30 Surprising, Unsettling, And Sweet Moments Captured On Nanny Cams, As Shared In This Online Group (2024)

This post may include affiliate links.

I used to babysit a 9 year old kid with Autism, along with his almost 2 year old brother. He really liked to watch Youtube videos alone in his room, and his parents were cool with me letting him during the 3 - 4 hours they would leave me with the kids, as long as he ate lunch and as long as he didn't watch anything inappropriate. They had a nanny cam in the baby's room.

So one afternoon, I put the little one down for a nap and bring the laptop with the nanny cam feed with me to the living room, so I can get some reading done. I look up maybe 10 minutes into nap time, and I see the 9 year old performing the most mind-bending and impressive dance choreography I've ever seen, while his little brother watched in complete awe. This kid was like a little Beyoncè.

The best part was his parents confirming that they had watched it too, and they had no idea that he was studying dance videos on Youtube and that he could actually perform such an amazing routine. Five years later, they're on Facebook sharing how he's in his high school's pom squad and how dance has helped with some behavioral delays.

Best Nanny Cam moment ever.

anon , Yan Krukov Report

Our crib was under a window (shut and locked, don't worry). Every few days or so a hawk or some other kind of large bird would land on the outside of the window. The bird and my daughter would sit there for a good 10 minutes bobbing their heads at one another. It was adorable, despite the fact the bird probably wanted to eat her.

__Iniquity__ Report

My girlfriend's (now fiancee's) parents have security cameras. I used to pretend to not care much for my girlfriend's cat around other people. Then when they were out of town we took care of the dog and brought the cat over. They saw me on camera holding the cat over my head and dancing softly in a circle while looking into his cat eyes. The jig was up.

notthatshort , Deni's Fotografia Report

Just me. I went into his room to get him and said "Daddy's here, don't cry." I went with him back to my room and heard my monitor say "here, don't cry." Since my voice sounds so alien to me I freaked out and watched in horror as a tall man grabbed my baby and walked out. It really probably took 1 second to realize I was holding him and it was me in the video, but I went through 10 years of grey hair in that second.

ClassicCarLife , MART PRODUCTION Report

My child was nonverbal as a baby. Obviously very smart, so we weren't worried about it and just figured it would happen when it happened. You would ask her questions and she'd point at things or if you said something funny, she would laugh. She also mastered the art of giving meaningful looks, of which we now have many, many hilarious pictures. We also tried to teach her sign language, which she thought was silly.

Wife and I occasionally talk about it, but no big deal. Then one morning we hear our daughter through the monitor. She woke up early and was sitting up in the crib, practicing her words. She'd say a word over and over until she got it right, then move on to another. This was accompanied by grunts of frustration if she got one wrong.

Wife wanted to run in and give kisses, but I had us wait it out so we could see how deep her vocabulary went. It was actually pretty big, more than 20 words.

All that day and for at least a few weeks more, still nonverbal. Then one day she simply started speaking in complete sentences. It was the same when she started walking later.

AlanMercer Report

My Dad has cameras set up in the house as well as smart lights. (They used to live overseas but still had the house.) One time my brother and I were hanging out at their house while they went on a trip. They left for the airport and we started watching TV - it was after dark. Suddenly the lights started flickering in the house. Scared the p**s outta me. A couple minutes later I get a text from mom..."sorry, we're about to take off...your father is sitting here cackling watching you guys jump around as he turns the lights on and off... we'll let you know when we land"

afihavok , Klim Sergeev Report

Using a baby monitor to care for aging parent. My sister comes in and tries to convince my dad to cut me out of the will and give everything to her.

TooPrettyForJail , Kampus Production Report

I got caught having a dance party with the 8 and 10 year olds I was babysitting. It was to Daft Punk. They couldn't sleep, so we danced until they passed out.

The parents loved it, but I was so embarrassed because I felt soooo weird that they saw my creative solution to getting the kids to go to bed.

whiteshadow88 , Mikhail Nilov Report

Not me, but a Co-worker.
It was not actually nanny cams per se. She has 3 cats and apparently while she was at work, they were damaging things in the house.
She set up the cameras to find out which cat was the culprit, and how it could be stopped.

Well, before she was able to figure that out she actually WATCHED as 3 men broke in to her house.

Now she could not call 911 because she lives in a different state than she worked in so the 911 centers had no way to hand calls off to each other.

she got lucky! another co-worker happened to live at the opposite end of the same county as she did. He was closer to my age and lived there before there was 911. Just like me, growing up his parents made him memorize his county's 7-digit fire-police dispatch number. and luckily his county had left that number active so that employees and other departments had a way to call directly into the dispatch center.

