This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/OkMaybe5107 on 2026-08-13 12:35:23+00:00.

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I noticed it at 2:14 this morning.

There are four buttons along the bottom of my daughter's baby monitor app.

LIVE.

SLEEP.

CLIPS.

And now:

PREVIOUS BABY.

I know that button wasn't there yesterday.

I have screenshots.

Before anyone tells me this is some new software update, I've already checked. The app hasn't updated in eleven months. The company that made the monitor actually went out of business in March.

And when I press the button, it shows my daughter's bedroom.

Just not the way it looks now.

My daughter, Ellie, is fourteen months old.

Her room used to be our spare bedroom, and there isn't anything particularly remarkable about it. White walls. Cheap laminate floor. One window facing the backyard. Crib against the interior wall.

We bought the monitor secondhand because money has been tight.

That's probably going to sound important, so I'll get it out of the way now.

Facebook Marketplace.

Forty dollars.

The woman who sold it to me was probably in her sixties. Nice enough. She said her grandson had outgrown it.

I asked if she wanted me to factory-reset it.

She said:

"It doesn't remember anything."

That sentence has been replaying in my head all morning.

At the time I thought she meant recordings.

I bought it six months ago.

Nothing strange happened until tonight.

Ellie woke me up around two.

Not crying.

Laughing.

If you have a baby, you know there are different kinds of laughter.

There's the belly laugh.

The squeal when you pretend to eat their toes.

The half asleep giggle they sometimes make for absolutely no reason.

This wasn't any of those.

It was social laughter.

Like somebody was standing beside the crib entertaining her.

I grabbed my phone and opened the monitor.

Ellie was standing up, holding the railing.

She was looking toward the corner beside her closet.

Every few seconds she'd smile.

Then she'd duck her face into her shoulder.

She does that when she's being shy.

I turned the volume up.

At first I only heard the white noise machine.

Then Ellie said:

"Baby."

She pointed toward the corner.

"Baby."

I was already getting out of bed when I noticed the new button.

PREVIOUS BABY.

I stopped.

I wish I hadn't pressed it.

I really fucking wish I hadn't pressed it.

The screen went black for maybe three seconds.

Then the nursery came back.

Except it wasn't Ellie's nursery anymore.

Same camera angle.

Same window.

Same closet.

But the walls were yellow.

There was a wooden crib where Ellie's crib is now.

And there was a baby sleeping in it.

I assumed it was some recording stored on the monitor from the previous owner.

That was creepy, obviously, but explainable.

Then I saw the timestamp.

AUG 13 — 2:16 AM

Today.

I looked at the LIVE feed.

Ellie was still standing in her crib.

I switched back.

Yellow room.

Sleeping baby.

LIVE.

Ellie.

PREVIOUS BABY.

Yellow room.

Baby.

I screen recorded it because I knew nobody would believe me.

That's when the baby in the yellow room opened its eyes.

Not woke up.

Opened its eyes.

Like it had been pretending to sleep.

It looked directly at the camera.

I froze.

The baby couldn't have been more than a year old.

Dark hair. Chubby cheeks.

There was something wrong with its mouth.

I couldn't figure out what at first.

Then it smiled.

It had teeth.

Not a baby's little front teeth.

All of them.

A complete adult set of teeth packed inside its tiny mouth.

I dropped my phone.

Ellie laughed through the monitor.

From her room down the hall, I heard her say:

"Baby."

Then another child answered.

"Hi."

I ran.

I don't remember opening my bedroom door.

I remember slamming Ellie's door hard enough that it hit the wall.

She was standing in her crib, grinning at the corner.

Nothing was there.

I flipped on the light.

Checked the closet.

Under the crib.

Behind the curtains.

Nothing.

Ellie pointed behind me.

"Baby."

I turned around.

Nothing.

She started crying.

Not because she was scared.

Because apparently I had made her friend disappear.

I picked her up and brought her into my bed.

I didn't sleep again.

Around three, I started searching the monitor model.

Old reviews.

Archived support pages.

Reddit.

Anything.

I found one strange thing.

The monitor has no internal storage.

None.

Video clips are supposed to be uploaded directly to the company's servers.

Servers which, according to the company's shutdown notice, were permanently disabled almost five months ago.

So I don't know where PREVIOUS BABY is getting video from.

At 3:37, I pressed it again.

The yellow nursery was empty.

The crib was empty.

I stared for maybe thirty seconds before noticing that the closet door was open.

Just a crack.

Something moved inside.

I closed the app.

