Dad hires a 16-year-old babysitter to work overnight, gets cross when she doesn't wake up to tend to 9-month-old crying baby: 'Maybe she should set alarms throughout the night to make sure she's awake'

Emmy Pratt • Senior Editor

May 30, 2024 8:00 PM EDT

When hiring a teenage babysitter, there is only so much that you can ask them to do. While some teens make babysitting a whole job instead of a one-off thing, you can't expect someone who is still in high school to take on the full burden of childcare that you'd ask of an actual professional nanny. You might ask a teen to entertain your kids without technology or change a baby's diaper if they're really advanced, but you can't expect a child to stay up all night at the possibility that your baby might cry and need tending to. That's exactly what one father expected when he hired a new teenage babysitter. She fell asleep and didn't wake when his baby cried in the middle of the night. He asked her to set alarms throughout the night so she could see if the baby was crying, but as the people of Reddit pointed out, that was a ridiculous request.