40 Terrifying Experiences Babysitters Went Through While Just Trying To Do Their Jobs

Sharing this on behalf of my sister. When we were younger, our parents decided we were old enough to be left home by ourselves - both of them worked weekdays during the summer holidays, so we had to babysit our younger brothers.

One particular day I was feeling dizzy and I wasn't thinking straight. I was really tired. 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 TV. Suddenly, I started seizing. I shut off completely. My sister, with no experience at all, rang an ambulance, my parents and grandma telling them what happened. I was raced to hospital within 10 minutes of seizing (we did live fairly close!). My younger brothers started crying, thinking I had died when they saw me on the stretcher (I was very blue at the time). My parents cried too; my dad has epilepsy and his family has a history - so it was a horrible feeling that it was passed down to me. However, my sister was calm and collected, serving as the backbone of the family that day.

She's never received praise for saving me, despite this happening multiple times. Even my brothers have learned to help out (one even picked a lock when I seized in the bathroom!). I'm on medication and take them daily, but I'm really indebted to my sister for being a real trooper through my first seizure!

I was playing hide-and-seek with the three kids I was babysitting (they were 3, 6, and 9) and I was seeking. Well, I found the oldest and the youngest but couldn’t find the middle child. After thirty minutes of searching (the house wasn’t that big). I couldn’t believe I actually lost a child; it was like a bad movie. So I called the parents, ready to have the worst from them on account of losing their child.

I told them what happened while I’m scared to no end, and they laughed and said “did you specify the boundaries?”

The WHAT.

Turns out the middle child hid in a bush in their neighbors front yard (a place that she had hidden in before, which is how the parents new about it) because I didn’t SPECIFY the BOUNDARIES of hide-and-seek.

Even though the parents weren’t mad, I still have nightmares about that.

This happened like 20 years ago so the details are a bit hazy. I was in middle school, lived in an upper middle class neighborhood in a little New England town with virtually no crime. I had just started babysitting, had just taken a whole babysitting course at a local hospital , and after putting up some fliers, I got my first gig. It was at a house in my neighborhood (about a 5 minute walk from my house). They had an older girl (who was maybe 8 or 9) and a young toddler-ish age boy. Their mom was giving me a the rundown of their routine and giving me a little tour of their 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...?", quickly shut the window, and seemed somewhat distracted from that 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. About 2 minutes later she hurries in, sort of hustles us out the door and outside. I'm pretty confused at this point, but being an awkwardly shy middle school-aged girl I just go along with it. Once we get to the driveway she pulls me aside and tells me that she went back to her bedroom after noticing the window was open, and saw most of her jewelry was missing. Soon after telling me this, about 10 cop cars come flying in. Cops tell me to leave, so I head home, 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 realized the window was open and something was off. Don't really like to imagine how that could have gone had she not noticed the open window and left me there for the night with her two kids. Needless to say, that was the beginning and end of my babysitting career.

Last year actually! I get 2 elementary school age kids ready for school in the morning so their parents can 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 sleeping. She started to come out of it and got up to continue making her lunch for work. I could hardly convince her to sit and I was scared she’d fall and I wouldn’t be able to catch her.

I sent the TV-watching kid upstairs with the dog just before the paramedics arrived. I’m on the phone with the dad, neighbors are texting me if everything’s alright, the paramedics are asking me questions.

They take her to the hospital and I talk to the kids and get them ready for school. They were totally okay - really, they missed the whole thing. The school bus came, and I cried the whole way home!

I was babysitting my niece a couple of years ago (she's six now, so she would have been three then). I put her to bed, read her a story, gave her a cuddle, then went down to watch a movie and 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, I freaked out, and I shook my leg as hard as I could. Bad idea. She'd managed to unfasten her door, climb over two different baby gates and get down the stairs without doing herself an injury, all to ask me if I could read her another story.

We don't tell her mother about the time I almost dropkicked her daughter across the living room.

Not paid, but I was babysitting my brother while my parents went to Miami to get my mom her passport. This was around the time my little brother got pills for a.d.d and he was having the worst time swallowing one pill by itself and water...


Cue it gets around 8 pm and my brother comes down and says I practiced swallowing my pills! he was super proud and I was terrified. I thought he swallowed the whole bottle or enough to be overdosed. Call my mom up and she's like okay get him water and try to get him to throw it up.

