Her Babysitter Fell Asleep In The Middle Of Watching Her Baby And This Mom Is Wondering If That’s Acceptable
Let’s say you and your partner recently had a baby, and you finally get to go out for a date night. You leave the baby with a babysitter.
When you check your security cameras, you notice she has fallen asleep on the couch after putting the baby to bed and isn’t answering your texts. Do you think that’s acceptable?
TikTok users are beginning to question that after a new mom’s viral video about her babysitter has sparked a debate on babysitting etiquette in her comments section.
Danielle Mitchell (@danimariemit) is a medical student and a first-time working mom. She posted a video on June 12th asking her followers if she was overreacting after an experience with her son’s babysitter that left her feeling anxious.
Danielle and her husband recently decided to go out for a date night. In her video, Danielle explains that she typically tries not to leave until her son is asleep, but on this particular night, it was up to the babysitter to put him in bed for the night.
The sitter rocked him for around 15 minutes as Danielle, and her husband left, and the baby was asleep for the rest of the night.
On their way out, the sitter mentioned that she had planned on listening to an audiobook while the baby was asleep – a very laidback evening.
Danielle and her husband were only intending to be gone from 6:30-9:30 pm. Around 9:00, Danielle checked the feed on their security cameras they placed throughout the house (which the sitter was aware of) when she noticed that it looked like the babysitter had fallen asleep on the couch.
TikTok; pictured above is Danielle in her video
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At first, Danielle thought that the sitter was simply lying there listening to her audiobook until she tried texting her, asking to let their dog in from the backyard, and received no response. The sitter hadn’t even shifted on the couch.
This was when Danielle started having an internal back and forth. The sitter was asleep while she was supposed to be watching their son, but then again, he was also asleep.
But he is only ten months old, and they couldn’t tell if the babysitter would be able to hear him cry or not.
“Let’s just go home,” Danielle told her husband. “I’ll feel better if we go home.”
When Danielle and her husband walked through their door, they noticed it took the babysitter a while to get up from her snooze.
Danielle had assumed that the sitter would have kept the baby monitor volume at 100% while she slept so that she could hear the baby but later discovered that the volume wasn’t even on.
“So now I don’t know what to think,” says Danielle to her TikTok viewers. “Is it normal for your babysitter to fall asleep when they’re watching your kids?”
Danielle’s video generated over 230,000 likes and 16,000 comments. The comments section is filled with people of all ages weighing in; some are parents, some are experienced babysitters, some are just random people, etc.
Most commenters feel that it is normal and acceptable for a babysitter to doze off while the baby is sleeping, but that the baby monitor volume and phone volume settings should be turned all the way up.
Some commenters felt that the babysitter had no excuse and should not have fallen asleep, especially because the job was only supposed to be three hours long.
What side are you leaning towards in this babysitting debate? Is it okay to nap if the kids are safe, or should sleep be off the table?
To view the original TikTok video, visit the link here.
https://www.tiktok.com/@danimariemit/video/7108341871797144874
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