Mom starts spying on nanny; 'I have footage of you that I DO NOT LIKE.' UPDATED 4X

"I just found bizarre footage of my nanny. "

I (28F) am a single, working mom. I remained pregnant in a previous relationship with my ex, and decided to carry on the pregnancy since I was very excited to become a mom.

I was able to get a 12 weeks unpaid maternity leave from work, and after that, since I live very far away from my family, and had no one who could help me, I started looking for a babysitter.

And fortunately enough in no time I found a fellow (32F) mom who agreed to come at my house to watch and take care of my newborn 5 days a week for 9 hours, from 8 am to 5 pm.

She was super nice and bonded with my child pretty easily, and since she seemed very skilled I was very serene. I didn't gave her many rules to follow, other than a summary of everything that happened during my work shifts at home and that she isn't allowed on my bedroom.

Before going to work, 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 biberons inside the fridge which she was instructed to use.

The first two months went absolutely great, with no issues whatsoever. When I came home, she would summarize everything that happened/she did, and I always found everything in perfect order, plus used biberons. So she was following the indications I gave her.

However, some strange things started happening during my newborns' sixth month. He started refusing my bre@sts altogether, refusing to latch on and after a while of me gently trying he would start to get annoyed. But he accepted the biberon with my milk just fine.

After talking with the babysitter (who was a mother before me) and doing some researches, I conclued that it could have been something related to the fact the he got more used to the biberon, or to the fact that I may had a different smell.

It was a very stressful period so it could have been. 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 no more.

So I decided to switch to the formula, and gave instructions to her like usual. Also, I decided to start weaning my child, and I asked her to introduce some solid foods too.

However, after 2 months, at his eighth month, I started to feel like something wasn't adding up. In 2 days it seemed like I was using way more formula than her in 5 days.

So I confronted her about it, and asked her if she was using formula, and she confirmed. I then thought it was my impression, even because the baby had never complained.

However, something was still troubling me, so the next day I hid a GoPro in my living room, and an old phone recording in the kitchen just to make sure.

And when I came back, and watched the recordings, everything started to make sense. I was horrified. After I went away, she took my baby, sat on the sofa, and started BRE@STFEEDING him.

Not once, but THRICE for a LOT of time. I was shocked. My baby was latching to another woman, after he refused mine. And now it started to make sense why. But not only that.

She never went to the kitchen to get formula or to get some solid food for the baby, but only to cook for herself. And while she was eating, she was still breastfeeding my baby, keeping him with only ONE HAND under the butt.

But the worst is, she was trying to get herself to be called "mama" by my newborn. She sat him on her legs and started saying things like "say: ma-ma" "who am I? Ma-ma!", and my son UTTERED IT!

And she replied back with "that's my good boy", and KISSED HIM. After that, I was trying to get myself to not to puke. I was heartbroken, and I felt like I trusted the worst woman I could ever trust.

After that, I immediately called her and confronted her at my house. I told her I knew everything, and I showed her the videos. Her response was that my son needed a real mother in his life, not a mother available only two days a week.

And also, that she was not going to feed formula to a baby of frozen milk, but that she was only going to feed him with "real milk", admitting that she had done it it since day one. I will not report the entire discussion, because after that I wasn't polite at all.

Needless to say, I fired her immediately. Not only she breastfed my son without my consent, but she was even trying to replace me. I'm horrified and broken. Right now, I took a week out of work. I need to process everything that happened, and also I need to reconnect with my son. I feel like our family was violated.

Before we give you OP's responses, let's take a look at some of the top responses:

far555 writes:

NTA!!!! I am so sorry this happened to you, and your child. I would contact authorities, and get a restraining order or order of protection against this woman. She is not mentally stable. I would also consider getting security cameras.

If/when you find another sitter, I would make them aware of the situation. In the mean time, your bond with your child will heal, but if you are struggling coping with this violation, a therapist may be able to help.

oldguard6 writes:

If you got her through an agency or app of some sort I would highly recommend getting in touch with the and letting them know exactly what she did. Shit even if you found them on fb page for babysitting I would post that shit out there because I have a feeling she’s going to do it again.

Take your baby in to make sure everything is okay and go to the police and see if there are any charges that you can file.

technicalpoumpking09 writes:

Take time with your baby but you shouldn’t minimize the situation. You need to contact a doctor in case she can give him something through the milk! Also you should also contact the police,she is crazy and could do that to others!! So press charge now.

And now, OP's 1st update:

First of all, she isn't a local. I live in the countryside so we don't have much services, like agencies or stuff. I tried posting on some Facebook groups and left my phone number.

