You always have to be on high alert when it comes to taking care of children. Just ask these babysitters who shared some of the most stressful situations they've ever been in while on the job. From unexpected medical emergencies to almost losing a child, nothing is ever off limits when it comes to these tiny but sometimes troublesome tots.
(Content has been edited for clarity)
Intruders
“This happened 20 years ago when I was in middle school. I lived in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in a little New England town with virtually no crime. I had just started babysitting. I had just taken a whole babysitting course at a local hospital, and after putting up some fliers, I got my very first gig. It was at a house that was about a five-minute walk away from my house. They had an older girl, who was maybe 8 or 9 years old, and a young toddler-aged boy. Their mom was giving me a rundown of their routine and a little tour of the house.
We went into her son’s bedroom, and she said something to the effect of ‘Hmm that’s odd, why is his window open?’ and went to quickly shut the window. She seemed somewhat distracted from this point on. She hurried through the rest of the tour and then told me to go hang out with the kids while she finished getting ready.
After about two minutes, she hurried in and hustled us out the main door. I was pretty confused at this point, but being an awkwardly shy middle school-aged girl, I just went along with it. Once we got to the driveway, she pulled me aside and told me that she went back to her bedroom after noticing that the window was open and saw most of her jewelry was missing. Soon after telling me this, about ten cop cars came flying in, and the cops ran out with their weapons drawn. It was the whole works.
The cops told me to leave, so I headed home still pretty terrified. Turns out, the burglar, who had broken in the night before, was still hiding in the son’s closet right next to where we were standing when the mom had realized that the window was open and something was off. I don’t like to imagine how things could’ve gone if she hadn’t noticed the open window and left me there for the night with her two kids. That was the beginning and the end of my babysitting career.”
Mom Had A Seizure
“Last year, I was getting two elementary school-aged kids ready for school in the morning so that their parents could leave for work. I came in one morning, and the mom was on the floor having (what I later found out) was a seizure. The dad had already left, and she wasn’t responding to me. While I was on the phone with 911, I could hear the TV in the next room and figured the other kid was still asleep.
She started to come out of it and got up to continue making her lunch for work. I could hardly convince her to stay seated as I was afraid that she could fall again, and I wouldn’t be able to catch her. I sent the kid upstairs with their dog just before the paramedics could arrive. I was on the phone with the dad while the neighbors were texting me asking if everything was alright and the paramedics were also asking me questions.
They took her to the hospital, and I talked to the kids and got them ready for school. They were okay since they missed the whole thing. The school bus came, and I cried the whole way home!”
Knock At The Door
“When I was a preteen, I babysat a lot. One time, I was babysitting two sisters. One was about 6, and the other was an infant. The 6-year-old was down the street at a birthday party, and the baby and I were just chilling at home watching TV. The parents were at a movie, and about 30 minutes after they had left, there was a knock at the door.
I got up and looked through the small window in the door to see this man in a shirt with a Xcel Energy tag and a clipboard. He gave me this talk about checking a gas meter in the basement. I had this instinctual gut feeling that something was wrong and told him that I was the babysitter, to give me a minute, and I would call the parents to see if they had forgotten to tell me about an appointment.
I headed to the kitchen to get the phone to call up the mom (I also checked to make sure that the backdoor was locked). She started freaking out and assured me that they didn’t have an account with Xcel and told me they were leaving the theater immediately.
I went back to the door and explained to him that I wouldn’t be letting him in. He started getting pushy and told me that it was important and a safety issue and so forth. I didn’t see any Xcel Energy van or car on the street out front and began to get a little nervous.
Luckily, the parents called a neighbor who showed up and demanded he leave the property immediately. The guy ran off and walked around the corner, so we didn’t get a vehicle description, but the police came and took my statement as soon as the parents got home.
A few days later, the parents were telling me how a similar guy had gone to a neighbor’s and tried to intimidate his way into her house.”
Caught In A Nasty Divorce
“I was 11 and babysitting for our neighbor who was going through a nasty divorce. She had two sons. They were 8 and 1.
She left on her date and said that she would be back around midnight. She didn’t tell me where she was going, and I had no way of contacting her because this was in the ’80s and no one had cell phones. Anyway, I was watching TV, and the boys were asleep. Everything was fine. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door followed by some banging and drunken cursing.
