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Find the right
type of babysitter for you
Source: Care.com
The best babysitter for you is one who fits your needs, your budget, the level of experience required and overall personality fit. You can expect different things from sitters with different levels of experience. Generally speaking, pay increases with level of experience and special skills, such as tutoring or special needs experience.
• High school sitters are a good
option for families that need after school care
(assuming the teen isn't loaded down with
extracurricular). If the teen doesn't have much
experience, consider trying the first few
babysitting sessions while you're at home so you
can provide feedback and answer any questions.
• College sitters are a good option
for identifying more mature, experienced
sitters. Just be sure to ask up front about
reliability around typically busy times during
the academic calendar, such as exam periods,
holiday vacations, and graduation.
• Mature sitters could represent
anything from professional child caregivers to
older women looking for supplemental income now
that their own children are grown and out of the
house. Day care and elementary school teachers
are often interested in doing extra babysitting,
too, and come with great child care and child
development experience.
• Family members or trustworthy
neighbors are good babysitting options given
the familiarity factor, and also since they
likely will want to spend time with your child
free of charge. Even so, be sure to ask about
compensation. If they want to babysit for free,
consider having dinner ready (or cash and a
stack of your favorite take-out menus) or
perhaps follow up with a nice bottle of wine or
bag of good coffee. Be sure to set expectations
and guidelines the same way you would with a
hired sitter. It paves the way for managing the
relationship should any issues arise. Today,
more and more people are turning to family
members to help with their care needs.
• Mother's helpers are usually in
middle school or junior high. In many cases,
they are known to the family (the parents may be
family friends) and live in the neighborhood.
Mother's helpers usually help out around the
house while you are at home, as they maybe too
young or inexperienced to leave along with your
children. It's a nice opportunity for a young
person who wants to gain experience and then try
their hand at babysitting once they're old
enough. Mother's helpers can do a variety of
tasks from playing with the kids while you make
dinner, to helping fold laundry, assisting at a
birthday party, or more.
• Check Care.com for
babysitters of all ages and experience level. Search for pre-screened
babysitters at Care.com. View their profiles and see who fits your particular
needs or post a job and get responses right away from babysitters in your
neighborhood.
Check out our review of
Sittercity and
Care.com and learn which online
sitter service fits your needs.
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