After probably half an hour, she reached out to me, first asking me for a photo and a description of my child since she wanted to know how he was, and then asked me where I lived, and we found out that we lived like 40 min away from each other by car. It seemed too much for me, but she still agreed wholeheartedly to take care of my child.

I forgot to mention that she admitted pouring down the sink my bottled breastmilk so that it seemed like she used it. I pumped for only god knows how long before work just to make her trash it.

She had the keys to my house for every eventuality, but I recollected them back before firing her. But I will still change the locks like someone suggested.

I got my baby checked straight away, and nothing seems out of place. I'm so relieved, but I'll still wait for more in-depth analysis since I'm still worried a little bit.

It seems like she also entered my bedroom. I always made sure to lock the door since there's a safe and I have valuables inside, but sometimes I did forgot about it, like the last day, since I was so caught up trying to set up the cameras.

I found some blond hair on my sheets, and found some (way less) of them also on the shower drain of my personal bathroom (which you can't access outside my bedroom).

So I guess she showered, and even guess she used my towels since I didn't find new used ones in the bathroom or in the laundry, and she clearly didn't take towels from home since she never asked me to shower at my house (which I would've agreed without an issue).

Moreover, it seems like I'm missing a pair of bra and slips, and i REALLY hope she didn't put her hands in my drawer and use them as a change of clothes, even because she has probably two cups more than me and she has bigger hips. I really hope to find them in my laundry chest.

I also have a feeling that she took my newborn outside multiple times. When I became pregnant, I bought a stroller and a baby carrier because I thought I needed them both, but when I went out I always used the stroller since it was more comfortable for me.

I never opened the baby carrier and left it in the box in the guest room, behind the door when opened. I was making sure everything was all right since I understood I couldn't trust her no more in anything at all, and when I checked the guest room, I found the baby carrier unpacked and unwrapped inside the box.

I could say it was used since being white it was a little bit dirty on the shoulders and it smelled a bit. I don't know if she used inside the house, but I don't think so since I never saw her wearing it, and she never mentioned it to me, and also I never mentioned its existence to her.

I only have two neighborhoods near me, I tried talking to them but they were of no help. I really hope she didn't brought my baby outside, and I hope she didn't brought him for road trips with the car or stuff.

That's because I remember her having a baby seat in her car,EVEN if she said that her daughter was now 7, so she wouldn't have needed such a small one, but at the time i didn't connect the two things . I don't know what to feel. I now realize that in 9 hours, 5 days a week, she could had possibly done EVERYTHING.

I don't know how it works in my country for those kind of things, but I'm currently talking to a lawyer to understand if I can press charges and how to do that. I hope for the best.

In the meantime, I asked for help to my mom, and she is currently coming to stay for some time to my house, help me and my child, and take care of him when the week off will finish. I wasn't at ease hiring another babysitter.

My baby still doesn't want to latch on, and I can feel that he isn't that much at ease with me. I tried making him utter the same things she did but without making it. He doesn't want to.

I managed to make him latch only once when he was very sleep for a short time, but still it's something. Fortunately, he takes up the formula just fine. I will work thorough it to reconnect with my child and to hopefully overcome this bad event.

Thank you very much for your support, comments, and advices. This will probably be my first and last update on this post, since I need to move on and get my head straight.

Mothers, please, always be aware of who is taking care of your child/children. I know that probably most people would say that it's not my fault, but I still think it is. So please, watch out.

And now, OP's 2nd update (3 weeks later):

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who expressed support. It meant a lot and helped with this more than surreal situation. In those 20 days a lot happened and I would like to give an update on the situation, also because it took a heavy toll on me and I need to vent a little.

First off, my baby is completely ok, even after more in-depth analysis nothing showed up. This relieved me a lot but unfortunately those are the only good news. I talked to a lawyer and contacted the police, but unfortunately in my country there are no laws against breastfeeding someone else's child without consent.

They could have done something if she transmitted a disease through the milk and was aware of the presence of it (and if I could demonstrate that he didn't have the disease before hiring her), nor it can be classified as assault because (of course) my baby can't testify against the babysitter.

I showed them the tapes but they are of no use, since my baby gladly accept her breasts and she didn't force him. So I have my hands tied, and I can't do nothing about it.

It's so frustrating since she violated my family and my baby and there's literally nothing I can do. I'm still talking to my lawyer to see if I can still sue her, but it's really complicated and the chances are very, very low.

I was able to talk to her one more time on the phone since I needed to know what else she did with my baby and to see if my speculations were correct. And indeed they were, worse than I expected. She confirmed basically everything:

She did took my son outside multiple times using the baby carrier or the stroller (nearly once a day) and she also admitted breastfeeding him outside quite frequently.

