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Top 10 Tips for Hiring A Babysitter
- Encourage your babysitter by keeping their favorite foods/snacks on hand.
- Hire a babysitter to come in to your home to play with your child, before leaving her alone with your children.
This extra help will enable you to get those unfinished chores done - while knowing that your child is happy. Since you are in the home it is possible to hire a babysitter.
- Set the babysitter up to be successful, print out a new craft you know the children will like from the Internet and buy the supplies and set them up on the dining room table for them to enjoy.
- Learn to express your desires in the form of concrete requests, such as, "Could you put Maggie on the potty for two minutes tonight?," if you use the same babysitter regularly.
Many parents develop resentment towards their babysitters and forget that a simple request might remedy the problem.
- Leave the number for the poison control center and your cell phone number by each phone, both upstairs and downstairs.
Show the babysitter where you keep the First Aid kit that contains ipecac syrup in case vomiting needs to be induced.
- Remind your babysitter that safety is your primary concern while the child is in their care.
Otherwise, the babysitter's focus may be scattered among their many responsibilities, and safety issues may not get enough attention.
- Tell you babysitter that your child must be in view at all times.
It may be helpful to remind the babysitter of specific dangers, such as swallowing a popped balloon that the child is trying to blow up, chasing a ball into the street, etc.
- Instruct babysitters to ignore the phone if the child is in the bath tub.
- Instruct the babysitter to not use the TV as a babysitter, limit TV watching time accordingly.
- Write a thank you card to your babysitters a couple of times a year, or give them a gift certificate to a place they will enjoy. Experienced parents always say, "When you find a good babysitter - keep them happy!"
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