24 Babysitters Spill The Tea About The Weirdest Rules They Had To Follow
Article created by: Kotryna Br
Babysitting is one of the most underappreciated jobs out there. Quite a lot of people automatically assume that just because you’re a babysitter, you’ve got it easy. What they don’t often realize is that they’re seeing the tip of the iceberg: the world of babysitting is far deeper and far more demanding than you’d think… and it sometimes has a hilarious edge to it.
Case in point, the babysitters of Reddit have been sharing the weirdest and funniest rules that parents asked them to follow after redditor Foraring asked them to open up about their experiences. If you think you know everything there is to know about babysitting, you’re in for a few surprises. If you know nothing about babysitting, well, buckle in because it’s going to be a wild ride.
PssstPandas, don’t forget to upvote the stories that you liked the most. Got any weird babysitting tales to tell of your own? Drop by the comment section at the bottom of this list.
“If Brady stands by the door it just means he needs to go out. Open the door, and let him back inside in a few minutes.”
Brady was a four year old boy.
Only 2 hours of reading time. To be fair, the mom was a librarian and her two kids were adorably nerdy. They had an entire room filled with books and even then we’d make trips to the library from time to time. The rest of the time was supposed to be outside or doing some activity. It was a super sweet deal too because she paid for not only her kids to have a pool pass but me as well, so we basically went everyday all summer and we would play in the pool.
I had to change the kids cloth diaper every 2 hours on the dot. The kid was 6. I assumed it was for some sort of disability or something, but no. His parents just didn’t want to potty train him, and the kid was content with being babied. I remember just making the kid put his own diaper on and encouraged him to use the bathroom if he had to go. I never went back.
I’m a professional nanny and one of the families I worked for had a strict “no games” rule. Not as in video games, but as in any game that could have a winner and a loser. No board games, no tag, nothing. “Winning and losing leads to hurt feelings” was their explanation. I’d have to stop the girls any time they said something like “I bet I can get to the end of the driveway faster” and remind them “Mom and Dad say no competition, remember?” Everything had to be perfectly equal or the parents would lose it completely. I fired them as clients shortly after.
I watched 2 girls and the parents asked if I would give them a bath- I thought no problem… then they told me that I must get in the bath with the 2 girls for safety reasons… I said I didn’t have my bathing suit and they both looked at me like I had three heads and asked why I would wear a suit.. girls got a bath without me in the tub and I searched the bathroom for a hidden camera.. didn’t find one, but still never went back.
Asked me to drive their three year old twins around in my personal vehicle for 2.5 hours because “that’s the only way they can nap”.
No. I simply put the kids in their beds, closed the door, and they were asleep in 15 minutes.
I had to put the kids to sleep with the CD player going. That wasn’t the weird part.
It was a recording of their parents basically going “Molly, you are wonderful. You are a star. You’re going to shine bright.” That isn’t super weird…But it was like several hours long, and apparently they listened to it every night.
Babysat for a family that had three boys, one a newborn. I was never to feed the baby by holding it next to me, but I was to put it on my legs and make eye contact with him at all times…no cuddling. Also, I was never to let the older boys lose any game we were playing. I quit after about a month.
When I was a kid, there was a mom who would only allow her kids to do art on Tuesdays. I never learned why it was only one day or why it was Tuesday. But she totally flipped out one day when we did it on the wrong day.
Wasn’t a rule, but on my first day they sent over an adult male friend of theirs who asked to come in. I said no, and was then told I was being tested and I had passed.
My mom told me a story of when she you to babysit during her teenage years. She did it for this religious family whose church did not believe in television or their members watching it. She would bring a portable tv with her to watch once the kids were asleep. The parents came home and they were captivated by it. They would invite her over just so they could watch television.