If that wasn't enough, she also confirmed taking my baby for road trips with the car when she needed to run errands or do stuff that she didn't clarify, and that it "did happen more than a dozen of times, but she doesn't remember" (her words).

I said that she shouldn't have done that, and she replied that "there's nothing wrong with it" and that "my baby liked her driving a lot".

She also admitted passing my baby as HERS when she was outside, justifying it by saying that sometimes she stopped talking to other mothers and it was "SIMPLER" this way. This really made me shiver with rage.

She confirmed going into my room to shower and using my bed to rest with the baby because she felt dizzy. When I confronted her by remembering her that she wasn't allowed in my room, she said that "she didn't remember" and that "it was not a big deal since nothing happened".

Regarding that, I asked her if she took a pair of bra and slips from me, and she ALSO confirmed that, but saying that she had borrowed them while waiting for hers to dry and after that she put them in the laundry chest (Note: I never found them. Either something happened or she stole them from me. I don't know what to think).

I finally asked her why she did those things to my baby, and she said that a son like mine needed a mother, a REAL, caring mother like her in his life and that a mother who works nearly all week is not good enough...

and that I would never be enough for him. I was going crazy, but I decided to end the conversation with her there because shouting was not going to solve anything.

I was disgusted by all that, and left the call worse than how I started it. And there's literally nothing I can do against her for what she did.

My mother is still helping me watching after my son while I work, and things are slowly getting back to "normal", but I can't erase this sense of powerlessness. I think I will go to therapy once things get better.

My son still doesn't seems much at ease with me, but I'm trying my best to recover our bond. He still doesn't want to latch to my breast, not even a bit. This hurts me a lot but I know I need to be strong for him too. Thank you very much for reading my venting, and I really hope nothing like this happens to any of the fellows mothers out there.

8 months later OP came back with this update:

Dear strangers, it's been a while and I apologize, but I was trying to move on from what happened a while ago. I started therapy straight away, and as of now, I'm still atteding with the help of antidepressants.Unfortunately, they are the only thing that is keeping me straight in this situation.

I made a while ago a couple of posts describing what happened with my former babysitter, and after two months in therapy, she filed a petition for third-party child custody rights.

I was mindblown when I was notificated of such event, and thought it could never happen, but as a legal standpoint she's using the fact that she's been his babysitter for 7 days a week, from 8 am to 8 pm for 5 months before getting unjustly fired, and filing for extreme neglect from my part.

This is completely false, but as proof she's using text messages where I wrote to her at different times after 8 pm that I was coming back home in half an our or so, sometimes even at Saturdays. This happened 5/6 times since I worked overtime in extreme cases, but since we never signed any contract or registered/texted the details I have no proofs to demonstrate that this isn't real.

Also, she's using the fact that she didn't have a regular work contract at her advantage, demonstrating it using proof of deposits to her bank account every month from my part. I feel so stupid because I'm the one who proposed to avoid cash and use bank transfers because I usually use them to keep track of all my expenses.

She's even using the fact that I'm under antidepressants in trying to prove that I'm unfit to be the mother to my child. It's been like this for 5 months, and a week ago I went to court for the last time. I tried to rebutt every claim proving my work shifts and etc, however since I live on the countryside it's hard to prove that I came back home constantly at 5 pm.

I tried asking my neighbours, however they couldn't testify in my favour due to the fact that of course they can't be 100% sure. The tapes were also of no use, since according to her we agreed to her breastfeeding him and she was taking good care of him, obviously false but again I have no proofs. In 2 weeks, the judge will deliberate, and my situation is looking really, really grim.

This feels like a nightmare. My antidepressants are literally the only thing keeping me on my feet, also with the support of my therapist and my mother, but I'm going crazy with the social services keeping a costant eye on my child and rushing in and out of my house - It's stressing me like crazy.

I feel like I don't have any chance, and I feel like I'm losing my son forever. I don't even want to write this here, but I don't want to stress my mother or to repeat this again and again to my therapist. I feel like it's all my fault, and that I should've taken a part time instead of keeping working full time. I'm sorry if this feels incoherent or like I'm rumbling, however I really really need to be listened to keep my sanity. I can't believe this is real.

6 months after the last update OP posted this:

A lot of people in those past six months reached out to me worried about my situation. Honestly, I don't even want to give an update because I feel so ashamed of myself that it's hard not to burst out crying. It's been (and still is) the most heart-wrenching period of my life, even if I feel like an empty shell and it seems like I don't even care anymore.

