subject: What To Do When You Need Babysitters To Stay [print this page] Today, more and more household need babysitters. After all, whether you are a working parent or not, there may be times when you just have to leave the house for urgent appointments. Indeed, babysitters are crucial to helping you keep your job and maintaining your sanity.
Good, reliable babysitters may not be that easy to find. It is not impossible though. These days, there are many sitter agencies and referral sites that can make your search a whole lot easier. Sometimes a bigger problem would be how to keep good sitters working for you. How do you make sure that you can keep your sitter?
Clear-Cut Duties and Responsibilities - One important requirement is to be clear about her duties and responsibilities. Nobody wants to be hired as a sitter only to work at odd tasks. Before she even starts work, sit down with her and come up with a job description. Be honest about the kind of work that she has to do. Although sitters are expected to watch over kids, you may need yours to do a little cleaning or cooking for the kids. Once you have agreed upon a job description, do your best to stick to it.
The Sitters Working Condition - All other working conditions should be clear. This includes informing your sitter if she needs to stay up late into the night while waiting for you. Whenever possible, attempt to establish a schedule so that your sitter would at least know when she is needed. Sitters have their own personal schedules too so she may have to work around your schedule.
Compensation - The salary is always a primary point of concern when you need babysitters. This is also a point that some people take for granted. Not every sitter would be so desperate as to accept low rates. The experienced and older ones may not give your offer a second glance especially since many others need their services. Be sure that the rates you offer are commensurate to your sitters experience and ability. If you cannot afford to pay much, make sure a sitter understands this perfectly.
Setting Up An Agreement - Set an agreement on your sitters use of your home. You cannot avoid this. If you want to keep your sitter happy, you should at least allow her the use of your living room, television set, telephone and bathroom. Make sure though that your sitter knows how you would like your things and facilities to be used.
Methods of Discipline - If you follow specific discipline methods, tell your sitter about them. There may be particular ways in which you would want problem behavior among children to be handled. If you want your sitter to do it your way, then tell her.
Babysitter Schedule - Never abuse the goodness of your sitter. There may be times when you would need emergency services. Do not overdo it though. You may already be interfering with her personal schedules if you do it too often.
Whether we like it or not, we need babysitters. There is no doubt about that. If you make sure that you keep the good ones working for you for a long time, then you dont really need to keep on looking for new sitters all the time.
