The "Nanny Cam" has become a way for parents to not only keep an eye on their kids but also the babysitters they trust to take care of their children. Sometimes, these caregivers are unaware that they're being watched. Is that wrong? We're not going to dive into that, but these users are more than happy to share what they caught on their cameras!
Content has been edited for clarity.
Super Nanny…Fired
“I’ve been a pretty regular weekend nanny for an amazing family for four years now. They’ve cycled through a couple different weekday nannies since I’ve been with them. There is only one monitor and it’s in the little dude’s room. Once the mom showed me on the camera why they let one go. Little dude said ‘mommy said I don’t have to do that’ and the nanny snapped back ‘well it doesn’t matter, mommy is a witch’ and then dragged the kid out of the room by his shirt. Super fired.”
That’s Not Okay
“Not a Nanny Cam because this happened in the 90s and I don’t think we had them in Scotland then but my mum came home early one day because she had become suspicious of our nanny as my sister and I never slept after a day with her. She found both my sister and I in bed in the middle of the day. Turned out my nanny had been dozing us up with child medicine to make us sleep all day so she could sit and do nothing.”
Rips Your Heart Out
“My mom put a nanny cam on my sister’s bedroom. The only disturbing thing my mom allegedly saw was the babysitter crying while holding my sister. Turns out the babysitter just had a miscarriage the day before.”
That’s Just Sad…
“Well a case which happened near where I live, woman used to work, husband out of country. Had a 2 year old kid. They hired a nanny to look after him during daytime. Day by day kid started looking malnourished. So she set up a spy cam.
Apparently the lady used to bring her kid and feed him all the food left for the kid she was supposed to babysit. Then she would feed the kid cheap biscuits. She was promptly handed over to police.”
Plot Twist
“I have a camera to check in on my rabbit when I’m not there. The biggest surprises were mostly just how almost nobody followed my pet-sitting instructions. The one exception, ironically, was my brother who claimed to hate the rabbit and always wanted to get rid of it. I got an alert one day that my camera had detected movement while my brother was there taking care of him and I decided to take a peek. I opened the app connected to the camera and saw my brother walk into my room, lay on the floor, and start playing with my rabbit. It just warmed my heart.”
Big Oof Over Here
“My mom suspected our maid of stealing the silverware. And she’s just nosy. Anyway, the maid was indeed stealing the silverware. I think that ended up being overshadowed by my dad getting it on with her, though.”
Really? Clorox?
“Not me but my aunts friend set up a nanny cam because she noticed that every time she changed her child’s diaper the child would start crying a lot more than usual. Turns out when they watched the nanny change her diaper, she would use Clorox wipes if they were nearby instead of grabbing the baby wipes.
For anyone wondering what happened afterward they fired the nanny immediately and the father became a stay at home dad.”
It’s Them Vs. The Baby
“Buddy of mine had a kid at the beginning of last year, discovered that both his cat and his beagle would climb into the crib with the baby occasionally during naps, cute right? Both animals made it a habit to climb in, kick/push the baby to the very side of the crib and curl up in the middle completely alone, you’d catch them glaring at the kid if he started to roll back over and invade their space.”
Are People Really This Lazy?
“When I was a toddler, I went from fairly chubby to very skinny in a matter of weeks. My parents were worried that I was sick, and when they asked our nanny, she said ‘everything is fine’.
A few days later, they decided to install a camera to see what was wrong. Keep in mind that after lunchtime, she would let me nap and then go home (that was the deal).
It turns out that she would feed me a few bites and then throw my food away so she could leave earlier. I was too young to make anything of it. This was all caught on camera, and she was fired the next day.”
That Darn Cat
“Not me, but a co-worker. It was not actually nanny cams per se. She has 3 cats and apparently while she was at work, they were damaging things in the house. She set up the cameras to find out which cat was the culprit, and how it could be stopped.
Well, before she was able to figure that out she actually WATCHED as 3 men broke in to her house.
Now she could not call 911 because she lives in a different state than she worked in so the 911 centers had no way to hand calls off to each other.
