I saw a nanny yesterday on Broadway - between 72nd and 73rd street, pushing a green carriage with an infant girl inside who was wailing with hunger. It was about 1:30 or so. The nanny (Latino and not tall) was strolling slowly while the infant screamed. She stopped, got out the rain cover (it wasn't raining) and covered up the carriage so as to muffle the sounds of the baby crying. She was walking very slowly, and in no hurry, to get the infant home for what was obviously a solution to her hungry crying.
Thursday
Broadway - between 72nd and 73rd street - NY
Received Thursday, April 16, 2009
I saw a nanny yesterday on Broadway - between 72nd and 73rd street, pushing a green carriage with an infant girl inside who was wailing with hunger. It was about 1:30 or so. The nanny (Latino and not tall) was strolling slowly while the infant screamed. She stopped, got out the rain cover (it wasn't raining) and covered up the carriage so as to muffle the sounds of the baby crying. She was walking very slowly, and in no hurry, to get the infant home for what was obviously a solution to her hungry crying.
I saw a nanny yesterday on Broadway - between 72nd and 73rd street, pushing a green carriage with an infant girl inside who was wailing with hunger. It was about 1:30 or so. The nanny (Latino and not tall) was strolling slowly while the infant screamed. She stopped, got out the rain cover (it wasn't raining) and covered up the carriage so as to muffle the sounds of the baby crying. She was walking very slowly, and in no hurry, to get the infant home for what was obviously a solution to her hungry crying.
Sorry OP, but how do you know the baby was hungry? Of course, it's still bad that she covered up the baby to muffle the noise, but she may have just been a fussy baby.
ReplyDeleteShe didn't hold a pillow over her face. She put the rain cover over the fucking thing.. big deal. Get a life, OP. You obviously have no children and have never cared for children, sometimes they wail because their teeth hurt, their feelings are hurt, etc, etc.
ReplyDeleteMaybe she took her for a stroll to calm her down. There is no way a stranger can tell a hungry cry from a fussy cry.
ReplyDeleteUnless it is your own baby, it is unlikely that you could tell a hungry cry from any other cry.
ReplyDeleteSometimes the best way to calm a fussy baby is a walk in the stroller. The plastic cover is also used to shield the baby from wind. I've never noticed that it "muffled" the talking, singing or crying.
I think OP is making some big assumptions here. Basically what she saw was a crying baby in a stroller, protected by the plastic cover, a very common sight.
Alot of times I would take my baby for a walk or drive to try to calm her down. Sometimes, babies cry for no reason!
ReplyDeletePerhaps the baby was not hungry, but infact, tired/sleep deprived/cranky as small infants often become; and maybe, just maybe, the nanny was instructed that stroller walks work to get the baby to sleep.
ReplyDeleteJust a thought.
I hope she didn't cover the baby up for that reason. I live in the north east and it was quite windy. Maybe the baby was getting chilled by the wind. A normal nanny would have something on her in case it was hunger.
ReplyDeletesigh.
ReplyDeleteif it turns out that its NOT a bad thing the nanny did, fine. great. it could have been a million and one other things.
OP trusted their instinct. thats all that matters. if the parent sees this and wants to do something about it, thats great. that is what this is here for.
if nothing really is wrong, better to err on the side of caution, right?
1) How do you know, as you pass on the street, that the baby's cries are specifically those from hunger? Babies cry for a variety of different reasons, including because they don't like the wind, which leads me to . . .
ReplyDelete2) "Rain Covers" are more commonly known as Wind Guards. It was a little windy yesterday and when I pushed my charge around there was a period yesterday when I used the Wind Guard because her eyes tear terribly when exposed to the wind. I would use it even more frequently if she was an infant.
I agree with most posts above. Determining why a baby is crying can be difficult unless you know that child. A walk for a baby with Colic can work miracles.
ReplyDeleteHungry infants cry,you are right OP. But a crying,hungry child is not a clear cut sign of abuse or neglect. Perhaps nanny had a bottle but needed to find the appropriate place to feed the child. A busy sidewalk is not the best place to do so especially with an infant who cannot hold her own bottle.BTW,rushing with a stroller is never a good idea. It can be hard on a baby and dangerous.
