Day Care Worker Refuses To Let Parents Drop Off a Sleeping Kid

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An anonymous day care worker's surprising revelation on Reddit is going viral after the person shared the specific reason why he or she will never let parents leave a sleeping child in his or her care.

The Reddit user explained that an old employer said never to accept a sleeping child, which the user assumed was done in an effort to keep the kids on their sleep schedule.

But the real reason is much more sinister.

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The Reddit user later learned that abusive parents will often hurt and then drug their kids before dropping them off at day care and then try to blame the day care for the child's injuries.

The Redditor shared the anecdote in response to a Reddit prompt where someone asked "What was the most satisfying time you caught someone lying?" and it's since taken off.

The policy was to "never accept babies sleeping in car seats or sleeping children at all."

"So if Mom or Dad brought a kid asleep, I immediately woke them up and pulled them out of their car seat," the original poster, who is now a babysitter, explained. "This made so many parents displeased with me but it's policy."

One awful experience proved exactly why the policy is in place.

The redditor added that one horrible experience with the grandmother of a child proved exactly why a sleeping child could be a signal for danger.

"One day a grandma brought a baby asleep and he was not waking up at all. Just raise his head, whimper and go back to sleep," the user explained. "Immediately my boss called 911 and grandma was trying to down play 'he had a rough night, he's just tired, etc.'"

The Reddit user had watched this baby before.

"He wouldn't sleep if he thought he was going to miss out, we had music playing and kids loudly singing and dancing," the redditor wrote.

In the chaos of the moment, the grandma slipped out and the baby's parents were called. 

Granny was actually drugging her grandchildren.

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"Turns out Granny had a history of giving kids stuff to knock them out when she babysat but this time she did it to a 6-month-old and that's why he wouldn't wake up. I think they pumped the kid's stomach and he had a stay at the hospital," the user continued. "Legal actions were taken and the family moved away."

Unfortunately, this wasn't a one-time occurrence.

"To clarify, the policy was put in place because my boss knew abusers have been known to do this," the user explained. "They'd break the kid's arm, dose them, dump them with the sitter who lets the baby asleep all morning then because the kid was with the sitter all day, it's easy to blame them for the baby's injury. Or worse, the baby died and they do this to blame the sitter."

The incident completely changed how this user felt about watching children.

"To this day if I'm babysitting, I don't accept sleeping children. I flat out refuse to watch kids at their home while they're sleeping for the same reason," the Redditor wrote. "I've pretty much stopped doing any child care because as much as I love kids, watching parents make bad decisions on purpose, when they know better, was killing my soul."

It's completely shocking.

Other Reddit users were completely shocked by the original poster's revelation. 

"Your story that parents and carers drug their kids maliciously, just makes me shiver, talk about pure evilness…" wrote one person. 

"That’s horrendous," another wrote. "I never would have thought to check for that."

And someone else shared that it was "Crazy knowing this is a common thing. Happened to me as a kid."

If you suspect child abuse, you can call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453 (1-800-4-A-Child) or go to Childhelp.org. The hotline is available 24/7.