30 Babysitters Spill The Tea About The Weirdest Rules They Had To Follow

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.

Mom was a-okay with girls aged 7 and 9 watching Grease every day, leading the girls to ask over lunch one day what a hooker was. Mom was NOT okay with them watching Disney's Hercules, as it centered around gods other than the One True.

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.

OMG thanks for asking because you reminded me of a weird thing.

The 3 year old daughter HAD to watch this vhs tape of a live Fleetwood Mac concert before bed.

I was like, okay cute , that’s adorable, 3 year olds love the weirdest things she’s so quirky and this will be fun.

But she didn’t love it. She always wanted to watch land before time instead. But it was always on the note left for me. Like /pager number, pediatrician, chicken soup for dinner is in fridge and, and WATCH FLEETWOOD MAC at 630 before bed/

Obviously the family eventually found out I wasn’t making her watch it, as I had no f**king reason to believe it was a secret. They were clearly upset by this and I was never called back to babysit.

I was told that the only thing she specifically wasn't allowed to do was eat a bowl of sugar

I interviewed for a nanny position once and was asked how I felt about giving mom and dad massages.

I used to babysit for this family when I was in high school (in the 80s) and they had no books or reading material of any kind, except that there would usually be like two sections of the WSJ and a running magazine lying around. No. Books.

Anyway, once I went over there and the mom told me like nine times, BEGGED ME, not to eat the box of 'Nilla Wafers that was in the cupboard because she needed them for a recipe the next day. BEGGED. I was like, "Ok, got it. They're totally safe because I don't even like vanilla wafers!" She kept mentioning it, and it was the first thing she asked me about when they got home.

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

I had to use a rock to trace the ABCs on the kids back so he could fall asleep.