Watch strangers’ sleeping kids?

Chayalle

Thu, Jun 20 2019, 2:29 pm

amother [ Chocolate ] wrote:

I'm so surprised at the amount of negative responses! The world stands on 3 things, gemilus chassadim is the first one!
She can ask and you're allowed to respond you can't if it won't work for you but why not do a chessed if you can?
My kids are the type to always wake up but my downstairs neighbor, who leaves me a monitor to listen to her children once in a while, has children that almost never wake up once asleep!!!
I like the idea of asking them to come check on the kids in the middle so you're not stuck with them if they do wake up!
And by all means, tell them "we go to sleep at 11.30 so please be back then!"
It's a big favor but I've heard of people doing it and it went very well!!

I used to do this and then stopped. I have a firm "no babysitting" policy (sometimes waived for close relatives.)

I'll give you an example of how it went: I hosted a family with several kids for their brother's Shabbos Sheva Brachos (Kallah was my neighbor. I didn't know them from beans.)

We made early Shabbos - it was in August - and they made late. They arrived as DH was making Kiddush. As the parents settled in, the kids ran up and down my stairs screaming, so that I had to strain to hear DH.

Soon after they left for hall, baby woke up screaming. I was up with him till they came home, after midnight. (guess why we make early Shabbos? So that we can get an early night....)

The next morning, they left early to go to shul, baby was awake. Free babysitting is awesome, isn't it, especially if you leave bottles. They didn't come home till after 4 p.m. He barely napped, and I didn't nap at all.

When they came home, wife told me how awesome it is to get a break. She soon headed out to visit with her siblings, leaving baby again. Why rush back? They came back after 11 p.m., about 2 hours after Shabbos ended.

So I'm happy to host your company, but I don't do babysitting, even for babies who will supposedly be sleeping.

There's an Eiruv to the hall, and people can take baby along in a baby carriage.

As far as coming back to check...I've found this to be very sporadic. And I don't want to stay up till 11:30. Friday night after the chicken soup, I'm almost ready to turn in....Shabbos is when I catch up on sleep for the whole week.