It’s day 3 of Babywise Friendly Blog Network week!
Be sure to check out all the other blogs being featured this week:
Monday: Maureen Monfore, Childwise Chat
Tuesday: Valerie Plowman, Chronicles of a Babywise Mom
Wednesday: Bethany Lynch, The Graceful Mom
Thursday: Rachel Norman, A Mother Far From Home
Friday: Emily Parker, Journey of Parenthood
Today’s blog spotlight is from Bethany over at The Graceful Mom. Her post is about Finding a Babywise Friendly Babysitter. Zach and I are so, so blessed to live around a lot of family and haven’t had to ever really hire a non-family member babysitter yet. We know that time will come and it does stress me out a bit to think about! It’s hard enough to leave the kids when I know they are with family, I can’t imagine how difficult it will be when they are with a sitter.
Finding a Babywise friendly sitter will be super important to me. I first plan to look at church as I trust members of my church family and know that our core values are the same so I know I would feel at ease with people from that church environment. I loved reading Bethany’s suggestions and tips for finding a Babywise friendly sitter and agree with her when she says More than anything, find a compatible sitter for you and your children and go with your gut. Finding a babywise-friendly sitter is a blessing but should not be a limiting factor. While I do think that having someone who will follow our schedule will be ideal, I know that my “gut feeling” about someone and comfort about them as a person will play a more critical role in choosing our childcare.
One idea she didn’t mention that I have thought to do before is trade off with a friend. I’ve talked to several friends about doing this and need to get it started up (thanks Bethany for reminding me with your post!). But I think a great plan would be to take turns watching each others kids so we can go on dates with our hubbies. For example Zach would stay home with our kids and I would go over to a friend’s house to stay with their kids so she and her husband could have a date night then they could return the favor to us another night! Free childcare from people we know and trust! And since our kids do go to bed so early, it could even be as simple as doing the trade after bedtime and just going on later dates 🙂
How do you find trustworthy babysitters for your children? Be sure to visit Bethany’s post today to see her suggestions!
