condition to give back so yet another person could use it.

[Ceallach]

Both my daughters had unpredictable poo explosions that stained a lot of their clothing.  It would be too much to stress over getting the clothing "pristine" again for the original owner.  I also vote for returning them.  In my experience hand me downs are never expected back.  Whatever survives is handed down again.

I agree!  I imagine I'd probably not bother using them as I'd be acutely aware of the need to keep them in good condition.   Way too much hassle. 

We got boxes of baby clothes from a relative, and I did check to make sure they were happy for us to dispose of them as we saw fit.   I had no intention of keeping them all sitting in my house and they weren't all suitable for our baby due to size/gender/time of year etc.     If they had said they wanted them back I would have returned most of them immediately rather than have to worry about it down the track. 

[magdalena]

I do this exact thing with one friend.

Our kids are 9 months and a couple of dress sizes apart.

I inherited a bunch of baby clothes from my siblings (5 nieces and a nephew) and she got another bunch from her sister. My daughter wears a lot of her niece's clothing, her son a lot of my nephew's. Or things like snowsuits, sleeping bags, onesies... We've marked the tags and things go back and forth as the kids grow.

It works for us, as we each only have one person loaning and all the rest are hand me downs we get to keep. Not too much hassle and we both know that things might be returned stained or forever be lost. And that's ok and we each keep the things we really want to have as keepsakes.

ETA:
So, no I don't thin she was rude. It would've been better to be very clear from the start that she was loaning, not gifting you those clothes. And, you can decide to either keep track of them and use them, then return or return them right away if it's too much hassle for you.