As a babysitter, I have had MANY moments where parents come home hours later when they said they would be home. But, never in my life have I babysat for 72 hours straight!
It was about two years ago. My neighbor texted me saying she had gone into labor and needed me to come watch her daughter since her husband would be taking her to the hospital. I immediately went over to watch her four year old (who we will call Jess). I told my neighbor to focus on herself and only text me when her husband would be coming home to pick up Jess to meet the new baby.
On the first day of babysitting, I took Jess to the pool all day and then took her to my house for dinner. That night, we talked about the new baby and how excited she was to meet her baby brother.
Something I learned very quickly was why parents are sleep deprived. I spent the night asleep on the couch. Jess woke me up around 7 the next morning in tears because she missed her parents. My heart broke. I decided to take Jess to brunch to keep her mind off missing her mom.
Finally, after three days of babysitting and about 6 hours of total sleep, Jess’s dad came home to take care of Jess.
But, unfortunately, my week wasn’t over just yet. The thing about sleep deprivation is that you become extremely susceptible to illness. In my case, for the rest of the week I couldn’t eat, sleep, or drink water, without my throat being in immense pain. The pain was so bad, I had to go to the doctor to get tested for strep and mono.
The nurse did this really fun thing where she had to swab my throat, but mind you, my throat was the issue so it hurt… a lot. Luckily, it wasn’t strep or mono, it was just an undiagnosable virus that they couldn’t give any pain medication to help with.
I ended up having to call in sick to work for a whole week while I got better. I let Jess’ family know how sick I was so that they could be careful around the newborn baby. Fortunately, no one in the family showed any sign of illness. I still think it was probably a daycare virus activated with sleep deprivation but who knows…
This really brought me down memory lane because when I went to daycare, I got sick so often and it seemed as though everybody got the flue, pinkeye, or some other bug. I liked your understatement a lot as well as it showed how oftentimes we understate our own health related issues.
I truly do not know how you were able to babysit for that long. I have baby sat for 3 hours or so and I felt EXHAUSTED to say the least. Also you can always count on kids to get you sick somehow, because of how curious they are and just tasting and touching everything.
Babysitting for 3 days straight sounds like a real hassle. You deserve a medal of honor for your sacrifice and commitment in that moment.