Seattle,
ReplyDeleteHowever, if the parents see this and it was an innocent act that was completely misinterpreted (which I believe it was) their trust is now jeopardized and the nanny's job may be in danger. All because of a post.
I agree with everyone else that you can't tell a baby is hungry just by hearing it's cry-not a stranger to the baby at least.
ReplyDeleteThis site always makes me think about race and how everyone assumes all these people are nannies. You rarely (if ever) see a post of a white woman and a white baby-it's almost always a white child and "nanny" of color.
I have a cousin that is American Indian with dark brown hair/eyes and olive skin, but her biological son has white blonde hair and blue eyes.
I am the (white) mother of 2 (adopted) Asian children. Just because the race of the child does not match that of the child-you can not automatically assume the woman is the nanny.
Maybe this was the child's mother and she was taking her baby for a walk because it was fussy (as others have pointed out). Or maybe not, maybe she was the nanny. But this site seems to really almost exclusively focus on people of different races as the "bad nanny".
.....Just because the race of the child does not match that of the child...
ReplyDeletesorry, should read "not match that of the mother"
I use to stroll a baby boy with his 2 year old brother and the baby cried the whole time we walked. Too bad...I often covered him with the stroller cover. He hated to walk I guess but its what we did everyday to get to the park. The parents knew it..he did the same thing with them...people would say "ohhh hes tried or hungry" and I would think "nope hes a pain" lol. Hes a great boy now...hes 5 and I still watch him.
ReplyDeleteLike everyone else, I was going to say that there is no possible way, unless OP has telepathic capabilities, to "know" that the baby was crying from hunger. and I agree also that it DOES make a difference whether a post is just gossip by some busybody, putting a good nanny in a bad light because of unreasonable assumptions being made, or if it's actually a valid sighting of questionable behavior. Whether this was the nanny or the mom or a relative, pushing a crying baby in a stroller with a wind cover on is not something to criticize.
ReplyDeletei think we've beat this horse dead.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteI an a nanny and have been for many years and i think some of you people who come on here and post your stories about nannies that you saw doing god nows what have no life. A nanny is a very stressful job, now i am not condonning bad nannies,all i am saying sometimes you might misunderstand a situation. The things i do on my job half these fucking parents can't do, but they expect you to do it. Half of the nannies i know are like parents to these children, sometimes all these parents do is come home andput the fucking kids to sleep and we the nannies do the majoritie of the work with their kids, and then you wonder why your kids kling to us THEY SEE US MORE THAN THEY SEE YOU ASSHOLEs. Some of you might say i am a disgruntal nanny, but thats not true i love my job, i just get pissed off when the nannies do a great job and then they don't get compensated properly. parents remember your children are your prized possessions, treat your nanny right.
ReplyDeleteIf you weren't illiterate, you might get paid more. Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteNeed a moniker
ReplyDeleteYou refer to your charges as "fucking kids"? You have the mouth of a garbage can and should not even be allowed around children. People such as you are the ones the give Nannies bad names.
Always in here the race buttion has to be pushed. The way this workd here is posters cannot walk up to someone who is either mistreating a child or ignoring one
and ask them if they are the nanny. People have to take a guess at who is a mom and who is a nanny. If they were not described by their physical appearnce how would you give an accurate account of the sighting?
Screaming babies make people wonder why the baby is screaming and why it is not being comforted by the person with them. I for one could never just keep on pushing a screaming baby down the street without tyring to comfort the child or find out what is causing nthis screaming. So the OP is not doing one thing wrong. Sure they cry because they are teething but does this mean you don't stop and try to comfort the child? They also could be screaming because they have a diaper rash and they are sitting in a cold wet diaper and the person pushing that buggy is too lazy or just doesnt care that this child is in pain?
You always jump on the poster because you don't want to admit that there are bad nannies and moms out there.
This is where we report what we see and what we believe is going on so that a parent can read it and see if it their child that may be being abused and check out the situation.
Maybe she was trying to put the baby to sleep.
ReplyDeleteI have never been able to tell if a baby was crying from hunger (including my own), I do find it strange that the nanny (or whoever it was) was walking slowly. Kim, I cannot imagine for a minute that a parent would fire a nanny over a post like this. But it might lead them to check her more closely, and there is probably nothing wrong with that.
ReplyDelete