Was this irresponsible?

[Changeableweather]

Got a few raised eyebrows last night and a slightly pearl-clutchy comment, and want to sense-check the situation...

DD1 is nearly 3 and an excellent sleeper, DD2 is 7m and is fairly good, but pretty much exclusively needs to be fed back to sleep in the night.

We went out to a party, literally 15 doors down, and left the girls with over-the-road's 13yr old daughter. Her mum and dad were home, 30secs away, and we were 1min down the road.

At one point, DD2 woke up, so the sitter called me, I ran home, fed her, resettled her, and went back to the party. Raised eyebrows and clutchy comment on our return.

I genuinely hadn't thought anything about the situation was out of order, I felt completely comfortable with it, and was babysitting myself at a similar age, but pretty much everyone else at the party had left their kids with grandparents, no one else had a teen babysitter, and everyone seemed pretty shocked I'd left a baby who was likely to wake and need me.

Combination of slight next day booze blues and the standard fear that other people will think I'm a bad mum is making me worried we were irresponsible.

I truly hate the passive-aggressive judgy way some of us speak in Britain. It’s unacceptable and frustrating because you clearly chose a babysitter in order to be with your friends at this party. So instead of judging, they could recognise the sacrifice you’re making to try and be present

that being said, I think you yourself hopefully recognise the choice of babysitter is not working for you. Perhaps you don’t have anyone else or no one else was available on that night, but I think it’s worth investing some time exploring other options as one of your kids is so young.

13 is very young to be in charge of kids! I wouldn’t do it but it’s up to each of us how we parent our children.
post drinking overthinking sucks x

It's on the Young side for babysitting. Were you both pissed? If you're expecting to have to pick up and feed a small baby and you were both drunk I'd probably have an internal eyebrow raise at that. But you'd need to work a bit harder to get me to slap the bad mum label on you.

The distance and needing to feed baby wouldn't bother me as it's very easy to pop back.

The age of the teenager would bother me, 13 is too young to be left in charge of an infant alone in a house. A responsible 16/17 year old id probably be okay with but not that young.

@SavoirFlair I don't think the choice of babysitter isn't working, I think it worked fine! I don't think anything would have happened differently had I had a different sitter, because regardless of who was there with her baby DD wouldn't go back to sleep for anyone but mummy. Hence I haven't been further than the end of the road for the past 7 months.

@Monsterjam is it? I was babysitting at that age, as were most of my friends, and the girls who sat for me when I was little started at the same age! Never had any issues at all.

@Coughee Nope, had 3 drinks all night, because I knew I'd have to feed her at some point.

I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving a 7 month old baby with a 13 year old.

But you do you. Live and let live.

When you say you have the boozy blues this morning, we’re you both pissed up?

On paper, sounds shit doesn’t it, leaving 2 very young kids with a 13 year old child while you went up the road getting pissed! (Not saying you were pissed btw)

But there were loads of adults around if something would have happened and any of the kids needed to be driven to hospital or an emergency had occurred.

It’s not something I would do.

But wouldn’t clutch any pearls over or either.

I guess babysitter didn't need to make any decisions though. She just had to call you if they woke up and you went home within a minute. Only as you were on the same street would I think this was OK.

Ahh I see you say you only had 3 drinks.
Bloody hell OP! Hope you had a nice evening.
Its mo like you were knocking back shirts and legless!!

Little kids are relentless, you deserve a couple of drinks with friends literally within walking distance with loads of others nearby.
Im s little envious of your obviously lovely little community of great neighbours.

I think 13 is too young to be looking after 2 such young children.

But did you mean the 13 year old 's parents were in the house with her? In which case it's fine.

Just because you and your friends were babysitting at that age doesn't necessarily make it appropriate. She's still a minor and serious situations she can't deal with can happen very fast where you might not be lucky enough to get back there in time.

From the nspcc

"There’s no legal age a child can babysit – but if you leave your children with someone who’s under 16 you’re still responsible for their wellbeing."

Only 3 drinks? No raised eyebrows from me then. 13 is young for babysitting but she didn't have a lot of responsibility given the kids were in bed and you were just down the road. Ignore the pearl clutchers, you were irresponsible at all.

Depends entirely on how well you know the teen and how responsible they are for me. The teen wasn't really being expected to cope alone.
The fact you were so close and could pop back really easily makes it in the realms of acceptable if teen is a well trusted person you know.
Definitely wouldn't if I was further away.
Defintely not ok if you were drunk.

Just to clarify the 13 year olds parents were in the house with her?

If so that's completely fine and tbh although she was the one tending to them, the parents were still in the house its them who were technically responsible for them all so it's fine.

So you left your children with 2 adults who have a 13 year old who, what? Played with them etc?
No issues.

Well - I guess you need to go through possibilities.

One of the kids wakes up - she calls you and you are there within a minute.
One of the kids wakes up and you don’t answer the phone - she calls her parents - they are there with 30 seconds and they then make the decisions.
She hears a scary noise in the house - she calls her parents and they help her decide what to do.
House catches fire - she is old enough to get herself out and bang on her own front door at which point her parents take over
17 armed masked men break in whilst in search of the secret nuclear weapons that you keep in your basement - in that case you are fucked even if you had Mary Poppins babysitting.

I read it as the 13yo was in the op's house. The 13yo's parents were 30 secs away in their own home.

I'm on your side op. You know the girl, we don't.
I was babysitting babies and toddlers at 13 with no issues at all.
Don't give any thought to the pearl clutchers. It's not like you'd gone miles away or returned drunk.

I think it’s fine as her parents are nearby and so were you. I was babysitting from 13/14 too and pretty responsible. That was in the days before mobile phones and you couldn’t always get hold of the parents

@Mumoftwoinprimary

A 13 YO babysitting when the parents are a few doors down and her own parents are literally across the road is an entirely different proposition to if the parents are 'out out' and her own parents are a drive away.

Some people would be further away than that in their own house/garden.

But then half of Mumsnet wouldn't a 13 YO stay home alone or cross the road by themselves anyway.

No, it depends on the age of the babysitter. My DD would have been perfectly capable of babysitting and the fact that yours called you immediately shows her maturity.

I was on the fence until you said you were both drinking
if you had enough (three home poured drinks is a fair bit) to feel hungover anxiety today then you weren’t sober and that changes the situation IMO

it wasn’t ideal I don’t think.

Depends massively on the 13 year old! I would have been fine at 13 to babysit. My brother and sister on the hand, wouldn’t trust with a paper bag.

13 is far too young to have that kind of responsibility for 2 young children.

just because you did it when you were that age doesn’t make it right.