12 Babysitting Stories That Took a Seriously Creepy Turn

Babysitting is supposed to be a simple gig: snacks, bedtime stories, and making sure the kids don’t destroy the house. But sometimes, a routine night can turn into something straight out of a thriller, leaving you questioning every creak of the floorboards and every shadow in the hallway.

• One of my first babysitting jobs. Girl was 3 or 4 and boy was about 1. The girl refused to go to bed because there 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 one had gotten up and made me freak out. © Unknown author / Reddit

• I was babysitting a five-year-old who loved playing hide-and-seek. One evening, she asked if we could play, so I started counting, and she ran off giggling. I searched the whole house and couldn’t find her, so I started to panic and called out for her. I finally found her hiding under her bed, shivering. When I asked why she didn’t come out, she whispered, “Because the other you told me not to move.”

• I live in a small town and our prize possession is a rather large mental hospital. I got a call from the parents telling me to lock all the doors and windows because a dangerous patient had escaped and was in our neighborhood. I told the kids to stay inside, but didn’t tell them the reason in order not to freak them out.
  I went to change a diaper, and when I got back, the oldest boy (about 8) was missing. I immediately started panicking and went to look in the backyard. He had decided that that was the perfect time to pee outside because “the outside potty was better.” © Chubb_Rubb8 / Reddit

• I was babysitting a little boy, and he was taking a nap, so I turned the baby monitor on and went to the kitchen to get a snack.
  After a few minutes, I hear a man’s voice coming from the baby monitor. I freak out, grab a knife, and go to the kid’s room... No one’s there, the kid’s fast asleep.
  I go to the kitchen, telling myself to calm down... but then I hear the man’s voice again. He’s talking about drilling holes in floor joists to get the plumbing set up, and I can hear heavy machinery in the background.
  It’s then that I remember that the house a few doors down is under construction. The baby monitor was running on the same frequency as their radios, and it was picking up conversations from the construction site. © SilicaFume / Reddit

• I was babysitting my cousin one time, and we were playing dress-up, so she decided to start doing my hair. We were sitting in front of the mirror, and the entire time, she kept looking at something over my shoulder in the reflection. There was nothing there, so after about 10 minutes, I asked her what she was staring at, and she goes, “The tall man, he says he wants to play with you.” © soapypenguin123 / Reddit

• One time, I was babysitting a toddler, and he fell asleep on the couch while I was reading. I heard him mumbling, so I leaned in to listen, and he was saying, “No, she’s sleeping, leave her alone.” I thought he was dreaming until he suddenly opened his eyes, looked at the empty corner of the room, and said, “I told you to leave her alone.” Then he closed his eyes again like nothing happened.

• I was babysitting my niece a couple of years ago. She'd have been three. 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. © Portarossa / Reddit

• My parents always left me to watch my stepsister. One night, when she was about 6-7, I told her that she could watch a movie with me.
  She went to her room to put her pajamas on, then came out and asked, "My mom wants to know if she can watch the movie with us." Her mom had recently passed away, so I was creeped out and didn't know what to say.
  I ended up saying, "Sure, she can watch it with us," and she said, "Okay, I'll go tell her!!" and ran back to her room.
  I thought then it was probably her way of dealing with the loss, to pretend her mom was still around like an imaginary friend. Now I think she probably did it on purpose to scare me. © polarbearstare / Reddit

• I was babysitting two little kids, and the older one started screaming from the bathroom. I ran in and found him pointing at the window, saying, “Someone’s looking at me!” My heart stopped, and I pulled the kids out of the bathroom and locked the door. I looked outside to check, and it turned out to be a plastic Halloween mask that had blown onto the window grate from their garage during the windstorm.

• 3 y/o: “There are strangers... There are strangers in the backyard...” “THERE ARE STRANGERS IN THE BACKYARD.” Kid runs.
  The back door starts rattling. Called my dad, who lived across the street—in tow with my brother, they scavenged the backyard... to find two raccoons fighting. © ams1989 / Reddit

• Was babysitting my niece. She started crying in her crib upstairs so I paused Netflix and went up to check on her. The lights were completely off so as not to wake her up more.
  As I was standing in this completely dark room soothing her, I heard voices downstairs in the living room talking about breaking in and taking things. I had been alone in the house, my cellphone was downstairs, and my sister wasn’t coming home for another four hours. I was freaking out.
  After what seemed like forever, I got up the courage to go check out the noise... only to find Netflix had unpaused, and it was a heist movie I was hearing. © joyfall / Reddit

• When I was in high school, I used to babysit for a family that had a glass door off their kitchen, and whenever I’d get something out of the fridge for the kids, I’d think to myself how scary it would be if someone was just standing there looking in.
  One night, it was storming really badly. I went to get one of the kids a glass of milk. Lightning flashed, and a filthy man I’d never seen was standing there framed in the glass door, staring in. I screamed and yelled for the kids to go hide. Of course, they didn’t listen and ran into the kitchen.
  Turns out it was their uncle stopping by to drop off something he had borrowed. He worked construction and had gotten quite muddy and was just going to leave whatever it was by the door, which is when I saw him. © wiggysbelleza / Reddit

Whether it was a shadowy figure at the window or a baby monitor crackling to life with something it shouldn’t, these stories remind us that sometimes the scariest moments happen when you’re just trying to keep the kids safe for the night.