11 tips for successful childcare for you and your babysitter

Succeeding at babysitting

Regardless of whether you are going out for the evening or have difficulty adapting the work to the kindergarten schedule, a babysitter is a good idea to relieve everyday stress. Yepstr provides babysitting to hundreds of families a month. Based on tips from the families who use the service, the babysitters who look after the children and lots of meetings in between, we have produced this guide for how to find a babysitter for your particular family.This post is a continuation of our interviews with the super yeps Tilda and Alma.

1. Why are you looking for childcare and what is the dream image?

Start by establishing why you are looking for childcare and your dream image of your babysitter. There are many different types of babysitters; from the experienced to those who have no experience at all. Think carefully about what kind of life you want the babysitter to contribute to. It is important not to fool yourself here, because a babysitter contributes to the well-being of the whole family, and not just the children.Ask the broad questions: age, gender, personality and interests. Take your needs and wishes into equal consideration. While the neighbor's 14-year-old daughter gets along very well with the children, it is not certain that she is mature enough to cook, put the children to bed or to keep schedules. The older the babysitter, the more ready for responsibility, on the other hand, the younger the closer at hand for play and fun with the children.With a clear dream image around your babysitter, you can now start thinking about the children's wishes and needs.

2. Questions and needs

When you have the dream picture ready for you, the family, you can now look at the children. Write down a list of questions that are specific to your children. If you have a shy three-year-old, you can ask the candidate if he or she has any experience of shy children. With more active children, questions about how to manage energy and keep them busy are important.Mix the needs questions with the formal questions such as "how much experience do you have from being a babysitter before", and "how available are you on the weekend?". Use the list as a template to make sure you can check and compare your candidates with each other.

3. Skill requirements

Do your children participate in several sports or other activities after school? Set driving license requirements. Do your children need to be outdoors more or do more of their homework? Find a babysitter who can help with homework during babysitting or who has an interest in being outdoors.You should address and highlight all the skills you want in a babysitter early in the process, so that you get the most out of the time the babysitters spend with your children. Tell the babysitter what qualities you think are important to have to perform the job in the best way. Care has, for example, listed some points on significant qualities that a babysitter should possess.

4. Babysitting and scheduling

Follow your schedule for a month, check out what you actually needed support with. How long in advance could you have foreseen the need? How often do you need help at unconventional times and how much can be scheduled as recurring help?Answering these questions will help you write a job description so that you and your future babysitter can budget and schedule. For easy scheduling, you can use Yepstr, where scheduling, payment and contact take place directly in the app. You can also book babysitting interviews with yeppar from your municipality. The app only reaches your immediate area and is therefore a good alternative for finding a replacement at short notice if your regular babysitter is ill or similar. Test Yepstr here!

5. Logistics

Related to the time aspect is of course the issue of logistics. In case of emergency, can your babysitter take you to or from you in a smooth way? Unfortunate and unforeseen events such as one of your children getting hurt mean logistical issues as the babysitter may urgently need to come in and look after the other child.

6. Expectations of your babysitter

Tell your babysitter clearly what is expected of him. Does he need to be available at short notice on weekends? Be clear about that. Write down the expectations on a piece of paper so that no misunderstandings arise. If the babysitter is to help clean up after the meal, clarify it in the job description. Even things that affect your children indirectly should be written out clearly in writing, common questions that need to be addressed can be: Can they make personal conversations during working hours?How do you feel about any pictures with the children on social media? Can he take the children on personal urgent matters or is it better to cancel the day's work in that case?Write down your expectations and discuss them with your babysitter. Also discuss what is expected when the children have gone to bed or how they can use the house. It's nice for your babysitter to know what the rules are for eating food from your fridge or watching your TV.

7. The role of the babysitter in upbringing

What do you want the babysitter to do when the children lose their temper? All families have their own way of raising, communicate this carefully to the babysitter already during the interview, so that they are comfortable with your way.[caption id="attachment_751" align="aligncenter" width="938"]

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8. House rules

How do you want the children to behave when you are not at home? Write down the rules that apply in your home, so that both children and babysitters are on track.

9. Child inventory

Inventory your children's lives! Does Kalle need to hear a goodnight story before he can fall asleep? Does Emilia get an eczema rash once a quarter? Everything that concerns health or otherwise special treatment for a well-functioning interaction for the children and the babysitter needs to be explained in detail; because in the event of a crisis, it is not certain that your babysitter is aware of what is required.Also be clear about where you store the first aid kit, fire extinguisher and other things required in the event of a crisis.

10. Share your experiences

Also be sincere with what has worked and not. Does Oskar often fall when he plays football? Say it, so that your babysitter does not have to worry about him doing something wrong!

11. For the babysitter, babysitting is as much friendship as work

Even though you are a parent who hires a babysitter who will be a friend to your child in the future, it is good to treat the relationship as a business relationship. Have a clear schedule, salary agreement and an openness about when and how payment is made.Other question marks that are best solved in advance are how you expect your babysitter to handle holiday hours and how you should handle extra work or months with fewer hours than usual. Show respect for your babysitter's time and demand the same respect back. With a business relationship from the beginning, it will be easier to handle the future.Find babysitters in an area at Yepstr today!