He rattled off that number and she dialed it. VOILA!!! it got into her county's dispatch center.

she was able to talk to the police and tell them not just what the guys looked like but which room they were in and where they were crouched down. they were arrested without incident although all 3 had guns on them. all property was recovered not only from her house but from 2 other houses on the same street and they got long prison sentences.

And it all started with one really bratty cat!

gkiltz , Marco Verch Professional P Report

My brother had a camera that was left in the basem*nt just for safety reasons. He had some workers over to fix a tile shower since it didn't drain properly. I guess the guys were pretty annoyed at having to fix it but it's their own fault for not doing it right the first time. Fast forward a couple weeks and my brother's sister in law is turning 21. They are in his basem*nt bar when they start pouring shots of Viniq for her. As they were pouring they could smell something wasn't right. Her boyfriend immediately thought it smelled like nail polish remover. They decided to check the camera and sure enough, the workers drank some alcohol and replaced it with a full bottle of nail polish remover. They found the empty bottle under the bathroom sink and my brother's wife knew that was her unopened bottle she had bought previously. Kind of messed up.

NDRoughNeck , sk Report

My buddy has a camera that sits on his doorstep. It has a motion sensor and every time it detects someone or something on the porch, it snaps a photo and sends it to his phone.

It's a Sunday morning, and for once, his two year old isn't shouting into his bedroom to get him out of his crib. Ah, yes. A rare morning to lay in bed. His phone goes off. A photo of a little red-headed boy reaching out of the front door to grab a package appears.

And that's how he discovered that his son could get out of the crib.

Kalae , Jessica Merz Report

Ok, not a parent, and not a nanny cam, but my nephew and his baby monitor.

Sis called me cry-laughing to tell me that niece went into the nursery and proceeded to lay out a few "house rules" on her 4wks old little brother. Sis says it was things about sharing, and cleaning up and being nice and protective and minding his manners.

That was funny enough, but niece finished with this gem: "Everybody pulls their weight in this family. You're lucky you're only nine pounds."

😂 That little bossy munchkin. She's super protective of him, still. I have multiple pictures of them holding hands while they nap.

Durbee , RODNAE Productions Report

My husband and I had twins. A few months after they were born, my mother passed away. One morning as my babies were waking up in their room, I turned on their monitor camera to see what appeared to be my mother's smiling face completely covering the screen.
I instantly ran into their room, where my babies were just talking to each other.
My mom and I used to joke that if one of us in the family passed, we would try and give each other a sign we were ok after we left this plane of existance. I'd like to think it was my mom letting me know she made it wherever she needed to be, safely.

DuckyDuttle Report

When my kids were about 4 and 2, we could leave the room for 30 seconds and come back and it would be trashed. My husband set up a camera to see what was happening.

We still have the video. My older daughter called her little sister over and said, "Look, I found something really neat!" and showed her a box full of styrofoam peanuts. They both gleefully started throwing them around the room. Older daughter heard my husband walking back towards the room and runs away, leaving her little sister still obliviously flinging peanuts.

She's been throwing her sister under the bus for 13 years and counting.

addlepated , cottonbro studio Report

When I'm home from college I babysit for these pretty wealthy people. At the time the boys I would babysit were about 2 years old and 9 months old. It was summer and I had laid the younger one down for a nap, then took the monitor out with me to the backyard so the two year old could play. I hear sound going off and see arms reaching into the crib to the sleeping baby. I grabbed the two year old, a knife, and slowly walked upstairs. Their grandma had come to see if I needed any help but didn't have my number so she didn't text me she was there. We laughed about it but never have I ever been so ready to shank someone.

foolsdayeveryday , Tim Mossholder Report

Pretty standard as a parent to instinctually hear a noise in the deepest sleep in a really bad a*s dream and immediately wake up and turn the monitor on to investigate, albeit, that lightens up with their progression. Anyway, my kid was of the age that she was standing and talking and liked to aimlessly travel around her 3'x5' crib. On this particular night, I awoke out of a sleep because of some odd noises, like ruffling, and then sort of labored breathing and then other noises, I'd never heard before. So, as a parent (and if you don't have kids, you won't understand until you do) my heart drops. In that one second, someone has broken in, made it past our alarm, past our sleeping dog and is now trying to take my sweet precious little girl!!! So in a two seconds flat, I sit straight up like they do in the movies, and I look straight over at a dark screen and I grab it, turn it on and HOLY F**K!! I was NOT prepared for what I saw. My kids f*****g face was the entire monitor screen, head turned sideways. All I saw was her cute little face and little beady night vision eyes. It's an image that's hard to explain, but it scared me more than the initial thoughts that ran through my head; my heart skipped a beat for sure. That's when we found out, she now knew what the camera was and could communicate with us through it. She was whispering into the camera while looking into the camera eye. She was whispering "I love you mommy and daddy, can I come to your bed?"