He probably thought I was crazy for what I tried to get him to do. I learned later he was practicing with candy, specifically skittles.

Just that gut wrenching moment was terrifying to me.

Watching a 3 year old neighbor. She was spinning in the computer chair and wanted to go faster. I spun her too fast and she had a seizure. Not a grand mal, but a focal. Her eyes were going left to right like a Felix clock and she was unresponsive. I laid her on the couch and she came to quickly. She had no idea what happened and said she felt fine. I called an RN and she said that fast spinning can cause it, it should pass quickly and her doctor should be notified on her next visit.

Told her mom immediately and she said she does it all the time. Thanks for the heads up.

The kid was already sleeping for a few hours, i was watching a movie. At midnight i heard something scratching at the door. First I ignored it, got scared and checked again. Then i saw glowing eyes through the window: they had a dog and they didn't tell me.

Okay this isn't the worst story here, but it still terrified me. I was watching kids of teachers at my school while the teachers did conferences and there was a small baby. I didn't even know his parents but I had the most baby experience out of a group of five high schoolers so I was watching him. We were heading outside to play and I was carrying him while walking down the stairs when I tripped and slid down many steps holding this kid. He was fine and no one saw but I was terrified that I was going to hurt this baby that I just met.

I babysat these two WILD terror boys that lived across the street when I was young, maybe 14. They were never disciplined and incredibly hyper and violent. The youngest one, maybe 4 at the time, swiped a pencil from a drawer and stabbed me in the forehead above my eye with it HARD. The lead broke off under the skin and I couldn’t get it out. It ended up getting infected and becoming extremely painful. I ended up having to have surgery and still have a scar from it. The kids parents paid the medical bills but never apologized. She just basically said that boys will be boys. They were awful people.

My mom did some babysitting jobs for neighbors when I was younger, and I wanted to share the most frightening experience she had.

She was watching a friend's daughter who was somewhere in the 2-4 year old range. The little girl was so sweet. Even at such a young age she didn't want to inconvenience anyone.

While eating lunch, she started to choke, but every time my mom looked over at her, she would just smile big as anything. Mom eventually realized the poor girl was really choking and helped her. The poor kid would have chocked just to not have my mom worry.

One of my first babysitting jobs. Girl was 3 or 4 and boy was about 1. The girl refused to go to bed because their was a man outside the sliding glass doors. I finally get her to bed and lay on the couch. Suddenly like two hours later I hear knocking on those glass doors. That little brat had gotten up and scared me. Btw last time babysitting for them. I was supposed to be done at 1am and her stupid mom rolled in at 8am.

I was babysitting these demon siblings. It was when I first started babysitting. They were 8/9ish, boy and girl, generally bratty but I thought I could handle them. We were playing a game of hide and seek in the house. I was hiding in a tiny closet and the kids locked me in there.

I yelled, screamed, begged all they did was giggle. I was locked in there for 3 hours before their parents came home and let me out. By that time I was crying and had peed myself, not my proudest moment. I quit on the spot.

To this day I still won’t babysit or nanny older children. Generally once they’re potty trained or start school I’m out.

When I was younger I had a bad fear of storms. I was babysitting three kids, I was about 13. The youngest one was napping and the other two were eating. They had the TV on and suddenly a tornado warning for our area came on the screen. I froze, I was terrified and had to take a moment to process. The two who saw the warning knew what it meant and started freaking out.
Before I could stop her, the oldest ran upstairs (to grab her American Girl Dolls) and I shouted after her. I finally collected myself enough to tell the child remaining at the table to go in the basement and get blankets. I ran upstairs to get the youngest one who was napping and, of course, the light in his room wouldn’t turn on so I stumbled through the room to get him. Remember, I’m terrified of weather in the first place so I’m completely freaking out on the inside that I have to take care of myself, plus three kids and a dog.
Finally, I get all of the kids down to the basement behind the bar the parents were building. As I sat down, part of the bar fell off and gashed my leg open. So now I’m trying to staunch the bleeding, keep the kids calm and safe, and keep myself calm.
Tornado never even came close, we were totally fine. Everything turned out well. Still one of the scariest moments of my life.

