Podcast Episode #17: How to Find a Babysitter You Trust

On this episode of Ask the Doulas, Alyssa and Cindy talk about how to find a babysitter that you trust to watch your kids.  You can listen to this entire podcast epidode on iTunes and Soundclound. 

Alyssa: Hi, welcome to another episode of Ask the Doulas.  I am Alyssa, and I’m here with Cindy from Cindy’s Suds.

Cindy:  Hi.

Alyssa: I’m kind of throwing this topic at her because we had a question asked: how do you find babysitters?  So we have these moms who are having babies, and then let’s say they don’t have friends and family around.

Cindy:  We were fortunate in that my mom lives in the area, and my sister lived in the area when we had our kids, when they were younger.  So we were fortunate that we had family babysitters at the ready, but my parents started traveling a few years after we had kids, and so then I needed to get a babysitter, somebody that I had on standby instead of my dear mom and my sister.  So it was interesting because it’s very challenging trying to find a sitter who you trust with your most precious possession, which is your child or your children.  I think in an earlier episode, you and I had talked about interviewing preschools and schools.

Alyssa: Yeah, pediatricians and stuff.

Cindy:  It’s no different with babysitters, and so that’s the thing that I started doing when we needed to find a babysitter is I started interviewing, and I started asking friends for babysitter referrals.  If I had a babysitter that I liked, that I would use periodically, I would ask them if they had friends that also were sitters.  But I did my due diligence, just like we talked about for pediatricians or for schools.  I interviewed them, and I had them with me and my kids for a while so I could see them interact with my children, and that was a huge tell-tale for how they would interact with kids.  It’s surprising how some babysitters are naturally so great with kids, and others that claim to be babysitters would sit on the ground and have no idea how to interact with kids.  So it’s kind of interesting just the whole gamut of what kind of person you’re going to get when you really start looking for a sitter, and I would just really make sure that if you’re in that boat, you do some interviewing, just like you would do for pediatricians or schools or whatever.

Alyssa: Yeah, I think having – I see a lot of clients who don’t even want a babysitter because they’re so scared to leave them.  So I tell them a good middle ground; like, ease your way into it; have them come over while you’re home.  It’s almost like a mother’s helper role.  You pay them a little bit less just to say, hey, come over for two hours.  Will you watch my son or daughter while I cook or nap – not nap, probably, because you want to watch them, but maybe cook or clean or just get some errands done around the house.  Really start to feel comfortable with that person before you leave the house.

Cindy:  I agree 100%, and that’s what I did, too, for our sitters when we were looking for them.  You want them in your home with you there so that you can have that mom-ear to hear and to listen for interaction.  And also if they have questions; they can ask you while you’re there, and you can kind of guide them through what your son or daughter may like, not like, you know, different things like that.  Even changing diapers – this is a funny story.  My sister was in her 20s when she first started babysitting for us, and I guess I assumed that she would remember how to change diapers from when she had babysat 10 years prior, and the first time that we had left her with our daughter who was little, maybe four or five months at the time, when we came home from whatever event that my husband and I had to go to, her diapers was on backwards!  Which cracked me up because she’s like, 22, 23, and this must have been something that she couldn’t quite remember.

Alyssa: The Velcro goes in back!

Cindy:  Right, right.

Alyssa: At least you realized it before bedtime and woke up to a huge mess in the middle of the night.

Cindy:  Right.  And we actually were cloth diapering, but we left some disposables thinking that it would be easier than a cloth diaper, and even that must have thrown her.  So very funny because she’s my sister that has quadruplets, so she actually has really had to get it.

Alyssa: Now she knows how to change a diaper!

Cindy: Now she knows how to change diapers!  But yeah, I think it’s great if you’re able to be there with the babysitter, a couple of hours at a time here, a couple of hours at a time there.  You’ll really get an idea of how they interact with your children, and that is by far the best way to really weed out who you want to watch your children.

Alyssa: So our first-time moms do that, and then by the time you have kid number two or three, they’re like, we don’t even care.  Just give me somebody.

Cindy:  And references from friends, like if you have friends that have said, hey, so-and-so is great.  I think that’s a super valuable resource, too, because now you’ve got this person who’s kind of been vetted by a friend of yours already, so that’s a good option.

Alyssa: Neighbors, too.  You know, we have a couple girls in our neighborhood who can literally walk here, and that’s really convenient, especially if they’re not 16 yet, you know, if you trust a 14- or 15-year-old with your kid and they can just walk here.

Cindy:  And I think the nice thing about a 14- or 15-year-old, when you have an older child, that’s a great age compliment.