She got lucky! Another co-worker happened to live at the opposite end of the same county as she did. He was closer to my age and lived there before there was 911. Just like me, growing up his parents made him memorize his county’s 7-digit fire-police dispatch number. And luckily his county had left that number active so that employees and other departments had a way to call directly into the dispatch center.
He rattled off that number and she dialed it. Voilà!!! It got into her county’s dispatch center.
She was able to talk to the police and tell them not just what the guys looked like but which room they were in and where they were crouched down. They were arrested without incident although all 3 had weapons on them. All property was recovered not only from her house but from 2 other houses on the same street and they got long prison sentences.
And it all started with one really bratty cat!”
That’s Just Not Right
“On the other hand, I know of a family who had a full-time plus nanny/cleaner/cook (known as a ‘helper’ in Hong Kong and often expected to work 20 hours a day, plus sleeping in the same room as the kids, with only Sundays off). They got a nanny cam and fired this woman because after spending her entire day getting the kids ready for kindy, cooking a hot breakfast, picking up after the family, doing 3-4 hours of cleaning, prepping for dinner, setting out activities for after she went out to get the kids, in other words after a very full days work for minimal pay, she had the audacity to sit down on the family’s couch, in the communal room of the house she was contractually obliged to live in, for 15 minutes to have a rest before leaving to get the kids.
Work for 10 hours straight and sit on the couch for 15 minutes of downtime before getting the kids, making dinner, cleaning the house, welcoming the parents home, serving dinner, cleaning up after dinner? Fired.”
False Alarm!
“Not a nanny cam but one of the audio one’s so you can hear if they’re crying or whatever else might be going on. I was up very early one morning (~5am) getting a little work done in my house office. Had the thing with me so I could hear my baby daughter, about 2 months old at this point. Suddenly I hear a woman talking very, very softly. My whole body went cold and I stopped everything to make sure it wasn’t just my imagination. Yes, I still hear it. At the same instant that I prepare to dash into her room, I hear a little more and realize I’m hearing a freaking autoplay video/audio ad on a tab in my web browser coming from my computer speaker, which was turned down really low. I thought my heart would never slow back down.”
She Was Ready
“When I’m home from college I babysit for these pretty wealthy people. At the time the boys I would babysit were about 2 years old and 9 months old. It was summer and I had laid the younger one down for a nap, then took the monitor out with me to the backyard so the 2-year-old could play. I hear sound going off and see arms reaching into the crib to the sleeping baby. I grabbed the 2-year-old, a knife, and slowly walked upstairs. Their grandma had come to see if I needed any help, but didn’t have my number so she didn’t text me she was there. We laughed about it but never have I ever been so ready to shank someone.”
“Next Day I Was Fired”
“I got fired because of a nanny cam. I was working for a very rich (by Australian standards) family. The dad was a surgeon and he’d invented some kind of special surgical equipment.
Anyway. So I was 25, looking after their five children, all boys, aged 17, 16, 11, 9 and then baby surprise who was 3 years old. The two older kids obviously don’t ever need me, and the 11 and 9-year-olds were really sweet and cute and didn’t need that much. The toddler though. Just the worst kid I’d ever cared for. Really bratty and awful, but stopped short of torturing small animals.
One day we’re stuck inside playing Star Wars lego and he’s bossing me around and talking about the ‘Cat-Cat Walkers’ we’re building. I’m like little dude, it’s AT-AT for real. He cracked it, flipped over the fancy Lego table, told me he hated me and ran down stairs. Being the consummate professional I am, I calmly flipped him off for 2 whole minutes before I went down and helped him cheer up.
Next day I was fired.”
Red Alert!!
“I worked as a preschool teacher in the late 90s, and our school decided to put secure webcams up in the classrooms so parents could see their kids during the day. The parents had usernames and passwords, etc; it wasn’t viewable to anyone whose child wasn’t currently enrolled. As a parent of a small child at the time, I thought it was kind of neat, even if it meant people might see me picking a wedgie now and then.
Well. There was just one problem.
Within a month of the webcams being online, two parents had come to us about their co-parents’ browsing habits. One was getting off to me and the other teacher. The other was uh well, the same but to the children. Then a third report of a parent finding still-captures of someone else’s child in a folder on her husband’s computer.