‘Cheryl, I know you’re in there. Open the door!’
I froze looking at the door when the oldest boy came flying down the stairs and ran to the door yelling, ‘Daddy’s home!’
I grabbed him and pulled him away from the door. By this time, the ex-husband had already gone back to his truck to get a weapon to teach his soon-to-be ex-wife a lesson. He was banging on the door and threatened to start shooting through it if no one opened it. I grabbed both of the kids, ran out the back door, and across the street to my house where my mom called the police.
A few minutes later, the police arrived, and they found the ex-husband taking a massive poop on Cheryl’s porch. He got arrested, and I waited with the kids at my house for their mom to show up. Cheryl showed up and was unfazed by the story and didn’t even pay me because she had ‘lost’ her wallet at the restaurant.”
An Older Friend
“When I was 14, I was babysitting a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old. It was an overnight stay at their house, which was in a sketchier part of town. I lived in Winnipeg, and there happened to be some gang-related activity in that area. The night started out fine. We were just hanging out and watching some TV until some kid, who was about 16, knocked on the door. He asked if the two kids could come hang out, but I said, ‘No’ because I had no idea if something like that was okay. So, I told him, ‘Sorry.’
The guy then messaged the two kids I was looking after on their phones or whatever, and now they also wanted to go hang out with him. However, I was still unsure about the whole thing. An older teenager wanting to hang out with these two younger kids seemed strange, so again I said, ‘No.’ The kids eventually decided that they were going to go whether I said: ‘Yes or No,’ and they left the house while I was in the bathroom.
I was a 14-year-old at the time, who was scared of the neighborhood, so I never got too far from the house while looking for them, but I called their mom right away. She came back from her party very quickly, found her kids in no time, and dragged them back to the house. I then witnessed the scolding of a lifetime. She apologized to me a ton, but I just felt bad about the whole thing. I got paid $100 though.”
Butterfly Lady
“I brought the 16-month-old kid I was babysitting to an overgrown community garden in his neighborhood where we often went for his daily naps and a bit of wholesome playtime. He had knocked over a flower pot, and while I was cleaning it up, he disappeared.
At the time, he wasn’t a fast mover. But the garden was surrounded by fairly busy streets, and he had recently been distraught over the fact that I didn’t let him run into an intersection to pick up a rock that he liked. I panicked and scoured the garden to find him chasing a butterfly in a patch of tomatoes.
He still calls me ‘Butterfly Lady’ and his parents have no idea why.”
Stabbed With A Pencil
“I babysat these two WILD terror boys who lived across the street from me when I was about 14. They were never disciplined and incredibly hyper and violent. The youngest one, who was maybe 4 at the time, swiped a pencil from a drawer and stabbed me on the forehead, above my eye, with it HARD.
The lead broke off under my skin, and I couldn’t get it out. It ended up getting infected and becoming extremely painful. I had to have surgery and still have a scar from it. The kid’s parents paid the medical bills, but they never apologized. She just said that ‘Boys will be boys.’ They were awful people.”
Night Terrors
“The parents left at 4 p.m. and were supposed to be home around 10 p.m. They came staggering in at about 3 a.m. after not answering their phones all night. The father, who I had never spoken to before, tried to push $5 into my hand and shove me out the door. He was so out of it that he was barely upright.
I knew I wasn’t going to want to talk to them again after that night. So, I had to stop him and tell him to pay me properly. His wife tossed some bills at me out of her purse and said, ‘Goodnight.’ I still ended up getting shorted.
They also failed to tell me that their kid got night terrors where he’d wake up screaming bloody murder and try and flee into the front yard where he’d proceed to sob hysterically. I got to discover that first hand. For barely 4-years-old and fast asleep, he was awful good at working a deadbolt.”
Escape Artist
“I was babysitting my niece a couple of years ago. She’s 6 now, so she would have been 3 back then. I put her to bed, read her a story, cuddled her, and then went downstairs to watch a movie but ended up falling asleep on the couch in the living room.
I don’t know how much later it was, but I woke up to something grabbing my ankle. My eyes shot open, and I freaked out. I shook my leg as hard as I could which was a bad idea. She had managed to unfasten her door, climb over two different baby gates, and get down the stairs without getting injured. All of this was so that she could ask me if I could read her another story.
