On-line Babysitter Referral Services: One Mom’s Experience

By Megan

For Christmas this past December, I gave Al a series of 6 dates (with me!) that started in January and run through June. I ordered tickets and gift cards for each of them and put them in separate tiny gift bags that I hung all over the tree Christmas Eve. I was excited to do this for Al (and me!) because since Peabody was born, we really haven’t spent much time alone as a couple – it’s just never been a comfortable thing for me to be apart from my little, little ones and that discomfort’s been compounded by the fact that we live so far from our families so we don’t have built in, reliable, familiar babysitters we can call. We have great neighbors and we could ask them to sit in the case of an absolute emergency, but we’ve had a tough time finding the right person to call if we just want to go out on a weekend night. A handful of nice high school kids live in our neighborhood but competition for their baby sitting time is stiff (there are over 30 kids under 12 on our street alone!) and we prefer sitters who are on the “older” side right now for our littlest man, so we’ve just mostly stayed in and had “date night” at home after the kids were in bed.

Well, I packaged up Al’s “date bags,” with a mixture of excitement about the time alone and anxiety over what we’d do with our kids for each evening or afternoon out. Enter an on-line screening and referral tool that connects nannies and sitters with families who need their services. I’m sort of an “organic” or gut-level person – I make a lot of parenting decisions based on how my insides feel, and my guts SO did not like the idea of selecting a person to which I’d entrust the care of my babies through a computer database. But I’d painted myself into a corner, so I dug in anyway.

Within hours I had several responses from qualified and willing candidates and set about the task of checking referrals and running background checks and scheduling interviews. The on-line service I used made all of these processes very easy for me and each the professionalism and kindness of each candidate I spoke to on the phone made me feel a bit more at ease about the process. I’d tell you much, much more about it but my point here is not necessarily to sell you on an on-line sitter referral service.

My point is to say that if you are in the predicament we’ve been in, it may be one viable solution. I used SitterCity.com. I’ve heard good things about other on-line services, too. (No matter which you choose, be sure you do your homework!). I met with three candidates (with Bean and Peabody showing up on queue, dressed as Jane and Michael Banks, singing, “If you want this choice position, have a cheery disposition…”) and within minutes of sitting down with Lara, I KNEW I’d finally found “the one.” She arrived at our interview with a prepared a list of referrals and all the right answers to my nervous-Mama questions. More importantly, she’s a part time nanny and taking night classes at a local college to get a SECOND degree in early childhood education, so she KNOWS kids. She lives within 4 miles of our home, went to the local high school, has a very flexible schedule and most importantly, she connected beautifully with both of my kids (and me!) within minutes. Bean really isn’t much of a challenge in that regard, she likes just about anybody who will pay attention to her, but Peabody is EXCRUCIATINGLY discerning and discriminating and he sizes people up thoroughly and VERY OFTEN flatly refuses to engage with them.

Lara’s been sitting for us (but only interacting with Bean because Peabody’s always in bed sleeping before we leave) for two months now. Yesterday Al and I left mid-day to go on the second of his Christmas dates – this time we took a 2-hour cooking class at a local French restaurant and then spent 2 more hours enjoying the fruits of our labor over wine and conversation with our classmates – so for the first time Peabody was awake while Lara was here. I viewed yesterday’s date as a final hurdle in the sitting relationship; I was nervous about leaving him, worrying he’d cry when I left and be upset the whole time we were gone. We had a great time on our date, but in the back of my head there was this nagging concern for my boy and for poor sweet Lara.

In the end, it turns out that the best part of the date, (don’t tell Al), was coming home to see both of our kids happy, safe, and comfortable. They were well-fed, they’d been outside to play and they greeted us with eager smiles and hugs. Peabody even followed Lara out onto the front porch when she left, waving his little buh-bye wave and whining over seeing her go. We discussed another sitting date coming up soon and Lara said on her way out the door, “I can’t wait! I LOVE your kids so much! We have so much fun together.”

After all the wondering how we’d ever feel peaceful about leaving our kids with someone else so we could enjoy a few hours a month of alone time as a couple, Al and I both feel like we’ve found someone we can trust – someone who makes us and our kids feel comfortable. I’m glad we took the calculated risk of finding Lara through an on-line babysitter referral service. I was deeply skeptical and I think that’s a healthy way to feel about it (I’ll always be extremely cautious about who watches my children, no matter where I get a referral!), but we did the research and checking we needed to do to satisfy ourselves and the experience overall was positive. We’ve got a wonderful lady to love and care for our kids so we can get away every now and then.

And no, you can’t have her phone number. She’s ours! Hee hee.