A lying home babysitter drawing on a paper with two babies by her side. Photo credit: pressfoto

Babysitter vs Daycare: Finding the right home babysitter

How parents can find a home babysitter for their kids

Choosing a reliable babysitter for your child

After critically assessing the pros and cons of daycare and babysitter, considering key guiding factors like family conditions, finances, among others, you are eventually opting for a babysitter.

Here are the right ways to find a reliable home babysitter:

1. Ask others

Are you looking out for a home babysitter? A good hint about finding one is asking relatives, neighbours and close friends to help you look out for one. You can as well ask the nurses or other medical officials working for a pediatrician. They might have an idea.

Children’s daycare centers may have workers who are willing to do extra work and higher education institutions staff too. Approach them and find out if a directive is imminent.

You can as well seek for notices in public places where parents gather like schools, supermarkets, churches, etc. Once you find any potential babysitter, conduct an interview with her in a place suitable enough to ascertain if she has the requisite skills of a babysitter.

Preferably, an experienced babysitter should be considered while looking out for one especially for infants at a toddling age and for babies below the age of one.

2. Carry out a thorough background check on the babysitter

Thoroughly investigate any prospective babysitter you want to hire before you actually hire her. Such background check, however rigorous it may be, will make you feel confident to hire her. Find a way to try a babysitter before hiring her and that is only after she has passed the trial period. This gives you a chance to see how your child responds to the babysitter and will help you feel confident when you do hire her.

3. Interviewing a babysitter

Do a careful assessment of the babysitter by undergoing an interview with you, noting that the first impression matters. She should be someone who is very much used to children and caring who also knows how best to keep them safe and away from danger.

Find out if she has the basic knowledge, skills and experience of babycare during the interview session like giving first aid treatment. It might be pertinent to ask her how to deal with emergency cases relating to caring for babies, infants, toddlers and other children during the course of the interview. “What if?” scenarios, such as, what she would do if your toddler slips off and falls leaving minor bruises on his skin surface, and the likes.

4. Ensure her references check out

Be sure to track down references so as to have what to fall back on if anything goes wrong.