The court decision came through months ago, and against every shred of hope I had, custody of my son was granted to my former babysitter.

Legally, the decision was grounded in a combination of the extensive time my son spent under her care, me being an unfit mother due to my antidepressant medication, and the absence of a formal work contract.

The court perceived this daily involvement in my son's life as taking on a parental role, and they decided that it was the babysitter that was providing my son with the emotional, physical and developmental needs, something that I wasn't doing.

Even if I was working to provide for my son, for the court this extensive working routine resulted in a extreme neglect. For the court it was the babysitter that was raising my son, and to protect his welfare and well-being, she should be the one continuing to do so. I was shattered.

The moment when they handed over my son to her was beyond agony. When she took him in her arms, she kissed him like he was her world. Moreover, my son tried right away to unbutton her blouse to access to her, something that he never did with me. And he started crying like crazy when he couldn't manage to undo it, while the babysitter was looking at him with a lovely smirk.

I think that was the moment that I realised that for him I wasn't nothing. I wasn't her mom, wasn't family. For him, the babysitter was his mother. I can't describe what I felt, other than the fact that I preferred working a full time and ultimately lost my son to another women. I felt defeated, and as much as I hate to admit, I accepted the defeat.

Feeling so defeated, I went to have a chat with her. I asked her to please at least give me the possibility to visit my son and to have news regarding him. She accepted, with the condition that I can't touch him or hold him and that she will hold him for the whole duration of my visit. Also, I can't arrange the visits, she will be the one arranging the dates.

I accepted out of pure desperation. I don't know what got into me, but after that I held my tears and asked her why she was so obsessed with my son, so to even take him away from me legally. Her reply was that she just felt I was unfit as a mother, and that my baby was so beautiful and needy that he needed a real mother who could raise him in the perfect manner.

Also, she loves breastfeeding, and she told me that the loved the sensation when she breastfeeds my son. It was something that she never experienced with her daughter or with any other babies. He just sucked her nixxles in the perfect way to take her milk. So, she felt that she had to become his mother. After that I felt dizzy and I think I was on the verge of passing out, but she continued.

She told me not to worry about him, because she will do an amazing job with him. She will raise him to be fully dependent on her just as a good baby should be with his mother, and that she has no intention of weaning him or stopping breastfeeding him. She will breastfeed him as long as she sees fit, since mothers know best for their babies.

"And since he likes my milk so much, I don't think I'll ever stop", same exact words she used that still echo in my head. Also, since she doesn't trust schools, she will homeschool him, just like she did with her daughter. She then walked off, saying that I should leave the mother role to the better fitted for it.

After that, I just became a complete workaholic. I just drowned myself in work so to not realise what happened. Cut most of my social relationships because it's hard for me to explain what really happened. I just feel so, so ashamed of me like I did everything wrong.

The only friends (and also my mother) which I kept close told me that I should work to get my son back to me, but I am just so completely broken mentally that I just don't have the strength to do so.

I am still going to my therapist, but she doesn't seem of much help. I'm still relying on my antidepressants, more than ever. And on my work status that gives me a reason to jump out of bed in the morning. I am just so broken.

I visited my son probably less than ten times in the last four months. As of now, my life revolves working and waiting for a text from the former babysitter so that I can visit my son. Sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn't, sometimes she greets me while breastfeeding my son.

It's hard to keep my composure but he seems so calm and in love with the babysitter that's the only thing keeping me from going insane. He looks at her like he never looked at me. She arranges visits in public spaces like parks or bars, and they never last more than twenty minutes. She always takes her daughter with her, and she is so clingy to her mother that when we meet, she never leaves her side, not even for one second.

She just buries her face in her and never looks at me like I'm some kind of monster. I really hope that my son doesn't become like this. Just the thought of it is driving me insane. The visits usually consist of me watching whatever she does with my son, and I can't even touch him, or she calls the visit off.

This sometimes even means watching her nurse my son while saying how amazing is HER baby and rambling about the amazing work she's doing as a mother. It just destroys me mentally and physically, but I need to see my son.

One time when she was leaving at the end, I think I overheard her daughter asking for her milk when they get back. I really hope I misheard. Just thinking about it makes me shiver and cry in pain, thinking that my son is with that woman and that he could become like that.

I would like to try and get my baby back; however, I don't have the mental strength to do so. Moreover, it seemed like even the legal system betrayed me, and I don't see myself having a chance in taking back my son. I feel so stupid, and I feel like I lost everything because I was so plain stupid.

I feel like writing this is the only thing as of now that helps me keeping my composure. I would just like to wake up from this nightmare. I am sorry for all the incoherent rambling. I just need to be listened.