It really was a scary few seconds, then that weird feeling you get when you realize your child's curiosity is so cute and they're learning.

Bujaly Report

My old roommate has two kids of his own. The older kid(3) deactivates the baby monitor cam when he and his sister want to do something they'll get in trouble for. Kid even waves bye to the camera before he pulls the plug.

Flynn_lives , clark cruz Report

Not really a "nanny cam" story, but I managed to record my son playing peek-a-boo with himself just before going to sleep. It was super cute. The video starts with him sitting in his crib, laughing with his blanket over his head. He whips the blanked off and laughs, then does it a couple more times, until finally grabbing his stuffed bunny and flopping onto the bed to go to sleep.

samuelk1 , Pavel Danilyuk Report

Buddy of mine had a kid at the beginning of last year, discovered that both his cat and his beagle would climb into the crib with the baby occasionally during naps, cute right? Both animals made it a habit to climb in, kick/push the baby to the very side of the crib and curl up in the middle completely alone, you'd catch them glaring at the kid if he started to roll back over and invade their space

crushing2013 , Helena Lopes Report

I look at the baby monitor and see a ghost.

I do a double take; yep, it's really real and on the monitor hovering and swirling around my infant son. My brain jumps, wtf do I do? Should I go grab my son? This can't be real. Maybe the ghost is harmless. Should I get my camera? No one will believe it. I don't believe it. Is the ghost going to hurt the baby? I can't believe this is happening. Will the ghost hurt the baby if I interrupt? Think logically. It's not a ghost. It's not a glitch. It's definitely in the room hovering over the baby. Think. Breath. Calm. Think. Oh, it's the camera light reflecting off the vapor from the humidifier we installed this morning. LOL. Ghosts, I knew I didn't believe in those.

ecafyelims Report

I have my house surrounded by CCTV cameras. One day, just all of the sudden, in the city of New York, in Flushing, an entire heard of goats just randomly walked into the area where our tiny front yard is. They stood there and nobody came to get them. It was completely bizarre. I looked up any information I could find about parades or anything that would have had goats around. None of the neighbors saw anything. This is a regular street in Flushing with only houses around me. My mailbox was eaten off the fence post. They were around for 20 minutes. I'll never know why they were there.

PlymouthHorizon , Ruel Madelo Report

Not on a cam, but on a babyphone.

My aunt liked to tell a story from a time, when her children were small. One time she was lying in bed, everything fine, and then suddenly she heard a deep voice saying:

"It's me, the monster, I came to get you"

Of course she went into panic mode instantly, ran to her child and... nothing there. So she went back and heard the voice again, realising that it's one of her neighbors playing with his kid.

Turns out those devices used the power grid and, since they both used the same model, apparently made her hear what was said into the neighbors babyphone.

Force3vo , Alanna Risse Report

Not a parent, but once caught the babysitter taking the baby's blanket, putting it around her neck like a small cape, and 'flying' around the room with it on. Keep in mind, the baby could only see out of the crib and was not present for the show.
Needless to say, we found out she was often high during babysitting.

gooblagoobla Report

I was the Au pair, the parents had a monitor in their room downstairs and the other in the kids' bedroom upstairs. The monitors did two way communication so the parents could let the kiddos know they heard them and would be on their way.
One time I was putting them to bed as the parents were out, and as we are reading there's this breathing sound on the monitor and the little one just asks who that is. TF I don't know, but I gotta be cool so I pretend like nothing as I nervously continue bedtime routine. Kids didn't pay much attention. They were convinced I was Batman AND Superman, jumped out the window at night and saved the world so they would never question any security/safety issues - sorta assumed I got it.

Back to story though.
The dog. The dog did it, one of them was sleeping with the head close enough to the monitor downstairs for it to catch the noise.

mawiaah Report

I've posted this before a while back so i'll copy and paste it here. They are now 3 and a 1.5 years old.

