A niece or nephew isn't so bad. that's kind of babysitting. but it's the cliche of getting into relationships with people who have young kids or babies.

Sorry but this is really creepy.

Why am I getting the vibe that this is really creepy? Like, yeah, kids are cool but as an adult I can process not being in their life if that is the circumstance even if I miss them. I think it was the pretend napping to snuggle that made me uncomfortable. You can miss your ex's niece but you maybe want to revisit your boundaries. As an adult it also isn't fair to bond with a child who will have no access to you after a break up. You're the adult. Use your judgment.

Not OF. “Better to HAVE never loved.... please learn the difference. You sound daft.
I’m sorry you miss your ex’s niece but in time it’ll fade. If your ex is a nice person with half a brain I’m sure she’d pass on a message that you said hi.

Maybe you just discovered that you want to have kids? The cliché is that "baby fever" only happens to women but men can get it, too. If you're ready to settle down and have a family, maybe start looking for a partner that wants the same thing. In the meantime, perhaps you can help yourself heal from your breakup with your girlfriend (and, by extension, her child) by volunteering with a child-oriented charities like Big Brothers or Scouts. However, if you find yourself continuing to fixate on your ex's child, get yourself to a therapist or counsellor (quickly) in order to examine where these feelings are coming from because, as other commenters have pointed out, there's a fine line between loving kids and having inappropriate feelings for/attachments to kids. The worst thing you can do to a child is project adult emotions and sexual needs onto them. Sexually abusing a child can quite literally ruin their lives. Children have neither the ability nor the tools to cope with the crippling, ongoing damage that sexual abuse causes to the child's psychological and emotional development. This damage is like a cancer – it festers and spreads and culminates in self-destructive behaviours in later years, i.e. cutting, drug/alcohol abuse, micro-suicidal behaviour, mental illness, psychosis, violence, and suicide. You need to be VERY SURE of your motivations and intentions before embarking on any course of action that involves a child/children. There's simply no way to justify or rationalize abusive behaviour towards a child. I hope that you've just discovered that you would like to be a Dad and spend the rest of your life supporting and nurturing your kids (as well as their Mom!) rather than confessing that you're a budding pedophile. Please be the former.

It's not creepy, you're just a repressed person who sees sexual deviance in all affection.

that you are a woman, all the prospective creep catcher comments will disappear.

i think you might be a creep, might sound innocent but if i new my kid was cuddling with her aunts boyfriend i would be worried and have a chat about that, as an adult male you should NOT be cuddling a kid that is not a blood relative just saying its inappropriate

Therefore,all men are rapists/molesters and we may as well throw in unemployed drug addicts too,right ladies?

I just wait for the professional victims to tell you what a ped you are because all men are monster's.