Yeah, I didn’t tell her mother about the time that I almost dropkicked her daughter across the living room.”
Epilepsy
“I have epilepsy and was babysitting for my cousin’s 3-year-old who also has epilepsy. My kids were there, too. They were all trained in how to deal with seizures because of my own.
At the time, my son was 14, my older daughter was 9, and my youngest was 8. The baby had a grand mal seizure, and it was like all three of my kids completely forgot everything they knew and completely freaked out. I had to focus on the baby and keeping him on his side while I watched to make sure that he didn’t start choking. All the while, my three usually calm kids were all freaking out.
I felt so bad because I couldn’t comfort them other than talking calmy because, of course, I had to focus on getting the suppository into the baby to stop the seizing. It was very surreal. It was the first time I had ever witnessed anyone else having a seizure as I usually don’t remember my own even after I come to. It turns out they had freaked out because he was young.
I guess seeing an adult do it frequently had gotten them used to witnessing it in adults. However, seeing it happen to a baby was still very scary. The poor little guy was brought to the hospital and stayed overnight but was ultimately okay The good news is he seems to have grown out of them now and hasn’t had a grand mal seizure in over a year but still has some minor petit mal ones on occasion.”
Accidental Overdose
“I was babysitting my brother while my parents went to Miami to get my mom her passport. This was around the time that my little brother had gotten pills for his ADD, and he was having a hard time even swallowing one of the pills by itself with water.
At around 8 p.m., my brother came down and said, ‘I practiced swallowing my pills!’
He was proud while I was terrified. I thought he had swallowed the whole bottle or at least enough to have an overdosed.
I called my mom, and she was like, ‘Okay, get him some water and try to get him to throw it all up.’
He probably thought I was crazy for what I had tried to get him to do. I learned later he was practicing with candy specifically skittles.”
Hide-And-Seek
“I was playing hide-and-seek with these three kids that I used to babysit. They were 3, 6, and 9 and I was seeking.
I found the oldest and the youngest one, but I couldn’t find the middle child. After 30 minutes of searching (The house wasn’t that big), I just wanted to die. I couldn’t believe that I had lost a child. It was like a bad movie or something. So, I called the parents and was prepared to get yelled at.
They laughed and said, ‘Did you specify any boundaries?’
‘The WHAT.’
It turns out, the middle child had chosen to hide in a bush in their neighbor’s front yard. It was a place that she had hidden in before (which is how her parents knew about it), and because I hadn’t SPECIFY any BOUNDARIES, she went there. Even though the parents weren’t mad, I still have nightmares just thinking about it.”
Fake Smile
“My mom did some babysitting jobs for our neighbors when I was younger. She was watching a friend’s daughter around the age of 2 to 4. This little girl was sweet. Even at such a young age, she didn’t want to inconvenience anyone. While eating lunch one day, she started to choke. Every time that my mom looked over at her, she would just smile as big as ever. My mom eventually realized that the poor girl was choking and helped her. The poor kid would’ve died just not to have my mom worry.”
Bleeding Eye
“My sister babysat for one of my mom’s friend’s kids, and he was a nightmare. My younger brother and I were around 5 or 6, and this boy decided to stab my brother in the eye with a pencil while he was laying on the couch. My sister was in the other room doing homework and came running in to see my brother’s eye bleeding like crazy. Luckily, nothing too terrible came out of it, but she never had to babysit that terror child again.”
Total Messes
“I nannied an infant and 2-year-old until they were 2 and 4. The parents were total messes.
I was in college at the time, and every time that I had to babysit, they would promise they would be home by a certain time (usually 10 p.m to midnight). Often I would start texting or calling them hours after they had said that they would be home only to get no response. Without fail they would come stumbling through the door at 2, 3, or 4 am. They also wrote all of my checks in complete chicken scratch.
Anyway, I had to quit after the two years, I just couldn’t handle their antics anymore, and it was so sad to watch. I found out a few years later that the dad got arrested, and they got a divorce because he started having an affair. I guess they were drinking to cope with their terrible marriage.”
My Sister’s Silent Strength
“I’m sharing this on behalf of my sister. When we were younger, our parents decided we were old enough to be left home alone by ourselves. Both of them worked weekdays during the summer holidays, so we had to babysit our younger brothers.