The kid couldn’t have dessert if she didn’t finish her dinner. Problem was she was about 4 or 5 and dinner was two cheeseburgers and sides. She ate half of one and,was okay with not getting dessert
Not a rule but a single mom once told me to use the bat by the door in the event the kids father comes by and tries to take them. That was pretty weird and uncomfortable.
Oh god this is my time to shine. I babysat for this family for the first time ever and the mother was walking me around the house, giving me instructions and showing me around and then stopped at the fridge. She explained to me that when I sent her son to bed, I was to give him 1 hotdog out of the fridge. No heating it, no bun, just a cold soggy hotdog for her son to munch on in bed. Apparently he ate one every night. This was like 7 years ago and I seriously haven’t stopped thinking about it.
The mom had me put her kids in their car seats and sit in the driveway with all the car doors open while she just hung out inside the house. 5 hours of me standing in the driveway watching them sit inside their car. Never returned.
Edit: I meant I never returned to babysit for her again, not that the mother mysteriously disappeared.
As for people asking why I didn’t take them somewhere, she specifically asked me to just sit in the driveway with them. I also didn’t have my drivers license yet so I couldn’t have taken them anywhere even if I wanted to. The kids were twins who were 4 years old, I think. They were weirdly, weirdly well behaved and didn’t complain about what we were doing. To this day I have no idea what she was doing inside or why she didn’t just let them play in the yard. I am just as confused as you.
I was to keep my skin entirely covered because they were concerned that the newborn drooling on me was too intimate. I had to drape a fresh baby blanket over my entire body every time I was to hold him.
One woman I found through care.com was just generally pretty weird. Some of the weirder things were:
-only let the kids have 3 spoonfuls of peanut butter each
-the boy might want to throw softballs at me, just try to catch them to avoid getting hit
-also if he doesn’t want to brush his teeth just hold him down and do it for him even if he’s screaming
Also both times I babysat she didn’t tell me when she’d be home and didn’t how up until the middle of the night, totally wasted. The first time she forgot to pay me, and I was too nervous to say anything so she had me pick cash up from her mailbox later in the week. She shorted me $5.
The kids screamed, hit, fought, and made messes the whole time, and wanted me to chase them around the yard with sticks. I did not. I also stopped going there.
The mother asked me to stop by the house to meet her 2 year old son a week before I was supposed to babysit him for the first time. I pulled up to the house and saw that the young boy was standing at the glass front door with a t-shirt on and nothing else. I go in and I must have given the child a strange look because the mom started to explain that her son doesn’t like to wear pants so they let him run around pants-less with no diaper on, though he isn’t potty trained. I told her that this made me uncomfortable and asked if I could put pants on him when I was watching him, and she got upset with me and said they don’t like to make their 2 year old son do anything he doesn’t like to do so they let him run around without pants on, which unfortunately means he goes to the bathroom on the floor since he won’t wear a diaper and he isn’t potty-trained.
One had me feed her 1 year old ONLY from a freshly opened baby food container. If she only ate two or three spoonfulls, I was to throw it away and when she wanted more in 15 minutes I was to open a new one. I thought it was so she would finish her meal and be full for a while, but she said it was OK to feed her every time she wanted it. I would probably throw away 5 or 6 jars in a 2 hour sitting. They cost more than I usually made for sitting.
I interviewed for a nanny position once and was asked how I felt about giving mom and dad massages.
No hot sauce after 9pm.
Edit: To give some context, the kid LOVED hot sauce…but his folks were super over protective…maybe they had heard of ppl eating too much hot sauce an throwing it up as it would not settle?
Honestly the kid was made of solid steel…we went to Taco Bell pretty much every time I babysat.
To give him warm milk in a baby bottle right after every dinner – he was a fully functional 10 year old boy.
Edit: To answer some of the quesions: Yes, he was fine with it; His parents were otherwise normal (as far as I saw), the kid himself was great; His teeth seemed fine from what I can remember (not that I really would have paid attention to that back then), but I just found him on facebook and it looks like he did have braces around 14-15 years old
