These kinds of stories always make me think. A nanny in New York was arrested and charged with second degree assault and child endangerment. The reason? She was giving a 4 month old baby Benadryl to make the child more manageable and to make her job easier. The nanny, who has been watching kids for the past ten years knew there were nanny cams in the house but went ahead and gave the infant drops anyway. On one occasion the mother of the baby saw it and rushed home and confronted the nanny. It had happened at least three times that were caught on tape.
It makes you wonder just what the heck goes on when you are not with your child. Most people have not installed cams or they take their child to daycare and have no clue what is going on. I know most nannies are great and fantastic and do a wonderful job with the children they care for, but even if 99.9% of all nannies are great, that is still a bunch of children being watched by that other .01.
"On one occasion the mother of the baby saw it and rushed home and confronted the nanny. It had happened at least three times that were caught on tape."
ReplyDeleteIf it happen 3 times why did the parents not fire her when it happen the first time????
You have to wonder what else that particular nanny has also done. If she was doing it on camera she probably didn't see a problem with it.
ReplyDeleteAs horrible as it is, there are tons of people who use Benadryl to sedate/knock their kids out. I learned this when I worked as a flight attendant- several people on flights with ultra-calm or passed out kids, and I would ask how they got them to behave so well, expecting good advice- nope, they doped them up on Benadryl.
ReplyDeletewell the good news is she didn't beat the shit out of the child?
ReplyDeleteYou know this wasn't the first child she sedated out of sheer laziness and selfishness. Childcare is not her vocation, that's for sure.
ReplyDelete@Sylvia - I took that statement in the article to mean that when they reviewed the nanny cam tapes/mem stik later, they discovered 3 additional instances where she was caught on film drugging that poor wee babe.
Where I live, a few years ago, a women was convicted of murder for giving a baby Benedryl which killed the poor thing.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds of a couple of lawsuits my old job had against a nursing home. The patients that didnt have family members that visited regularly were abused so badly. The things people do to others when they feel no one is monitoring them is disgusting. They would let these elderly people sit in soaked diapers and bedsheets for hours. If you dont want to properly take care of ur charge, find another job.
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ReplyDeleteVery misleading, Enty.
ReplyDeleteThe story reads that the mom actually caught the nanny dosing the baby.
It was only after examination of the nanny cam tapes that she was seen dosing the baby on three other occasions.
And while the nanny knew of the cams presence, she didn't know their locations.
Every mother and father's nightmare. I am blessed with loving caring in-laws who watch my darlings. the worst I have to worry about is them giving them too much sugar. Small price to pay for loving attention.
ReplyDelete@BigMama,
ReplyDeleteToo much sugar??? A grandparent does not know that definition.
I was lucky that my mom watched my children, but I think she took all the sugar/sweets/goodies she withheld from me and gave it to them. She doesn't watch them anymore due to their age, but she still buys they "goodies". This from the women who hid my Halloween candy and allowed me one piece per day till it was gone.
As a Nanny, this infuriates me.
ReplyDeleteDON'T WORK WITH KIDS\BABIES IF YOU DO NOT LIKE THEM.
The only time I'd ever recommend using Benadryl like that is if the kid is overstimulated and can't get to sleep. By kid, I mean older kid, and using very tiny doses.
ReplyDeleteBut to knock a kid out because you don't want to watch it--why the hell are you even a nanny?
Has she been doing this for all 10 years? Wouldn't Benedryl cause serious problems to a child if used that often over a long time? Surely.
ReplyDeleteDear god.
@O- Wow that is a very interesting comment. I don't travel often, but when I did travel with my small children, I often used Benadryl to calm them. I did it on the advice of my pediatrician and used the dosage she recommended. It makes travel more calm not only for the parents, but for the child and the other passengers as well. I do not regret doing it in the slightest and do not believe that it caused my children any harm.
ReplyDeleteI used Benadryl, too, with my kid, but only on airplanes.
ReplyDelete0 is right -- I know countless parents who use Benadryl on their kids to dope them up for air travel. Does this mean those parents should be arrested too?
ReplyDeleteMy son has severe eczema and scratches himself bloody, so my pediatrician told me to give him a tsp. Of benedryl every night so that he wouldn't scratch during the night and spread it.
ReplyDeleteOf course, he isn't four months old either. I think that the issue here is that it was the NANNY giving this baby medication without parental consent, not whether or not benedryl is always inappropriate for children.
Just playing devil's advocate... have any of you ever thought that maybe the kid(s) are poorly behaved because there parents let them do whatever they want and as a result they are a holy terror for the nanny to deal with. Since she couldn't get any back up from them discipline wise she took matters into her own hands.
ReplyDeleteI don't see anything wrong with giving kids a proper amount of Benadryl for plane travel. In fact, I'd appreciate it! However, parents need to do a Benadryl test at home before they get on the plane. In a very small percentage of children, Benadryl has the opposite effect and makes them absolutely wild!! And I mean absolutely. Make sure how your child will respond while you are at home and able to observe the child.