On one particular day, I was feeling dizzy and wasn’t thinking straight. I was exhausted, but being 11 all I wanted to do was play video games. I grabbed my DS and sat on the couch while my sister watched some TV. Suddenly, I started seizing and shut off completely. My sister, who had no experience with this kind of stuff at all, rang an ambulance, my parents, and my grandma telling them all what had happened.
I was rushed to the hospital within 10 minutes of seizing. Thankfully, we lived fairly close. My younger brothers started crying because he thought I was dying or something when he saw me going on the stretcher. I was also very blue at the time. My parents cried, too. My dad has epilepsy, and his family has a history of it, so it was a horrible feeling to know that it had been passed down to me. However, my sister stayed calm and collected. She served as the backbone of the family that day.
She’s never received praise or anything for saving me despite this happening multiple times. Even my brothers have learned how to help. One of them even picked a lock once when I had a seizer in the bathroom. I’m on medication and take them daily, but I’m indebted to my sister for being a real trooper through my first one!”
Popping Pills Like They Were Candy
“I was about 13 and watching a kid old enough to walk and run but not talk. He was happily playing with his toy cars and made a crash knocking his favorite under the couch. The couch had a pretty big gap under it, and I was a small 13-year-old. So, luckily sliding underneath to grab it was pretty easy for me. When I come up from under the couch, the kid had vanished from the living room. As I stood there wondering where he had gotten to, I could hear a munching noise. It was like someone was chewing on something wet.
I headed to the kitchen. I figured the kid must have grabbed some of the apples I had left out on the table earlier when I suddenly saw some movement coming from the bathroom. I don’t remember if I dashed over or not, but when I got to the bathroom, the kid was popping pills like they were candy.
I did my best to scrape the pills from his mouth, and luckily, they were just multivitamins. However, young me was still terrified, so I called the number his parents had left for me. I thought they were going to be angry at me, but they weren’t too concerned. They came home at the time planned, paid me in full, and gave me a ride home. The kid was fine, and I even babysat him a bunch more times afterward.”
Permissive Parenting
“I babysat two young boys one summer. One was about 12, and the other was 5. Their mom worked during the day, and their dad worked all night. So, I would pick them up shortly after he would get home in the mornings and took care of them at my house so that he could sleep all day.
The parents were close with my parents at the time. So, I knew them pretty well before me sitting for them. The dad creeped me out. I would try to pick up the boys and get out of the house as soon as possible. However, there were mornings where I would walk in and have to make conversation with him for 30 minutes because he had made the 5-year-old buffalo chicken wings and Mountain Dew for breakfast at 7 am. The child was 5 and already severely overweight.
The parents were overly permissive. The dad was the worst and let the boys do whatever they wanted. Naturally, the 5-year-old never wanted to leave and always wanted to stay with his dad. To say the kid had tantrums about leaving his house was an understatement. One day, he laid down on the driveway screaming so loudly I was expecting the neighbors to call the police. I couldn’t pick him up because he was 100 pounds of dead weight laying face down on the driveway. After 20 minutes, I had to call the mom who finally got him into the car.
One time, the 5-year-old screamed at me, ‘Look what you’ve made me do’ because he dropped his sandwich on himself. Another time I heard him crying ‘bloody murder’ from another room. I ran to him, and he was clutching his foot and screaming. I thought he had sprained or broken his ankle because of how much he was crying. I scrutinized his foot for a few minutes because he wouldn’t tell me what had happened. It took him like 15 minutes to tell me that he had stubbed his toe. He would also do these inappropriate dance moves at the pool in front of the girls/women. He also spoke down to the women and girls and exhibited overly flirtatious behavior at 5-years-old. Most people thought it was funny or something, but it concerned me because I knew he had learned it from his dad.
I spent that whole summer being screamed at and verbally abused by an overweight 5-year-old. A few years later, the parents got divorced, and I was asked to be a witness. I said, ‘No.'”
Something Scratching At The Door
“The kid I was babysitting had already been asleep for a few hours, and I was watching a movie. At midnight, I heard something scratching at the door. First, I ignored it, but then I got scared and checked again. Then, I saw glowing eyes through the window. It turns out, they had a dog and didn’t bother to tell me.”