Alyssa: Yeah.  It’s almost like they’re not embarrassed to be silly; does that make sense?

Cindy:  Right, exactly.

Alyssa: But if you get an 18-year-old, and they’re like, hmm.

Cindy:  Exactly; that is so true.  And so if you just need somebody for the day, you know, if you’re running errands during the day, if you’ve got a daytime meeting, I think that age bracket is actually a more fun age bracket.  If your kids are between the ages of three, four to maybe eight or so, that’s a super fun age for that younger teen to babysit because they can be silly and they can be fun, and if they’re in your neighborhood, they can walk over, and how great is that?  So that’s super convenient, too.

Alyssa: Yeah, I think it gets easier as your kids get older.  When you have an infant, I’d say up until one, right, you really want somebody experienced.  I had one babysitter I trusted, and she was CPR-certified, and I knew her family.  So it’s different if you’re not hiring a nanny or a postpartum doula or you don’t have your mom, but even if you’re having a caregiver, like your grandparents as caregivers or baby’s grandparents, I got nervous about that when my parents watched her because they were 35 years out of the game, and they didn’t know all these things that have changed in 34 years.  Unplanned segue; we have The Modern Grandparent class that we teach.  So it just updates grandparents on all these things and how to be great babysitters.  Let’s talk about SIDS and crib safety, Back to Sleep, how to bottle-feed, how to support the mom if she’s a breastfeeding mom.

Cindy:  That’s a perfect thing to think about as well, because they haven’t been sitting; they haven’t watched kids in many, many years, and things have changed.

Alyssa: I mean, if your sister after 10 years forgot how to put a diaper on correctly, what do the grandparents forget in 35 years, sometimes 40?  We’ve got moms who are 40, so when you have grandparents as caregivers, it’s also a source of anxiety.  Babysitters in general, just especially for new parents; it’s stressful.

Cindy:  It’s so nerve-wracking.  The first time I left my daughter, I cried and cried and cried.  I had a miserable night out, and it’s because you feel as a mom like you’re the only person that can take care of your child.  And while you may feel that, that’s probably not true.  But you’ve got to really feel good about the sitter so that you can enjoy yourself because the whole purpose of having a babysitter is maybe to either reconnect with your husband, have a date night, go to meetings.  It’s so that you can really establish who you are again, whether that’s the work force or different groups or events that you were a part of before you had a baby.  You need to feel comfortable with that sitter so that you can get back to remembering who you are as a person before you were a mom, which I think is super easy for us as moms to forget about the person who we were before we became a mom.  I think we can kind of separate and draw a line: “Now I’m a mom; now I can’t do the things that I did beforehand.”  So finding that sitter, whether it’s a grandparent who has gone through the grandparenting class that you guys offer, or if it’s a sitter that actually has done some CPR certification training or is super involved with other kid groups or that’s she’s been around children a lot, so she is comfortable.  You just need to make sure that you’re finding a babysitter who you can completely trust so that you can enjoy whatever activity you’re doing to need the sitter in the first place.

Alyssa: Yeah, if it’s supposed to be an enjoyable night out, you want to enjoy it, and if you’re supposed to be at work, you need to be productive.  Crying at your desk all day is not productive.

Cindy:  Right, exactly.

Alyssa: Well, hopefully we gave everyone some good tips.  Babysitters can be tricky, but when you find a good one, don’t let them go.

Cindy:  Exactly, yeah.  They’re worth their weight in gold; they really are, so make sure that you find that one or two, and if you can have a couple, that’s nicer just because if you are – we had one that we loved when our kids were little, and when she wasn’t free, we didn’t go out.  And that’s also not really productive, either.  You really want to have a couple, a little group of sitters who you feel comfortable with and who your kids feel comfortable with.

Alyssa: We have several because some are high school students.  Some are college students.  Their schedules are all different, and I know that my high school girls are going to be graduating, and their schedules get different, and then the 14-year-olds are much more available than the 17- or 18-year-olds because now they’re getting into boyfriends and dating and all these events and maybe they have other jobs.  So I have to have a wide array because otherwise, yeah, if you have one sitter, you’re probably out of luck most of the time.  Because you’re not their only job; I bet they have other babysitting jobs.

Cindy:  Very true.

Alyssa: Well, thanks for sharing.  As always, you can find us at goldcoastdoulas.com.  Email us with ideas at info@goldcoastdoulas.com.  And then, Cindy, where can people find you?

Cindy:  You can find us on our website.  It’s www.cindyssuds.com, and you can also email me directly at cindy@cindyssuds.com.  We’re carried locally in the Harvest Health stores, Kingma’s, Hopscotch, and several other local retailers.