Here are some great tips the consider when hiring a babysitter for your household.
We highly recommend the use of our Canadian Red Cross Babysitter interview form available under the resources section of our website to facilitate a lot of these.
- Money: Let’s get this out there right off the hop. Although we cannot suggest an exact rate consider things such as year of experience and number of children to be cared for. Always agree on a rate before the job to avoid the awkward conversation at the end.
- Extra Jobs: There are certain tasks expected of a babysitter such a cleaning up used toys and dishes. It is not the babysitters primary job to take care of mess or chores they did not create. It is ok to ask your babysitter to complete these tasks but further financial compensation should be offered.
- Rules: As every household has their own set of rules please explain yours to your babysitter before you go. This will not only benefit you and the babysitter but also your children as well.
- Food: If you expect your babysitter to feed your children please be considerate and provide enough food for them to eat as well especially if your children have any food allergies.
- Update: We get it. Sometimes plans change and you end up coming home later than planned. Please inform your babysitter of this and make sure it is okay with them first.
- Another contact: Sometimes emergencies do happen. We highly recommend you provide your babysitter with the contact information of another trusted adult nearby if the need should ever arise. Please make sure that adult would be available if needed.
- No surprises: If your child is sick, needs medication administered or anything along those lines please let your babysitter know beforehand. Nothing worse than showing up to find out you have to take care of head lice as a babysitter.
- Scheduling: Sometimes being proactive is great but if you want to schedule way in advance it is always best to confirm a week or two before the scheduled date. Also as much as possible try not to leave everything last minute. One to two weeks is always a great lead up time.
- Cancellation: We understand that sometimes things change but if you’re going to cancel on your babysitter last minute, some form of compensation is always appreciated.
- Trust your gut: If you are hiring a new babysitter at the end of the day trust your gut. If they do not seem like a good fit for your household or children, consider another sitter. At the end of the day your children’s safety is your top priority.
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