15 Months 3 Weeks - How To Find a Babysitter

The girls are almost 16 months old, and, believe it or not, we have yet to hire a babysitter so that the two of us parents could go out together. When the girls were younger and we were living at my mother's, she would tell us to go out for an hour or so after the girls were asleep, and we did that about once a week. And, this summer, while at the Family Reunion, we let their Grandpa take the girls to the pool for 3-hours so that we could go river rafting with the rest of the family. However, that was the longest time that we've allowed ourselves to be gone and we both looked at each other wide-eyed as we cautiously left the house. We weren't sure which was the scarier ride: leaving the girls or riding the Class III Deschutes River rapids.

We have, however, been inspired to find a reliable sitter by a no-kids party. All the "typical suspects" are taken: Nonno and Nonna have "date night" in North Beach on Saturdays and Grandma Gigi is out of town for the whole month. All the neighborhood kids have left for college except one who has decided that, with all her other extracurricular activities and sports,she is in more need of down time than a few extra bucks.

So, how to find a babysitter...

You might think it would be easy: just ask your friends who already have kids and regular sitters. You might be surprised, but most people are unwilling to share their regulars' names and numbers. There is an unspoken but firmly defended turf-war with great sitters. Childhood friends and girlfriends bound by bridal-party ties find each other jousting so that they can all go to the same evening party together. Best not to fish off the "company pier," persay. It leads to a very large hen-house!

I thought I would then ask a number of sort-of-strangers: my Twins Mommy Group. There are more than 400 families who have totally different social calendars than me in this group. They are so helpful with all other needs and quick to lend a hand...why not them? The only response I got from them was an exchange plan (you sit mine; I'll sit yours), but who wants to watch 4+ kids, even if it does mean one night of freedom?? You are more likely to get their Grandma's secret recipe - No one will give you their sitter's number!

So, you've got to learn to navigate yourself and find someone by chance, luck and lots of pavement pounding. Here are some tips after finally finding some candidates of my own:

1. Visit your local college and see if they have a job-board. If you have multiple colleges in your area, see if any of them offer courses and/or majors in Childhood Development or Education. There are two in my area.
2. Check on-line: At least one of these colleges has their job-board on-line so that you may post your needs at any time of day. Now you don't have to pack the kids up and tend to them while to try to focus on your posting.
3. I've also heard great things about looking on www.Craigslist.com, but I had a heebie-jeebie factor with total strangers. At least I felt I had a little control targeting an audience with a strong likelihood of having a teaching career. (Probably just semantics...)
4. When people call, try to get them to talk about their experiences with children. I made sure that any candidates had experience with pre-talkers and experience handling more than one child at a time.
5. Get at least 2 references. One can be a personal reference - someone who's known them for a long time and can speak to their character rather than if they can follow directions.
6. Call all references. I loved to hear about candidates who were putting themselves through school, showed long-term interest in and dedication to a hobby or sport, could think outside of the box, and could handle pressure calmly rather than getting nervous or rattled. One I ended up choosing to interview was all of that, plus she'd been a regular sitter for 4-year old twins for 2 years. Another one is a local girl who spent 13 years earning the Gold Award (equivalent to Eagle Scout) in Girls Scouts, is putting herself through college after earning 2 scholarships and is taking sign language off-campus for her language requirement because she already took Spanish in high school. It takes extra effort to do this as the class is 13-miles away from campus, but her interest drives her to work harder.
7. I always ask if they would come by the house for a half-hour to an hour to get to know the kids and their routine about 3-days before. This will also help them become a familiar faces in the kids' memory (or so I hope!). They will usually do this for free.

Well, we'll see how it goes... Wednesday we do the introduction and we hope that this Saturday, we're assured enough to enjoy our evening out - even if it is just for a couple of hours. Who knows, I may have more bullet-points to contribute to the list next week!