I could write a long list of the reasons we pulled our kids from their childcare situation a month ago. I've posted about my discomfort with the sitter in the past. She has a tendancy to majorly overstep her boundaries. Telling my daughter she could stay up later than her brother, because she's older, was one overstep. Our bedtime routine is none of the babysitter's business, and we got to deal with an argumentative child who insisted that she could stay up later because "the babysitter said so." We had issues with her skipping a day, where I'd show up in the morning and she'd pretend to still be asleep and not open her door or answer her phone, so I would be forced to take my kids to work with me. She refused service for a full week because she was sure my kids were dying of pneumonia (they both had a mild cold, which their pediatrician confirmed after we got fed up with her refusing care), and even went as far as to call us terrible parents for neglecting our children when they were so deathly ill.
The creepy part comes into play when my kids informed us that the sitter would pack them into the car and drive by our house to check the driveway and peek around. She felt that if the car was in the driveway, that meant we were home (which is incorrect, as we both carpool occasionally so the car is often there) and that we should be keeping the kids to give her a (paid) break. I'm not comfortable with a babysitter who stalks us.
All this is in the past, and when we fired her, we didn't give an explanation to the daycare corporation. The sitter sent us an incredibly nasty letter, which we kept. She claims the daycare corporation advised her to send it to us, to make her feel better about being fired. The letter was riddled with terrible accusations and lies.
But now that the kids are safely out of her hands, all of these really nerve-wracking things have been coming out. For example, we were in a department store a few weeks ago, and wandered by the carseat isle to get an idea of the size requirements for booster seats, thinking my daughter might be getting big enough to get one. As it turns out, she's not even close to the weight restriction. But as we were looking at them she told us "The babysitter uses these in her van for my brother and me." I asked her to clarify, and said "You mean your carseats are this color, right?" She said no, that they sit in booster seats with a regular seatbelt, not the harness like our carseats.
Not long after that conversation, it came out that they had been in the car with no booster or carseat at all! Just for "a short drive", my 5 year old daughter and 3 year old son went in the van with nothing but adult seatbelts...
At this point, DH and I determined that we pretty much HAD to report her to the daycare, thinking the safety of other kids was at stake. We're just not sure how to approach the situation.
Sunday, we took the kids for the very first time to a wave pool, thinking that it was something new and cool for them. My daughter, when we told her she obviously couldn't go in by herself, argued "The babysitter brought me here, and made me go in the deep end with no grownup because she had to watch the babies. I'm big enough for this." The deep end of a wave pool is about 5 feet! She had a lifejacket on, apparantly, but if you've ever been in a wave pool you know they can be an absolute zoo, with big kids flying around everywhere. Not to mention that the sitter clearly took our children to this place without our permission or even our knowledge!!
So....we feel it's important to inform the daycare corporation of the sitter's behavior, but aren't sure how to approach it. The sitter knows where we live, and has a history of stalking our house. I'm afraid that if she's reprimanded, she'll take it out on us.
Any tips?
The creepy part comes into play when my kids informed us that the sitter would pack them into the car and drive by our house to check the driveway and peek around. She felt that if the car was in the driveway, that meant we were home (which is incorrect, as we both carpool occasionally so the car is often there) and that we should be keeping the kids to give her a (paid) break. I'm not comfortable with a babysitter who stalks us.
All this is in the past, and when we fired her, we didn't give an explanation to the daycare corporation. The sitter sent us an incredibly nasty letter, which we kept. She claims the daycare corporation advised her to send it to us, to make her feel better about being fired. The letter was riddled with terrible accusations and lies.
But now that the kids are safely out of her hands, all of these really nerve-wracking things have been coming out. For example, we were in a department store a few weeks ago, and wandered by the carseat isle to get an idea of the size requirements for booster seats, thinking my daughter might be getting big enough to get one. As it turns out, she's not even close to the weight restriction. But as we were looking at them she told us "The babysitter uses these in her van for my brother and me." I asked her to clarify, and said "You mean your carseats are this color, right?" She said no, that they sit in booster seats with a regular seatbelt, not the harness like our carseats.
Not long after that conversation, it came out that they had been in the car with no booster or carseat at all! Just for "a short drive", my 5 year old daughter and 3 year old son went in the van with nothing but adult seatbelts...
At this point, DH and I determined that we pretty much HAD to report her to the daycare, thinking the safety of other kids was at stake. We're just not sure how to approach the situation.
Sunday, we took the kids for the very first time to a wave pool, thinking that it was something new and cool for them. My daughter, when we told her she obviously couldn't go in by herself, argued "The babysitter brought me here, and made me go in the deep end with no grownup because she had to watch the babies. I'm big enough for this." The deep end of a wave pool is about 5 feet! She had a lifejacket on, apparantly, but if you've ever been in a wave pool you know they can be an absolute zoo, with big kids flying around everywhere. Not to mention that the sitter clearly took our children to this place without our permission or even our knowledge!!
So....we feel it's important to inform the daycare corporation of the sitter's behavior, but aren't sure how to approach it. The sitter knows where we live, and has a history of stalking our house. I'm afraid that if she's reprimanded, she'll take it out on us.
Any tips?
She's a licensed care provider that works from her home, but is registered through an agency. We went through the daycare agency in order to find one of their homecare providers in our area. She lives literally 5 minutes from us, which is why I'm worried about enraging the beast, so to speak. 
She's in our neighbourhood, and the likelyhood of running into her is pretty high. Which is why I'm trying to find a gentle way to approach the situation. I definitely think she needs to be reported, if for no other reason than to provide her with more training, as she's clearly clueless in some areas. I just want to make sure that she's not going to torch our house or anything for reporting her. :P We know from her 3 page anger fueled letter, that she's prone to emotional, furious outbursts.
I didn't want to make a monster post, so there's a bit of background missing there.
