Australian influencer apologises for leaving baby in a Balinese hotel room to get massage

Australian influencer Taleigha Skye is under fire for leaving her baby unattended on holiday. Photo / Instagram

An Australian influencer has apologised after leaving her baby unattended in a hotel room while she went for a foot massage.

Perth social media star Taleigha Skye, 24, was on holiday in Bali with her partner and sons when the incident occurred.

Skye, who creates parenting and lifestyle content for her 16,000 Instagram and 74,000 TikTok followers, had been documenting the trip when she posted a clip on her way to her appointment next to the resort.

The now-deleted clip shows Skye holding a baby monitor so she could watch her son while getting the treatment.

Skye posted footage of her heading to her foot massage with a baby monitor to keep an eye on her unattended baby. Photo / Tiktok & Instagram

The mother of two has a discount code for the camera linked in her online bio that offers 10% off the Tweetycam, a $300 baby monitor marketed as being designed because the makers “know how important your baby’s safety and wellbeing are to you”.

The product description says the monitor “lets you check in from anywhere in the house, whether it’s nap time, play time, or bedtime”.

Skye’s action was lambasted by online critics after the post was shared to TeaTime, a Facebook group with 250,000 members who find community by “dishing out the tea in your personal lives or banging on about the latest celebrity news”.

Taleigha Skye has made her Instagram profile private after her actions while on holiday drew criticism. Photo / Instagram

Skye responded to the fallout in a statement posted on her Instagram Stories, writing she’d made “a poor decision and I take full responsibility for it”.

“Although I was only metres away from the locked resort room and had constant monitoring, I recognise that this did not make the situation safe.”

Additionally, Skye shared that “we do have a lovely nanny here in Bali who was unavailable that day”.

“This is not justification, just context,” she wrote.

Skye said she now understood the seriousness of her actions,

“I can confidently say this is the first and last time it will ever happen”.

Online commenters were quick to draw comparisons with the case of missing British toddler Madeleine McCann, who disappeared from her parents’ holiday rental in Portugal in 2007 while they went for dinner.

“In this day and age, after Madeleine McCann, why would any parent do this? I’m shook,” one TeaTime member commented.

In 2024, influencers Abby and Matt Howard faced similar criticism when they posted online about watching their young children through a baby monitor while enjoying a meal on a cruise ship.

Skye has since made her Instagram account private.