Babysitter Tells Single Mom Her Son Needs A 'Real Mom' After She Was Caught Nursing Him & Making Him Call Her 'Mama'
A mother's instinct is always right.
Alex Green / Anna Shvets & Pexels New moms face a lot of anxieties when they go back to work — juggling a baby with their own schedule, making sure they get enough rest, and finding trustworthy childcare.
One new mom wrote into the subreddit r/TrueOffMyChest to share her disastrous story of childcare gone wrong.
The 28-year-old is a single working mom, who continued her pregnancy alone after breaking up with her ex since she was “very excited to become a mom.”
She explained that she took 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave from her work. When that time was up, she began to look for a babysitter, since she lives far away from her family.
She found a nanny quickly. Everything went smoothly for the first few months. Then, she noticed her baby acting strangely, as he completely refused to nurse from her.
Breastfeeding, while normal and natural, isn't necessarily easy, and it comes with various challenges for different parents.
This mom grew suspicious since her baby wouldn't latch, and in her worry, installed a hidden camera in her home to spy on her babysitter.
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The new mom was ‘horrified’ to catch her babysitter nursing her baby on the hidden camera.
At first, the nanny, 32, was “super nice and bonded with my child pretty easily, and since she seemed very skilled I was very serene,” the mom explained.
She didn’t give her many strict rules to follow, only that she wanted a summary of what happened during her work shifts, and that the nanny wasn’t allowed in her bedroom.
“I always made sure to leave all the necessary (like diapers, pacifier, his favorite plushie, etc) on the table, also leaving the milk I pumped in [bottles inside the fridge which she was instructed to use,” reported the mom.
“The first two months went absolutely great, with no issues whatsoever,” said the mom. “When I came home, she would summarize everything that happened and I always found everything in perfect order, plus used [bottles.]”
Yet around the time that the baby turned six months old, “some strange things started happening.”
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“He started refusing my breasts altogether, refusing to latch on, and after a while of me gently trying he would start to get annoyed. But he accepted the [bottle] with my milk just fine.”
The mom soothed her concern by talking to the babysitter and doing some research, deciding that her baby must have gotten more accustomed to using bottles, or that maybe she “had a different smell” that the baby wasn’t used to.
“It was a very stressful period,” the mom said. “Either way, I didn't think too much of it since he was still getting fed until it became impossible for me to keep pumping because I wasn't producing enough milk.”
The mom made the decision to switch to formula and began the weaning process, asking her nanny to introduce solid foods.
“At his eighth month, I started to feel like something wasn't adding up,” reported the mom.“In 2 days it seemed like I was using way more formula than her in 5 days.”
She confronted the nanny about whether she was feeding the baby formula, and the nanny confirmed that she was.
“Something was still troubling me,” explained the mom. “The next day I hid a GoPro in my living room, and an old phone recording in the kitchen just to make sure.”
“When I came back and watched the recordings, everything started to make sense,” she said.
'I was horrified,' exclaimed the mom. 'After I went away, she took my baby, sat on the sofa, and started breastfeeding him.'
“I was shocked,” she said. “My baby was latching [on] to another woman's breast after he refused mine. And now it started to make sense why.”
Aside from nursing a baby who wasn’t hers, the nanny also “never went to the kitchen to get formula or to get some solid food for the baby.”
Yet the mother discovered something even more disturbing.
“She was trying to get herself to be called ‘mama’ by my newborn,” stated the mom.
“She sat him on her legs and started saying things like ‘say: ma-ma,’ ‘who am I? Ma-ma,’ and my son uttered it,” said the mom. “She replied back with ‘that's my good boy,’ and kissed him.”
“I was heartbroken, and I felt like I trusted the worst woman I could ever trust."
The mom immediately confronted the nanny, whose response was that the mom’s “son needed a real mother in his life, not a mother available only two days a week.”
The nanny also said that she refused to feed the baby frozen milk or formula; “she was only going to feed him with ‘real milk,’ and had been nursing the baby since day one.
“Needless to say, I fired her immediately,” reported the mom. “Not only [did] she breastfeed my son without my consent, but she was even trying to replace me. I'm horrified and broken.”
“I need to process everything that happened, and also I need to reconnect with my son. I feel like our family was violated,” she said.
She offered edits and clarifications after her original post, in which she explained that she found the nanny through a Facebook posting, since she lives in the countryside and they don’t have services available, like nanny agencies.
She added that the nanny admitted to pouring the mom’s pumped milk down the sink drain, to make it seem like she’d used it.
She reported that she was going to change the locks to her house, and try to call a lawyer to see if she could press charges against the nanny.
She said that her baby didn’t want to latch onto her, and she could feel “that he isn’t that much at ease with me,” yet she’s working to reconnect with her baby “and hopefully overcome this bad event.”
She ended her post by saying that “I know that probably most people would say that it's not my fault, but I still think it is.”
The Reddit community validated that her experience was disturbing, agreeing that what occurred was a violation of trust.
Some people noted that the woman she hired as a nanny was most likely unstable. Others offered words of support.
“You’re awesome for having the child as a single mom, and showing your child how the bills get paid,” said one person. “You’re amazing!”
Someone else commented that “your bond with your child will heal,” and suggested that a way to manage “coping with this violation” could be to seek out a therapist for help.
While this new mother’s trust was broken, the Reddit community had faith that she and her baby could heal and move on.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers celebrity gossip, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.