Are you a working couple and breaking a sweat over finding the right babysitter for your kid? We understand it can be a stressful experience to find a babysitter who fits your requirement and get someone trustworthy to whom you can handover your baby without having to worry. In a big metro like Dubai, several professional organisations have come up to provide you with a babysitter or nanny for babysitting at home. You may approach them for in-home daycare babysitters but what is invaluable is how you choose a babysitter through the process of an interview. Here are some tips, questions that you must ask a babysitter before deciding to employ her. We are sure the below set of advice will be highly helpful for you to find the right nanny/babysitter for your kid.
Hygiene is the key to babysitting
Health and hygiene are the most important criteria for infant care. Thoroughly check with your babysitter of what kind of practices she would undertake to maintain the highest degree of hygiene for your kid. Ask her questions about her clean up process, bathing, poop clean up training etc.
Is she the boss without being bossy?
Making kids listen to a babysitter could be a big challenge. She can’t be bossy yet be able to handle your kid. Ask her questions about how she would prefer to connect to a baby. What is her technique of giving and garnering the attention of your baby? Ask her to do a role-play during the interview. Where you can pretend to be a kid and let her ask you a few questions and see if that will be able to arouse the interest of your kid to listen to her.
Has your babysitter done a course on child personality development?
Most in-home babysitters today have done training on children psychology, personality and brain development before applying for a babysitter job through an agency. Still, it is imperative for you to check her certificates about the training and also ask questions to find out if she understands the different stages of child development? A pre-school going kid will have a set of different requirements from a toddler. In children at every age the behaviour changes and at a rapid pace. So, your babysitter must be well versed with the behaviour management tips. As per a few ground rules of child behaviour management that anyone babysitting at home should not use any cuss words, or resort to any kind of physical violence to make the child behave. You should discuss these issues before employing a babysitter. Also, do ask her about the different types of games that she encourages a child to play and that helps in his learning and brain development.
What kind of babysitting is required in case of sibling sitting?
In case you require babysitting for siblings, ensure that your babysitter is aware of the following thumb rules. Your babysitter should keep a close watch over the siblings but at the same time be not intrusive enough not to provide any space to them for them to do their stuff. She should always encourage collaborative activities amid siblings for them to spend quality time with each other.
She should try to instil in the elder sibling that he is the figure of authority in the absence of the parents and should drive a sense of responsibility in him about the younger sibling.
How is a babysitter communicating with the parents?
An ideal babysitter is the one who wears two hats. While she should be able to easily break the ice with your kid, be it by drawing funny faces with crayon for your kid to make him laugh or wearing costumes to entertain him and at the same time she should be responsible and considerate as per the expectations of parents. So, you should look out for these qualities in your babysitter.
The Next Step – A Session with your Child
With some background to the kind of questions to a babysitter and expectations from her, now you have to shortlist a few candidates for the babysitting job of your child. Do remember, try to pay a decent wage to a babysitter and prefer not to haggle over wages as consider this as a very important job, something that can ascertain the future of your child. So, for deciding wages it’s always better to go with the fixed rate slabs of baby daycares of Dubai. You may also cross-check wages from your circle of family or friends who had employed a professionally trained babysitter. Now, that you have shortlisted a few babysitters, arrange a session with your child, to check how the two are gelling together. Is your babysitter being able to make an impact on your child right at the first meeting? Is he able to garner the attention of your child? Whatever you know on theory now see it work with your kid. We would recommend you to make your decision to employ a babysitter at this stage depending on your liking and fit for the role for your child and have a pleasant and enriching parenting experience.