"I babysit my cousin two kids pretty much every other Friday night so he and his wife can have some time alone and out of the house. Their kids are 2 and 6 months so they have video monitors in each of their rooms and I pretty much watch the monitors and read or watch tv. Roughly a month ago I heard talking coming out of one of the monitors. It was a man's voice and he kept saying over and over again "its ok, go back to sleep, I'm here" and I could see a figure standing over the crib in the 6 month old's room. I freaked out thinking someone has broken it (they had a break in around Christmas time and the guy was never caught). I called the police and my cousin and crept upstairs with a knife to protect myself and the babies. No one was upstairs and both kids were sound asleep. Needless to say I was thoroughly freaked out until the police and my cousin came out. it didn't help that they lived in a older home and everything creaked.

Fast foreword to last week the exact same thing happened to my cousin during the day while the kids are napping. But since it was day time the video monitor gave off a better picture of the room. Apparently the one monitor in the 6 month olds room switches over to the neighbors monitor every once and a while. The voice I heard was that of his next door neighbor soothing their crying baby who is around the same age."

goalieamd Report

Probs too late but meh.

I was babysitting for my sister a few months ago and was checking on my 2 year old nephew through the nanny cam, asleep in his crib. I got up to put dinner in the oven and when I came back I checked the cam again and...

There was a huge black mass in the crib with him.

My sister doesn't have any pets, so I was like.. WTF!? A black dog or cat or something had got in and is attacking my nephew!

I ran upstairs like s**t off a shovel and saw, to my horror, my nephew has pulled a black bin liner into the cot with him and had crawled inside!! I got him straight out of it and he was fine.. I took the bin liner back downstairs and just sat on the floor crying.

This was my first time babysitting for my sister. I had a go at her when she got home, "who keeps a bin liner where their baby could get it?" And she said there was one in his cupboard full of nappies (diapers) well out of reach, so we checked and the nappies were in there but the bag had been taken out, somehow?

FYI: bin liner = garbage bag in the UK.

Pazzam , Sven Brandsma Report

I have a backup camera on my truck and sometimes it freezes in the on position and records things after i get out of it. I park my truck facing my building so the back see's all that is happening at the police station. One day I went to work and my truck recorded the following - there was this guy dressed as a cowboy, literally on horseback, in Denver. He trots up to the police station and takes his horse up on top of the cop car. He gets off the horse an walks away. My car cam recorded the horse just standing there for like 30 minutes, nobody did anything. I actually didn't see this until my auto mechanic brought it to my attention when they were clearing the videos out at the dealership with a computer

PlymouthHorizon , Cesira Alvarado Report

Not a nanny cam, but close enough. My fiance's parents have a mountain house in the Sierras in California. The property has about a half mile driveway leading up to the house and they have three motion activated cameras that capture footage of wildlife in the area. The cameras are along the driveway, but are faced outward towards fields.

One weekend about two years ago, fiance and I decide to go up to the mountain house for the weekend without telling his parents. During that weekend, I decided to go tearing down the driveway on an ATV topless, because reasons. About two weeks later fiance receives a call from his dad saying, "I am reviewing camera footage and I see that MajesticButtercup and you visited two weeks ago. We added a new camera that faces towards the driveway. It looks like you two had fun."

So now I am fairly certain my future father-in-law has seen me topless tearing down his driveway on an ATV. Yep.

MajesticButtercup Report

My daughter used to worm her way over to the baby monitor which also served as a night light and sing to her grandpa or whoever was listening. You could also talk back through it, and my dad would often talk to her while she was trying to get to sleep.

TehKatieMonster Report

Back when monitors intercepted phone discussions in the 90s, I was a toddler. We had lesbian neighbors, one of whom traveled frequently, so at night they'd call each other from afar.

My devout Christian parents were privy to their conversations.

ridethewood , Ron Lach Report

Note: this post originally had 102 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.

Follow

Writer, BoredPanda staff

Hi, I'm Egle! If you made it onto this page, you may want to learn more about me. Would recommend reading works by Edgar Allan Poe much more than reading this bio, but suit yourself. I have plentiful interests, starting from the things I studied in university (Propaganda & Film, Sci-fi Writing, Psychiatry & History of Mental Illness, etc.) and ending with an addiction to tattoos, documentaries, and dancing in front of a mirror at 3am. I'm also a budding artist; I dabble in painting and drawing random bits of chaos. My favorite desert is Tiramisu.

Read more »

Author, BoredPanda staff

I'm a visual editor here at Bored Panda and I enjoy a good laugh. My work ranges from serious topics related to toxic work environments and relationship difficulties to humorous articles about online shopping fails and introvert memes. When I'm not at my work desk, checking if every single pixel is in the right place, I usually spend my free time playing board games, taking pictures, and watching documentaries

Read more »