That was the end of the webcams. DCF, back then I think it was called HRS, was brought in to investigate the families involved. We even changed our pick-up and drop-off policies. Parents were no longer allowed to enter the classrooms beyond the little ante-rooms where the children’s cabinets were.
I only taught preschool for a few years, and this was towards the end of that time. I read later that this issue was a common one in preschools and daycare that used webcams.”
A Spooky Coincidence
“I babysit my cousin’s two kids pretty much every other Friday night so he and his wife can have some time alone and out of the house. Their kids are 2 and 6 months so they have video monitors in each of their rooms and I pretty much watch the monitors and read or watch TV. Roughly a month ago I heard talking coming out of one of the monitors. It was a man’s voice and he kept saying over and over again ‘it’s ok, go back to sleep, I’m her’ and I could see a figure standing over the crib in the 6-month old’s room.
I freaked out thinking someone has broken it (they had a break in around Christmas time and the guy was never caught). I called the police and my cousin and crept upstairs with a knife to protect myself and the babies. No one was upstairs and both kids were sound asleep. Needless to say I was thoroughly freaked out until the police and my cousin came out. It didn’t help that they lived in an older home and everything creaked.
Fast foreword to last week the exact same thing happened to my cousin during the day while the kids are napping. But since it was day time the video monitor gave off a better picture of the room. Apparently the one monitor in the 6-month olds room switches over to the neighbors monitor every once in a while. The voice I heard was that of his next door neighbor soothing their crying baby who is around the same age.”
A Close Encounter Of the Choking Kind
“I was babysitting for my sister a few months ago and was checking on my 2-year-old nephew through the nanny cam, asleep in his crib. I got up to put dinner in the oven and when I came back I checked the cam again and…
There was a huge black mass in the crib with him.
My sister doesn’t have any pets, so I was like… What!? A black dog or cat or something had got in and is attacking my nephew!
I ran upstairs so fast and saw, to my horror, my nephew has pulled a black bin liner (garbage bag) into the cot with him and had crawled inside!! I got him straight out of it and he was fine… I took the bin liner back downstairs and just sat on the floor crying.
This was my first time babysitting for my sister. I had a go at her when she got home, ‘Who keeps a bin liner where their baby could get it?’ And she said there was one in his cupboard full of nappies (diapers) well out of reach, so we checked and the nappies were in there but the bag had been taken out, somehow?’
A Spoonful of Sugar…
“I discovered our baby-sister secretly adding sugar into my baby’s food (He was 7 months at the time). And I don’t mean like a small fine grind. I mean she literally added a whole tablespoon of sugar into my baby’s food. The reason I discovered it is that I return home early one day, and she was in the middle of feeding him. I said I will feed him instead, and before putting it in his mouth, I taste it a bit (just out of curiosity of what it tastes like), and it was super sweet!!!
When I question her, she denies doing it. I didn’t back down, and demand an answer. Finally, she said it is because my son likes food when they are sweet. Seriously? Baby under 1 year old should not consume any artificial sugar or salt. This is literally a crime and sort of murder in my opinion. Needless to say, I fired her and never seen her again.”
Late Night Fears
“Pretty standard as a parent to instinctually hear a noise in the deepest sleep in a really bad dream and immediately wake up and turn the monitor on to investigate, albeit, that lightens up with their progression. Anyway, my kid was of the age that she was standing and talking and liked to aimlessly travel around her 3’x5′ crib. On this particular night, I awoke out of a sleep because of some odd noises, like ruffling, and then sort of labored breathing and then other noises, I’d never heard before.
So, as a parent (and if you don’t have kids, you won’t understand until you do) my heart drops. In that one second, someone has broken in, made it past our alarm, past our sleeping dog and is now trying to take my sweet precious little girl!!! So in a two seconds flat, I sit straight up like they do in the movies, and I look straight over at a dark screen and I grab it, turn it on and HOLY HECK!! I was NOT prepared for what I saw.
