Babysitter left the house

[Piano737]

Au pair living with us, age 20. She babysits approx one night a week, has done so for about six months, kids (4yo twins) have never woken when she has babysat but she knows they do wake occasionally.
Recently she has a new boyfriend who she is spending every waking moment with other than when she has other commitments. We have said he is welcome in the house but not overnight between midnight and 7am - this was our agreement with her before she moved in.
Last night she was babysitting and our front door camera pinged on my phone so I checked the notification and saw that she had walked out of the house and closed the front door. I thought it was odd but thought maybe she had gone out to put something in the bin (right outside front door) so waited a minute or two and then checked to see if she had returned - she hadn't. I panned the security cameras around the front of the house to see if I could see her and could not. They cover the whole of the driveway so probably about 5 metres from the house plus neighbour on one side's driveway.
At this point I panicked that she had forgotten she was babysitting and called her. She said she had gone out to talk to someone and was right outside the house - demonstrably not true as cameras couldn't see her. Boyfriend also drives a distinctive van so I would have seen that on the camera too if it was across the street or next to the house.
I said I was not comfortable with that and could she go back to the house, and reminded her that she could have a guest inside if she wanted to. Three or four mins later she went back inside alone. As soon as we got home around 10.30pm she went out with boyfriend until 4am.
Ironically about an hour after I had asked her to go back inside while babysitting, DD did wake and she needed to settle her which she did successfully - they are very comfortable with her, she does the school run and after school care three days a week.
I have asked to speak to her straight after kids bedtime today as want to understand what was going on in her head to make her leave two four year olds alone out of earshot with no way of her knowing if one of them was crying/looking for an adult in the house. I am feeling really anxious about this and want to check if I am being unreasonable.
YABU - stop stalking her with your cameras, kids are fine.
YANBU - this is crazy behaviour and needs a serious conversation about responsibilities around children.
To add, until boyfriend appeared we were very happy with her. Since boyfriend she has been very distracted and trying to wriggle out of some of her responsibilities to us, but nothing that has made me feel the kids were unsafe until this point.

If you were hiring this au pair. And you called previous employer for a reference, and prev. employer told you this story. Would you hire her?

Absolutely not being unreasonable - I have an au pair myself and whilst yes they do need more direction than a career nanny, I would expect that to be things like ‘how do you manage fussy eating’ and ‘how do you help them deal with frustration?’.

Leaving two small children home alone even momentarily is a barn-yard-door obvious no no which I wouldn’t expect a 14 year old babysitter to do. It’s very frustrating asking for advice on au pairs on mumsnet as most people don’t realise that they have to be paid a proper salary now and are doing an actual job. We aren’t paying peanuts and this is monkey behaviour.

I would replace. Also when you get your next au pair I would put in the contract that they can’t have friends of the opposite sex to the house AND put a curfew in for nights when they are working early with the kids. It’s not acceptable to come to work on 2-3h sleep. My contract says ‘back by midnight if you are working with the kids before noon the following day’- she has 2-3 days off a week and on those nights can stay out till whenever

It’s worth noting that my current au pair was very clear to me that she hasn’t even disclosed the address of our house to her boyfriend (he knows the nearest tube station, that’s all) and has no intention of doing so. She has worked in schools in the past and has really clear ideas about privacy and child protection - I really appreciated this.

We did spend time as children with a very longstanding nanny’s bf (they later married and we were bridesmaids!) but only once she had been with us for a number of years and my parents had a very good sense of her judgement and character and had met him a good few times. And we were older (8+) and would have been able to articulate any problems

Yes, she should have apologized to you and explained what she was doing upon your return, not run off to party as quickly as possible.

Sack her, if she leaves young children alone she is not a safe person to care for them. End of.

Also her boyfriend should not be around your children in your home at all.

Whats safest for your children is the answer here.

3-4 minutes is nowhere near front door. 4 mins from my door is the park at the end of the street (0.2 miles)

I'm really not understanding people on here justifying the au pairs' behaviour or criticizing OP for "stalking". Au pair is literally hired to help look after children, I know she is supposed to be allowed time to herself but definitely not to this extent. She can't just leave your children alone at home, this is insane!! You are paying her for this shit, right? I would not let my kids to be looked after by someone like this.

