Would you leave a 2 year old with older siblings for hours?

No decent parent would let a 14 Yr old from outside their home babysit their kids though.

As a one off it would probably be fine, but making this a weekly responsibility for your 16 year old is just unfair. She didn't choose to have a child.

The Ops situation is completely different to have a situation where a 16 year old has expressly been employed for the purpose of babysitting for a family next door.

Firstly your parents were presumably next door so you had an immediate point of contact if something went wrong. Secondly babysitting and being paid for it is a situation where all of your focus is 100% on the child you are babysitting and this is not the case for a 16 year old in their own home, particularly when they are also in charge of an 11 year old. Thirdly this scenario envisaged this happening very regularly not just as an occasional situation and during the day when they are active and not mainly sleeping, and fourthly the OP would not have been able to get back quickly in case of any issue due to the multiple buses and hours of travel situation.

Nobody is saying the 16 year old couldn't watch the toddler for 20 minutes whilst the OP popped to the shop.

A 16 y old can't babysit a toddler? Seriously? I babysay my 2 y old brother when I was 10! Is the 16 y old disabled in any way?

My DM used to leave me to look after my brother when he was that age, and I would only have been 12 or 13 and he never came to any harm. She did it because he was a complete fucking nightmare in shops and hated being in a pushchair. The nearest proper supremarket was a 40 minute bus ride away, so it took a good couple of hours.

This was in the 1960s though, loads of things that were considered acceptable then would give people conniptions these days.

I was babysitting 3 children at 16 as well @ColesCorner7814.
They should be well able to mind a 2 year old.

Isn’t this normal? I babysat for the family next door when I was 16 (often until the early hours). The kids were 9,7 and 9 months. The older two were always up when the parents left and I had to put them to bed. All my friends were babysitting at that age. When did this become unacceptable?

what kind of 16yo do people know who can't manage a toddler for a few hours? If there's an emergency, they can call respective emergency services, can't they?

4 hours to go to gym is unreasonable though, you'll never keep it up consistently.

They would be fine. There is no ways I would spend hours travelling to a gym, buy a set of weights for go walking.

That's irresponsible! No way would i leave my two year old to go to the gym that takes 4 buses. What if there is an emergency. 16 or not I would put my own needs and wants aside.

Get some adjustable dumbbells. Mine are 30kg, so plenty there to challenge me and don’t take up much space.

Thats awful, poor child. But surely you can see that is a sad rare case. Teenage pregnancies go down year on year and multiple children by the age of 16 must be incredibly rare

Go for a walk from your house for an hour! You don’t need to go to a gym you have lots of things you can do from home and also AT home!

Good grief. How on earth did that happen? Was she vulnerable? How did it turn out for her?

No way. A 2 year old needs full supervision from a competent adult.

I don't think they are too young in the sense of it not being safe. After all the 16 year old could live alone with their own baby if you said yes. However unless they really want to be alone and responsible for all that time, it's a long time to expect them to give up. Pay them well.

No I wouldn't do this. The older 3, fine, but not that length of time with a 2 year old and it's not an emergency or a one-off.

I'd look for a gym with a creche, a gym that was close to work so I could go when they were in school/nursery on my lunchbreak or I'd stick with exercising at home.

My fear at those ages would be the older 3 fighting or getting distracted. I think 16yo and 2yo alone for 3-4h is safe! Give him/her a list of what to do in an emergency and it’s okay. 15yo I’d start with an hour maybe?

Also try to pay them if you can. My SIL lays my oldest 2 (or buys them expensive takeout if they prefer) and they love getting some “easy” money.

The 16 year old could babysit the 2 year old. I used to pay my 16 year old niece to babysit my toddler in our home during the day if I needed to go to an appointment, although never for four hours. I was always a ten minute drive away at the most and she was extremely responsible (has since gone on to qualify in childcare and works in a nursery).

Depending on how your 16 year old is, I would go for that. I wouldn’t, however, leave the 16 year old in charge of all the younger kids and I would pay them to encourage the sense of responsibility.

The gym commute is madness.

Don’t be so patronising. At my school there was someone who had 4 kids (including a set of twins) by the time she was about 17. She had her first at 14 and it carried on from there.

I think it depends on the 16 yr old and the 2 year year old tbh.
Some 16 yr olds are responsible, mature and capable, some not so much.
I wouldn't for a non essential 3-4 hr period or where i couldnt get back quickly in the event of difficulties.
It wouldn't be worth the risk for me personally.

The 16 year old is old enough to babysit the 2 year old. You should check with them that they are happy to do it though and if it’s appropriate- if the 2 year old is awake it’s not appropriate when they need to get homework done for example. I would probably offer them some money (maybe to be split between them) in exchange for it.

I got really fit pre baby by doing a 12 weeks Joe wicks plan, all at home with some cardio like running in there too so you'd still get some you time out of the house. 30 min sessions so much more achievable than one long gym session a week.