My kids face was the entire monitor screen, head turned sideways. All I saw was her cute little face and little beady night vision eyes. It’s an image that’s hard to explain, but it scared me more than the initial thoughts that ran through my head; my heart skipped a beat for sure. That’s when we found out, she now knew what the camera was and could communicate with us through it. She was whispering into the camera while looking into the camera eye. She was whispering ‘I love you mommy and daddy, can I come to your bed?’
It really was a scary few seconds, then that weird feeling you get when you realize your child’s curiosity is so cute and they’re learning.”
Who’s Snoring?
“I was the Au pair, the parents had a monitor in their room downstairs and the other in the kids’ bedroom upstairs. The monitors did two-way communication so the parents could let the kiddos know they heard them and would be on their way. One time I was putting them to bed as the parents were out, and as we are reading there’s this breathing sound on the monitor and the little one just asks who that is. I don’t know, but I have to be cool so I pretend like it’s nothing as I nervously continue bedtime routine. Kids didn’t pay much attention. They were convinced I was Batman AND Superman, jumped out the window at night and saved the world so they would never question any security/safety issues – sorta assumed I got it.
Back to story though. The dog. The dog did it, one of them was sleeping with the head close enough to the monitor downstairs for it to catch the noise.”
Best Nanny Cam Moment Ever
“I used to babysit a 9 year old kid with Autism, along with his almost 2 year old brother. He really liked to watch Youtube videos alone in his room, and his parents were cool with me letting him during the 3 – 4 hours they would leave me with the kids, as long as he ate lunch and as long as he didn’t watch anything inappropriate. They had a nanny cam in the baby’s room.
So one afternoon, I put the little one down for a nap and bring the laptop with the nanny cam feed with me to the living room, so I can get some reading done. I look up maybe 10 minutes into nap time, and I see the 9 year old performing the most mind-bending and impressive dance choreography I’ve ever seen, while his little brother watched in complete awe. This kid was like a little Beyoncè.
The best part was his parents confirming that they had watched it too, and they had no idea that he was studying dance videos on Youtube and that he could actually perform such an amazing routine. Five years later, they’re on Facebook sharing how he’s in his high school’s pom squad and how dance has helped with some behavioral delays.
Best Nanny Cam moment ever.”
He Was Helping The Cat
“I’m not a parent, but my dad used nanny cams and told me a story that happened when I was 3.
Apparently, my dad was watching TV in his room and heard some weird noises. He looked at the nanny cam and saw a lump of blankets so he just assumed it was me. He went back to watching his movie.
The noises started again. They were like gurgling noises at this point, so he thought I puked and choked on it again (severe acid reflux. Now diagnosed with GERD.)
He lifts up the blanket and sees that it isn’t me. He looks under the crib and sees me and learns that the gurgling noise was the cat having a seizure and me trying to hold him still do he wouldn’t hurt himself.
The cat was fine, turns out he had brain cancer, but he ended up being cured from it (I heard) and he lived another 6 years.
But I had nightmares for years afterwards.”
Not What They Expected
“Once, I at the very last moment when no other babysitter was available, I hired one that was sort of notorious for not being good (not dangerous or anything like leaving the child unattended but like the type where she would not console the child if they were crying, punish them for doing small things).
While away, I was very suspicious so I continuously was glancing at the baby cam. The babysitter was playing with him, singing songs and completely engaging him well beyond the way you would expect somebody who was considered a bad babysitter to act. Essentially, what happened was the babysitter got hired by a crazy parent who didn’t like her at all so they spread a bunch of mumbo-jumbo through the neighborhood. When I came home I gave her a very large tip and she was the one I always hired whenever I needed a babysitter.
Basically, at the last moment hired a babysitter that was rumored to be bad, turns out she was a wonderful babysitter who once got hired by a crazy parent who didn’t like her so they spread a bunch of bull.”
About The Other Nanny…
“The family I nanny for told me that their previous nanny got caught doing LOADS of awful things. The couple that outraged me most were:
1) leaving their 3-year-old daughter in the tub with water up to her chest for TWO HOURS every day while she sat in another room unable to see said child.
And 2) once she went to run an errand with the same kid, and their doorbell camera caught her putting kid in car seat, not buckling her, and peeling off. The mom said you could see toddler trying to buckle herself in before they took off.”