At 4:05, my phone notified me:

Motion detected in Previous Baby.

There is no way to disable notifications for that category.

I opened it.

The closet was completely open now.

The baby was standing inside.

Not crawling.

Standing.

Its head nearly reached the clothes rod.

Its proportions were wrong.

Baby's face.

Baby's hands.

But stretched.

Its arms hung almost to its knees.

It was staring at the camera.

Then it lifted one finger to its lips.

And behind me, Ellie whispered:

"Shhh."

She was awake.

Lying beside me.

Looking at my phone.

I shut it off.

"Where's baby?" I asked her.

Ellie pointed toward her bedroom.

Then she said something I've never heard her say before.

"Other mommy."

My stomach dropped.

"What?"

She smiled.

"Other mommy."

Then:

"Other Ellie."

I called my husband.

He's working two hours away this week.

I didn't tell him everything because I knew how insane it sounded. I just said the monitor was acting strange and I wanted him to come home.

He asked if Ellie was okay.

I said yes.

Then Ellie leaned toward the phone and said:

"Daddy."

My husband laughed.

"Hey, bug."

Ellie looked toward the bedroom doorway.

Her expression changed.

She wasn't smiling anymore.

She whispered:

"Daddy."

My husband's voice came through the phone.

"I'm right here, Ellie."

She shook her head.

Then pointed past me into the hallway.

"Daddy."

I turned.

There was nobody there.

I locked my bedroom door after that.

At 5:11, another notification appeared.

Sound detected in Previous Baby.

I ignored it.

Another.

Another.

Another.

Finally I opened the feed.

The stretched baby wasn't in the yellow nursery anymore.

A woman was.

She was standing beside the crib with her back to the camera.

She was holding something.

A baby.

A normal one this time.

She rocked it gently.

I couldn't see her face.

Then she started singing.

I recognized the song immediately.

You are my Sunshine

Ellie's favorite.

That's not what scared me.

What scared me was the woman singing it wrong in exactly the same way I do.

I always forget one line, so I replace it with:

"You are my sunshine, my sweet little light."

Those aren't the lyrics.

It's just what I've always sung.

The woman sang my version.

Then she turned around.

It was me.

Not someone who looked like me.

Me

Same gray sleep shirt I was wearing.

Same hair.

The eyes though, the eyes were not quite right.

She was crying.

She walked toward the camera until her face filled the screen.

Then she whispered:

"If you're watching this, don't let her see Ellie."

I stopped breathing.

The woman on the screen looked over her shoulder.

Her face changed.

Pure terror.

She screamed:

"YOU HAVE TO-"

The feed cut out.

A loading circle appeared.

Then:

Previous Baby unavailable.

I grabbed Ellie.

I packed a diaper bag.

Keys.

Shoes.

I was going to drive to my mother's house.

I unlocked the bedroom door.

The hallway was empty.

Ellie's bedroom door was still open from earlier.

As we passed it, Ellie started fighting me.

Not tantrum fighting.

Panicking.

She screamed so hard she choked.

She kept pointing into her room.

"Baby!"

"Baby!"

"Baby!"

I didn't look.

I made it downstairs.

I had my hand on the front door when my phone buzzed.

Motion detected in Live.

I almost ignored it.

Then I realized something.

I was holding Ellie.

There shouldn't have been any motion in her room.

I opened LIVE.

The nursery was empty.

For about two seconds.

Then somebody crawled out from beneath Ellie's crib.

The stretched baby.

It unfolded itself slowly.

Hands first.

Then arms.

Shoulders.

Head.

Its body just kept stretching. Almost a slither.

It stood.

And stared into the camera.

Then it walked toward Ellie's bedroom door.

Toward the hallway.

Toward us.

I opened my front door.

And the PREVIOUS BABY notification appeared.

I don't know why I looked.

The yellow nursery was back.

My other self was standing there again.

This time she wasn't holding a baby.

She was pounding on the camera.

She screamed something.

There was no audio.

I turned the volume all the way up.

Nothing.

She pointed behind the camera.

Then pointed at me.

Then at something outside the frame.

Over and over.

I didn't understand.

Until she held up a piece of paper.

Three words were written on it.

THAT'S NOT ELLIE

I looked down.

My daughter was in my arms.

She had stopped crying.

She was completely calm.

She smiled at me.

"Mommy."

I nearly dropped her.

Because Ellie doesn't call me Mommy.

Not yet.

She's been calling me Mama for months.

Never Mommy.

I backed into the front door.

The thing in my arms tilted its head.

"Mommy...

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