I also question allowing some random boyfriend into the house.

Leaving the house isn't acceptable (other than nipping to the bin or something). Also I wouldn't allow guests while she's working either. If only working 1 night per week she has plenty of time for guests or going out

She's young though, errors of judgement are to be expected. I would have a serious conversation and see how she responds before sacking.

I used to be an au pair and certainly did some things that, looking back, were not ideal.

Update after speaking to her this evening. She says she was sitting in a parked car outside a house on the other side of the road a couple of houses down - this would not have been in view of the camera. She was apologetic and said she realised it was a mistake but 'meant to tell us afterwards' and then we called, which I assume actually means she would not have told us if we hadn't noticed.
She said that she 'kind of forgot' that the kids were there, or that she was responsible for them, plus some vague waffle from which I got the impression she was trying to say that having just been away for a month she had forgotten (?) that it is unacceptable to leave a house while babysitting.
We had a frank conversation in which I outlined that while babysitting, she can be in the garden with the doors open, but she cannot leave the front of the house other than to take out rubbish, and most certainly cannot close the front door if she does need to go outside for a particular reason.
We will see how we get on but I suspect the majority are right and this will not last much longer.

She "kind of forgot?"

Come the fuck on. You're mad if you ever allow her to watch your kids again. And allowing her to have her boyfriend in your home when your children are there, without you being present, is just absolutely crazy.

Get rid of her. She is entirely untrustworthy.

For me the trust would be gone. Time to find a new au pair.

She forgot what she does for a living?

no.

edit - in fact, that’s such a mad thing to say, it makes it sound like she’s on drugs.

OP, get rid of her as soon as possible. She is not the kind of person to leave your kids with - she is either couldn't give a fuck about your kids or, indeed, is high on something. This is definitely a safeguarding issue and you are putting your children in danger.

Obviously it’s your choice but how many times has she done this without you noticing? It would be a no from me. She seems to be putting her social life first. I used to babysit regularly I would never have left the house without the children.

Looking forward to the phone call reference you get from her next job.

No OP your update makes it even worse. I actually feel mildly panicked. Why is she sitting in a parked car having forgotten she was in charge of the kids? She was probably smoking dope, this is bullshit behaviour. If she was just outside and sober then she'd have jumped out of the car when you phoned and you would have seen her walking back in when the conversation ended.

She was getting wasted somewhere close by or else she was further away or both.

Please get rid of her. Please.

Bloody hell...kinda forgot???
Wouldn't trust her with a cat.

What a terrible loads of waffle. Call an agency and set up interviews for her replacement for next week! I wouldn't be leaving her alone in the evenings with the kids. I'm concerned she's on drugs.

Forgot??? Fuck that. Never leave your kids with that useless person again.

I use to baby sit at 15/16 and the kids were older normally 6/7 and even at that age i knew full well never leave the house not even for 1 min.

Not being unreasonable. There is no reason to leave the house when you are responsible for two children. Especially young children. 30 seconds to take the recycling out, sure. No longer. You need to trust your gut here. You wouldn’t be watching cameras if you trusted her. There’s more to this that has got your spidy senses tingling. Unless you feel you have trust issues. There are other nannies out there that your children can bond with. Talk to her and if you don’t like the answer look for someone else. X

Her explanation makes it much worse for me. She forgot the children! I'd never trust her again, they aren't a priority in her mind.

Not read all the updates but I’d find someone else/ get rid of her. It won’t get better. And cameras are a normal part of life now and she will know you have them and she is still doing stuff like leaving (she obvs knows you have cameras as you’ve told her to go inside etc). I had au pairs and Nannies for years and years - believe me; when it starts to wrong it is very unlikely to get better.

Considering the fact that a LOT of child abuse is done by either family members or long time family friends, I think it's right to not completely trust someone who looks after your children!! Nowadays it's easy to make sure they are safe with whoever is looking after them, so if you can you then why not do it?? As far as I am concerned, a child's safety is FAR more important than someone else's feelings!

What's the point of having one if you don't check it?