Can a 19 year old babysit a baby alone?

[Raspberryripple3000]

Im aware this post sounds like ragebait (I wish it was) but my (19F) mum (40+) has a friend with a baby under a year old, naturally she hasn’t been going out much recently, so my mum offered to look after the baby one night so they can go out, assuming she’d be tired I offered to do it, without saying it with a lack of confidence. Since my pet passed away relatively recently, I thought it would be nice to have someone to take care of.

All of this sounds pretty normal right? Well not to my mum! After my (seemingly) normal request, she said no, I can’t do it alone and that I’ll need someone ‘mature’ (her) with me. I really don’t know what to think to that as I sounded quite confident and sure while saying it, heck I would have even looked forward to it, I’m overage (and aware younger teens are capable too), I have no mental health conditions, I’ve known the mum of the baby for over 7 years, and even my mum looked after a baby after she left school (about 16 years old) so I really don’t know why my perfectly normal request backfired to make me look like a little 10 year old trying to seem grown? Surely denying a 19 year old to look after a baby (who’s well past the newborn stage) that she’s confident about looking after is a bit strange? My mum could at least see what the mum of the baby thinks right? All of your suggestions/comments will mean so much to me! :)

If you want to babysit babies then build up your experience with them (without being left in sole charge) and then offer your services. Build the evidence that you are competent, not just confident, and then you have a skillset to offer.

Your mum absolutely has a right to "deny" you this time because the original arrangement was nothing to do with you. Maybe she fancies a couple of hours out of the house with unencumbered rights to the remote control! She doesn't owe it to you to share this with you and it seems odd to me that you seem to think you have the right to look after someone else's baby. You offered to "help", she said no thank you, end of story.

I was a single mother at 19. I looked after my
son alone with minimal input from anyone else.

I have a step-daughter a year younger than you who would (and did!) trust with my own babies and endorse caring for other babies, and I was nannying for an infant at your age. It's about experience with childcare and individual maturity, not age.

All that said, if I had offered to watch a friend's baby for a night to encourage her to go out and my step-daughter made the offer you did, my answer would be no thank you. I was the one who offered to sit and my friend made her plans with that assumption - I wouldn't want it to seem like I was passing off a chore and I wouldn't want to put a potentially anxious first-time mum in an uncomfortable position of saying "actually, I'd feel more comfortable if we stuck to the original plan." Helping a mum feel confident leaving their baby with someone isn't entirely a logical thing, and assuming one adult is interchangeable with another misses the mark a bit.

Why don't you ask if you can join your mum and the baby for the evening and help share the load?

I babysat for a 3 month old when I was 15. At 17 I looked after him and his baby brother. My cousin used to leave me to babysit his baby son when I was 18 - this “baby” is now a dad of 2 so he suffered no lasting damage. Of course a 19 year old is capable of looking after a baby, unless either has health issues.

Me at 16

Because maybe she's incapable of babysitting.

Her original post coupled with the fact that she's only directly addressing posts that agree with her makes me question her maturity. Her mother made the offer to babysit, it is not appropriate to switch babysitters without first gaining the consent of the baby's parents because your daughter wants to cheer herself up after the death of her pet - the juxtaposition of looking after a very young baby with caring for her pet is a bit of a red flag for me right off the bat!

A baby is not something to be passed around to cheer people up, it's the most vulnerable, precious little being in your life. A woman went thorough 9 months of gestating hell and goodness knows how many hours/days of labour to have this precious life to care for. It is not an amusement, a time filler or an emotional support animal for the chronically immature.

13 year olds who babysit have to have the 1st time once to get experience?

OP, you still haven’t answered whether you have any experience babysitting small babies or not.

Why do so many people keep saying they had kids at nineteen like that means anything. It doesn’t.
Teen parents have no other option than to look after their own children. They are their responsibility. Some teenage parents are terrible at looking after kids anyway.

I had never held a baby before I had mine at 16 and not to blow my own horn but think I’m a good parent.
That said if my gut said someone was potentially incompetent they wouldn’t be babysitting my baby whether 19 or 49

Women have babies at 16! Some manage to look after two of them by the time they’re 19.

Bit of amateur psychology here... 😂

Your mum wanted to pretend that she was the mummy of a baby again. By you (her young adult dd) offering to take her place, she's been thoroughly reminded that actually, she's now old enough to be granny, not mummy, and it has pissed her off. Well obviously you can't possibly be mature enough to look after a baby by yourself, so mummy has to step in and take over.

So, this means all people of fertile age are automatically competent at minding babies?

Yet OP is the one who wants her mum’s friend’s baby to replace her dead cat…

I also think having your own baby early can’t be compared to suddenly having to look after a 7-month-old. You grow with your baby and you know what they can and can’t do yet, that’s something you’d have no clue otherwise. Not to mention that most expecting parents inform themselves a bit beforehand.

I would not let my baby be babysat by a 19 year old unless 1) I know her very well personally over a number of years and I know she’s got lots of young cousins/nieces/nephews, or 2) she works in childcare as a chosen career.

Oh right, when you put it like that I guess it’s our duty to hand over our vulnerable babies to 13 year old children who fancy a go.

Madness! My eldest was born when I was 17 so he was 2 when I was 19 and he survived!

Absolutely yes! I was babysitting alone from the age of 14 and a sole charge nanny to 3 kids aged 5 months, 4 & 6 years 5 days a week at the age of 19.

So what @arethereanyleftatall meant was the op could have had sex 3 years ago.

How exactly is that relevant to the discussion at hand? Having sex at 16 doesn't immediately confer a baby. And it is doubtful that a 16 year old with a baby would be expected to cope alone. I mean, I know it does happen, but it's certainly not desirable, and op's mother definitely wouldn't have left her 16 yo daughter to cope alone.

Oh behave.

I babysat at 13 and to make sure it was ok, the neighbours went next door to another neighbours for a few drinks a couple of times before the big night out that they needed me for. Thats how its done.

A lot of people prefer not to leave little babies with just anyone (eg will prefer family - their mum etc) but if course a 19 year old can look after a baby. It will probably be harder than you think - the baby is unlikely to be happy about being left with you, chilled or not babies that age basically only want their parents and close family. It may well cry a lot and not settle, you could well find its a long evening.

I mean, yes, it’s obviously technically fine. But I personally wouldn’t leave my baby with a 19 year old with no experience looking after babies who is kinda treating it like a borrow my doggie sort of experience.

How much experience of looking after babies did you have? I had none before mine was born, he managed to survive my inexperience.

Depends if it is a 19 year old with experience of looking after babies or not. I wouldn’t let my 19 year old self look after a baby.

I’m also in the crowd who had a baby young. I was 17 and then 20.

Still, I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving a baby or toddler with a sitter, regardless of age. Well, unless I knew they were experienced. The girls at my DCs nursery are great, but it’s their day job. They have more patience than I do!

But for your average person? Feeding issues, sleep, crying, accidents. A chill baby might be less chill when left with someone they don’t recognise.

It’s not the same as caring for your own baby that you had since the day they were born.