ReplyDeleteThanks ThoughtElf!
ReplyDelete@jmid
ReplyDeleteThe baby in question is 4 months old.
@RJ- Exactly! The dentist tried it on my daughter when she was little and she went NUTS. Wound her up instead of calming her.
ReplyDeleteUsually kids grow out of it when they're older. She's a teen now and can use it for rashes or allergies if need be.
There is a long history of people doping babies in order to keep them quiet--back in the days before the industrial revolution in England, women took in piecework to support their families. A few drops of morphine and they would wrap the babies tightly and then get to work! Not that I'm making an excuse for this woman--obviously the parents did not want the nanny doing this. I'm just saying that it's not like some new development in the decline of civilization.
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ReplyDeleteWhen we were thinking about flying with our super crazy lab the vet told us to give her Benadryl--I never thought about doing it with a kid--can't wait to try it!!! Kidding, I wouldn't--although I'm not judging those of you who do. My kids have always been good on planes, so I never saw the need. I agree that the issue is dosing kids without the parent's permission. While I don't think that it is good to medicate kids on a regular basis to make them more manageable, I guess if you are a parent who wants to do it on a plane and your pediatrician has even said it is okay, I don't think that is a bad thing. But I can understand O's concern.
ReplyDeleteI have seen parents give Benadryl to their kids on an airplane and it did work. I was lucky, my kids would fall asleep as soon as the engines started, so I always made sure I could get seats in the way back. Also, I always brought licorice and suckers for kids on the planes and most of the time it was ok to give to other kids with the parents permission of course!
ReplyDeleteBut at 4 months old, that seems dangerous imo, especially without a doctors consent or instructions.
ReplyDeleteWhen we were about 7(my brother) and 10(me), my dad came up with an interesting idea. When they would have dinner parties and their friends would bring their similar age children my dad would make us "Shamrock Shakes". They were vanilla milkshakes with green food coloring and a healthy dose of Creme de Menthe liquor. Those shakes always calmed us down and put us to sleep pretty quick. If I remember correctlly McDonald's had green Shamrock Shakes for a short time and that's where he got the idea.
ReplyDelete@Borg Queen - That story makes me sad. :(
ReplyDeleteBenodryl used to knock me out...I cannot imagine what it would have done to my 4 month old self.
Most of my friends have their kids in daycares b/c it's cheaper than getting a nanny but then they are sick ALL the time. Sometimes you really can't win for losing.
@chihuahuense - please NEVER do this with your dog. While I agree that as far as air travel with children goes, it's probably fine and certainly makes the whole experience better for everyone involved... with children you are THERE with them, watching them, making sure they are ok. When people drug their dogs to put them on planes, they cannot see their dog or be with them. What happens is the dogs are too drowsy to balance themselves, and if the plane hits turbulence, they can get seriously injured because they can't keep themselves steady.
ReplyDeleteYes, air travel is traumatic for dogs, but it's better if they have all their senses to protect themselves from injury.
OMG, Kellie! I was told my grandmother used to give my Dad and his siblings water with a little bit of wine in it. When you think of it, gripe water had alcohol in it as well.
ReplyDeleteI have to wonder - how much bother is a 4-month old? They're still taking naps at that age. I wonder what the nanny did while the baby was knocked out. Just watched tv and that's it?
I read a story a few years back where a nanny was holding an infant over an unlit gas jet to make the child sleep. They caught her but they think she might have given the child brain damage, since he was suffering developmental delays.
ReplyDeleteThere's also that old tradition of rubbing a bit of whiskey on a baby's gums to calm it down. As all y'all said, there's a big difference between doing something like this for a special circumstance, like flying, and using it to make a baby easier to deal with on a regular basis.
ReplyDeleteI am also a parent of a child who gets Benadryl on an airplane, but I feel like it should also be noted that my son gets extreme motion sickness from planes (I have been puked on innumerable times). We have family that live Amsterdam, Curacao, Siesta Key and Santa Fe, so not traveling is simply not an option. On the advice of my very cautious pediatrician, I use Benadryl (yes it is used for allergies, but it is also used for motion sickness).
ReplyDeleteI live in NYC and have a nanny (who is not drugging my son). We don't drive frequently since we live in the City and after several horrific flights we realized he was motion sick. Anyway, I'm just saying to everyone out there that uses it for flying, I don't see an issue with it. And for those of you who think we are just being lazy - meh. No. Do you want to be puked on by my son and his sour milk stomach? I think not. I am his mother and it has made me gag. As a stranger I trust you do not have any interest in seeing (ugh, or smelling) this.
I am not saying that giving a four-month old child Benedryl is ok. It is obviously wrong and against the parents permission. I do not equate that with giving an occasional dose while traveling. I was responding to a poster that talked about parents drugging their children while flying.
ReplyDelete@Char, no, I didn't trust it, so we drove instead.
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