“We have the best babysitter in the world!” – phrase, all parents would love to pronounce, but they rarely do in real life.

 

One of the most difficult tasks for busy working parents is to find the right person for their children, especially in London, where are so many childcare providers, many of whom are not qualified professionals. Finding the right one usually takes a lot of time. Moreover, some of mothers and fathers don’t even know what qualities they should look for in a babysitter. Let’s figure out what actually makes for a good babysitter.

 

Firstly, we need to accept that babysitting is not a full time job. Most parents want a babysitter as a stop-gap measure for when their child is not in school or under a nanny’s care. A general babysitting session can be anywhere from a couple of hours to overnight babysitting, when parents can mentally check out for a few hours to run errands, go out for dinner or get a good night’s sleep. So given that babysitting is a need-based job, we should understand the typical profile of that magical helper we call babysitter.

 

Good babysitters are typically people who are in professions related to childcare, nursing or family services. Most babysitters are nannies and child minders who love to be around children and have been providing child care for a long time. When they have spare time in the evenings or on weekends, they want to do what they love doing best, which is to take care of children. In some instances, babysitters could be students, studying to be nurses, teachers or doctors. They are usually available to take care of children who need supervision for a few hours or on special occasions (after-school babysitters, night babysitters and weekend babysitters).

 

 

Good babysitters also love their job and will never leave your children without proper attention. Even during an overnight babysitting job, they will regularly check up on your children while they are sleeping. Such babysitters are enthusiastic about teaching children and contributing to their development beyond just babysitting. In essence, good babysitters have the caring and nurturing instinct and intuition of a mother.

 

Professional workers in childcare have a great experience with children, either directly or behind the scenes. Preparing day plans, schedules, time tables and having unique approaches and methods to supervise and manage children demonstrates that a babysitter who is a childcare professional is keen on this type of work, enjoys it, and perhaps even has some knowledge in areas like child psychology, can realise when the child deserves attention and when to ignore capriciousness.

Even though good babysitters know how to deal with all types of children, they will ask parents the right essential questions about their child’s needs, food allergies, sleeping habits and anything else to not only help put the parent at ease, but also to make sure the child is well looked after.

 

A responsible babysitter communicates with parents before arriving for babysitting, shows up ahead of time, and is flexible to stay for a bit longer if they need to.  An ideal babysitter will go a step further and document everything they did with the child, including what time the child went to sleep and woke up, what the child ate, how many times they changed the child’s nappies and anything else that a parent would want to monitor.

 

All childcare providers are required by law to have a CRB/DBS check. If your babysitter doesn’t have one, it is likely because they are not a childcare professional, or have not had much experience babysitting. Additionally, babysitters should have an up-to-date paediatric first-aid certificate, so they know how to react in emergency situations. Of course this is not needed if someone is a children’s nurse or a health visitor as they already have first-aid and medical training.

 

Lastly, it is always good practice to have a babysitter who lives in your local area or neighbourhood. This way, any time you need babysitting, even if the need is last minute or at odd hours, it is easy for the babysitter to pop over to your place as well as safe for them on the return journey home, especially for late night bookings.

 

These are the minimum qualities that, we at KidSitter, look for in our babysitters. Of course there are many other things that might be very important for particular parents, but at a minimum, these qualities are what make for a good babysitter.

Tags: Babysitters, Babysitting, Childcare, Find a Babysitter, Good babysitters