Was watching a 2 month old and a 6 year old. Both, unfortunately, have Epilepsy. I can relate because I, too, have Epilepsy. I was feeding the baby when I hear a crash and look over to the 6 year old having a Grand Mal seizure in the living room. I quickly but carefully set the baby in his pack n play and ran over and put the 6 year old on his side and let the seizure play out, there's nothing you could do to stop them, you have to let it go. I was also on the phone with 911. Literally, as soon as the ambulance got there, the 2 month old starting seizing as well. The paramedics were tending to the 6 year old and I was tending to the 2 month old so everyone in the room was busy. A second ambulance was there in minutes to take the baby to the hospital. I was told to ride with the baby and meet with the parents at the hospital. It was insane. I think the loud noises and crying scared the baby because he was crying and probably very overwhelmed and scared so that's what may have caused his seizure. The parents felt really bad for me but honestly, I felt bad for the kids. Hopefully they'll grow out of it while they're still young.

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 nap and a bit of wholesome playtime. He had knocked over a flower pot, and while I was cleaning up, he completely 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 that I didn't let him run into an intersection to pick up a rock 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.

I was reading to a 6yr old on the couch when his twin brother came running past to the kitchen. Twin then came running back the opposite way with a knife in his hand. I jumped up and ran after him as he tackled another kid on the trampoline and tried to stab him.

I didn’t babysit at that house much longer.

When I was a preteen I babysat a lot.

Once 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 and watching t.v. The parents were off at a movie and about 30 minutes after they left there was a knock at the door.

I got up and looked through the small window in the door to see this dude in a shirt with a xcel energy tag and a clipboard. He gives me this talk about checking a gas meter in the basement. I had this instinctual gut feeling that something was wrong and tell him that 'I'm the babysitter- give me a minute and I'll call the parents to see if they forgot to tell me about an appointment.'

So I head to the kitchen to get the phone and call up the mom (I also checked to make sure the backdoor was locked). She starts freaking out and assures me that they didnt have an account with xcel and tells me they're leaving the theater immediately.

I go back to the door and explain that I wont be letting him in. He starts getting pushy with me and telling me that its really important and is a safety issue ect. I didn't see any xcel energy van or car on the street outfront and am beginning to get nervous.

Luckily the parents called a neighbor who showed up and demanded the guy leave the property. The guy ran off and walked around the corner so we didnt 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 that a similar guy had gone to a neighbors and tried to intimidate his was into her house.

I was watching this little girl while her mom ran errands. 20 minutes into it, this huge man is pounding on the door, yelling. I get hella alert and jump from the couch, just staring out the window. The curtain was closed, but it was kind of see through. He starts yelling "LET ME IN GIRL. YOU BETTER" So I take the girl and a knife and we book it to her room. I lock it and call the police. The knocking stops for like 10 mins. Long story short, the police come and cuff the guy. Her mom rushed home and said that he was an ex who wanted his kid back. He wasnt supposed to come near her, legally. She said this guy has been troubling her, and didnt expect him to actually come to her house. I went home like what. I got paid extra so idfc.

I was about 14, we lived in military housing, and there was a new couple with two kids who were referred to me. The house was pretty empty- they had only been there a week or so. And the mom was showing me around with the 3 month old baby in her arms.

I was a little worried- 3 months old was the youngest baby I'd every sat. And the mom thought similarly. They were only going to go to their welcoming event for a couple of hours, and it was right there on base, though, so not far. What could go wrong?

What went wrong was at the top of the staircase, as her 3 year old called her, and she was following me down. A strap on her sandal broke, and she suffered a catastrophic fall, taking me out as she toppled, dropping the baby in her arms. Well, I'm not sure how it happened, as I'm not exactly famous amongst friends for my grace, but as I was being bulldozed over I reached up and snatched the baby out of the air, and held her up high as we all fell.

I ended up with a black eye and some bruises where mom essentially tackled me. The baby was completely unscathed. Mom, she ended up with an open fracture of one leg, right above her knee, and a decent concussion. She didn't act as if anything hurt at all, though. She just kept on "You saved my baby, you saved my baby," as dad called the ambulance.

I think they paid me $200 for a 4 hour gig that night, which in 1987 wasn't too shabby. But I don't think my pulse slowed down for a week. I pretty much stopped babysitting shortly after that, because it freaked me out so much. Not just the event, but word getting around that I was like some superhero with cat-like reflexes, when I'm pretty sure if that happened again, i couldn't grab that baby if I tried.