Mothers and kittens

Question
We have a mother that brought her three kittens to our door. We put them all together in a room and kept them that way for about a week. The kittens started right away eating wet food and using the litterbox. We seperated mother and kittens, moving kittens into another room. We let the mother into the room with kittens at various times and the kittens never suckled. We then seperated the mother again from her kittens and did not feed her for the 24 hour period. My question is when can the mother and kittens be reunited without the mother producing milk again that the kittens will never drink. We want to keep the mother as an indoor cat and one of the kittens, while the other two will go to my mother-in-law. What is the best way to do this? Also there are five other cats in the home to introduce the mother and kitten(s) to

Answer
Just keep the female separated until her milk is totally dried up. then you can reunite them.

Introduce the kittens  to their new home slowly, keeping them separated most of the time with supervised visits occasionally for short periods of time. Do this until you see that they are getting along reasonabley well with the other cats. Treat both old and new cats with love and attention during this process, so they do not get jealous.

Good luck,
Barb