Resources

Tips on finding a Babysitter

Trusting someone with the care of your children can be challenging and stressful. Given our hectic lives, sometimes we need someone we can rely on to watch our children. Although it can take quite some time to find a qualified sitter, nothing beats being able to go out for a nice evening and not having to worry about your children.

Here are some of our babysitter tips that might make the process easier.

Qualities to look for in a competent baby sitter:

1. Look for an individual, who is mature, and I am not talking about age mature, I mean trustworthy mature. That being said, I would rather have a competent and seasoned fifteen year old watching my children over a flighty eighteen year old. How much experience do they have? Check those references!!
2. Look for someone with an authentic liking of children. You can tell if someone genuinely cares about children. I would like the sitter to enjoy their time with my children as much as my children enjoy their time with the sitter.
3. I prefer someone with street smarts. Do I mean someone who is going to show my five year old how to hot wire a car? Not exactly… I want someone with common sense. No matter how much you lay out the ground rules and try to prepare for different circumstances, things happen. Say it with me: “Stuff happens.” As impossible as it may seem, I want someone with the common sense to know how to handle uncommon situations.
4. The first time when using a new sitter, I have them come over for a couple of hours while I am home for an interview. This way I can gage their personality to see if it clicks with my kids and see how they handle them. This is not always an option so I would definitely suggest watching how your kids are when they find out the sitter is coming and ask them how the “play date” went after the sitter leaves. Consider it money well spent.

Places to look for a sitter:

1. (Start with) references from your family, friends, neighbors, or parents of your child’s classmates. This would be the number one way to find a quality sitter. However, find a back-up (or two). If you do use your neighborhoods regular sitter, in the event of an emergency, you may be out of luck in reserving them.
2. (Try) your child’s education system-teacher, teacher’s assistants, after school care, coach’s-people who are a part of your child’s familiar routine.
3. You can also look at places of worship. Our local church has a list of church members who are retired teachers who look forward to spending time with children.
4. You can also try local colleges. Call the Early Childhood Development departments of your local colleges, college kids always need money. Another option is the nursing department; you can’t beat a competent CPR trained nurse as a sitter could you?
5. Choose a site like SitterCity.com. With the option of background checks and profile ratings, you can read over the comments of other parents in your zip code about a particular sitter.

Things to include in the babysitter binder:

1. Contact numbers for you and your spouse
2. Copies of medical histories of your children
3. Emergency phone list of family and friends
4. Listing of children’s daily routine, bath and bed times
5. Medications, allergies, household dangers (pools, busy streets, etc.)
6. Numbers for poison control, local hospital, doctor’s office
7. Information on security system, location of fire extinguishers, etc.
8. Copies of keys in case the child locks themselves in a room
9. Circumstances upon which they can call 911 versus an emergency contact
10. Duties regarding pets

The binder is the ground rules of how your house is to be run while you are gone. Take the time to find a reliable sitter. It makes all the difference in your peace of mind when you are away from home.