Finding babysitters for my kids has been a hard task. We live in a young neighborhood. So all of the girls are really young here. And the ones that can babysit are really hard to get your hands on. So my friend suggested that we look for babysitters on Care.com and Sittercity.com. At first I thought it was a little strange… you know, getting a babysitter that you don’t know anything about. But, I finally became desperate and didn’t know how else we would find babysitters to watch our kids for date night. So I tried it.
Let me say, I am SO glad I did! I signed up with Care.com and Sittercity.com and searched for the type of babysitter I wanted. You can search age, experience, location, religion and just about anything you can think about. And, you can even search by how much they charge. That is a really big deal when it comes to babysitting.
I messaged a bunch of babysitters I thought would fit my family based on their profile. And then I set up interviews. The girls came to my house and I introduced them to my kids and had an arsenal of questions to ask them.
There were a bunch of girls that I didn’t think would work. But I did find about 5 girls that I love!! And, my kids love them too! So now instead of wondering if we will be able to find a babysitter, we have a bunch to choose from. I really think it is one of the best things we did.
If you are in the same boat as I was, I would highly recommend doing this! You can head over to Sittercity.com and Care.com and sign up. They will let you search for FREE to see the babysitters in your area. But, if you want to contact them, you will need to pay.
What I did was pay the one month fee of $35 and then cancelled it after that first month so they didn’t charge me again. And in one month, I was able to find all of those girls to interview and choose to babysit!
So I would give it a try. I’m a huge fan and tell everyone about it now!
Michelle
Military members and their spouses can get Sittercity.com for free.
Aubrie
Thanks for the tip. That is an interesting idea that I never would have thought of!
Rachel
My husband and I have used Care.com while living in 3 different states (Indiana, Maryland, & Utah) and we have always found awesome babysitters! They also have promo codes most of the time to bring down cost you pay each month. If you can’t find one online, it’s worth calling customer service, they once gave me 40% off my first month! Highly recommend it!
jen
This is a great tip! Would have been so useful when my kids were younger. You have a beautiful family!
Rachelle
I got desperate two years ago to find a babysitter. I am a part-time nurse. Day care wasn’t an option bc I don’t work enough for my babies to go to any day care (they want full time and consistant babies bc they can only take so many). So I got on care.com. I had heard about it from a friend. I paid the one month fee with a promo code and found my babysitter who comes to my house. It was so great. I had them bring references and the one girl that came brought a reference from a nurse I work with. I felt there were a lot of sketchy people on care. So I eliminated people if their pictures looked “skanky” or like a “party” picture at all (does that sound judgmental?). I also eliminated people by if they could form a real words and a real sentence. I interviewed a couple of girls. I had questions ready. One of the most import questions I felt I asked was how do you discipline a one year old (that is what I had at the time), because I wanted to make sure they understood developmental levels of children. I got a wide range of answers. I work in the ER I feel that a lot of people don’t understand the developmental levels in children and that contributes a lot to abuse from babysitters etc. Anyways I felt like I had a great experience from care.com
Erica
You can also try a babysitting coop — groups of families who swap free babysitting with each other. It’s free (!) and super easy to find great childcare whenever you need it. You can find a coop in your town or start your own at SittingAround (https://sittingaround.com)