Well, you found a sitter to depend on. This babysitter may have come from a referral from a friend or some babysitter child care website.
During the interview,
Everything goes fine.
When she smiles, she seems even sweeter than you.
The way she talked to you was very polite.
And next when she arrived on their first day 1 job.
She comes early, of course,because it’s a good idea to make a great first impression.
And yes, she looks excited.
But right after you leave… What will happen?
*Disclaimer: this article isn’t meant to hurt anyone’s feelings, especially a good babysitter that always does a great job.
But because not all babysitters are good, And in the end, for sure, some of them will not be good enough.
When we said the babysitter is not good enough, it might be because she is not even thinking about what she is doing or she needs reminding and training.
For most parents,
Finding a good babysitter just depends on your instincts… which is something that we are not totally in agreement with.
One nice quote from Scott Burkun mentioned on his blog that:
“Our instincts are easy to manipulate.”
Scott goes on to make 7 more points about this on his blog here. We believe, it’s pretty straightforward. We should only rely on facts, not instinct or gut feelings.
So back to our topic, We are finally gathered the 11 bad signs of babysitters that you need to know. This problem is that most of these you won’teven notice when you are with them, because these problems only occur when you are gone and it’s between her and your kids.
Without further ado,
1. Check if the sitter is smoking inside the house and in front of the children
Smoking is a habit that many people have, so it might not be a surprise if the sitter you hire is also a smoker. You should ask her at first so that you can decide if you need to add in any additional rules for her to comply with when caring for your children.
If she needs to go outside the house or onto balcony, then she will not be a good caregiver for your children and you should ask her not to smoke while working.
Because, when you give permission, no one will look after your kids (unless there is some live tech help).
2. Leaves the feeding bottle open after feeding the child, and then uses it again later
This is not really crucial for baby, but by doing this there might be some contamination on the bottle nipple. While this might not be a serious issue, it could result in a dangerous health situation.
We all know that everything that the baby is exposed to, especially for feeding purposes, should be in clean and pristine shape.
Especially with infants under the age of twelve months, according to babycenter.ca,caregivers need to be extra careful with what an infant is exposed to and ingests.
So just make sure to remind the sitter of this. After feeding, the bottle should be closed immediately to prevent it from being contaminated.
Even better, if we have baby bottle sterilizer show your sitter how to use it and request that they use it after feedings.
Make sure that you use good quality bottles and know how to choose a good baby bottle for your little one.
3. Allows the child to bite on anything, like dirty items and even mobile phones
Babies love the texture and feeling of everything, they are so curious about the world around them. This situation is very simple to understand, a baby will grab whatever it sees, and will anything inside of its mouth.
It is the way they explore the world and get to know everything around them. They touch, look at, and taste everything. It is the earliest way that a baby takes in information about the objects surrounding him or her.
Not to mention that the desire to bite things increases during the period when teeth first start to appear. Thus, we should be very careful about what items our baby puts his hands on, to prevent dirty objects from getting into his mouth. This is the main reason children can become ill.
And talking about dirty items, mobile phones are the dirtiest. We carry them everywhere; they touch objects with tons of germs, then we put them in our bag, in chairs, benches, and so many other places. They are filled with dangerous germs and also emit unhealthy radiation.
A careful sitter will be aware of this.
4. Caught her leaving the crib-side down a couple of times now
Now this is a dangerous habit. The baby can fall out and hurt himself or even crawl/walk away without the sitter even noticing.
The child can easily crawl out and hurt his head, bump into objects, fall down the stairs if you have any, and many other extremely dangerous scenarios.
Such a situation can lead to any number of tragic events. So, if you notice this has been happening, you need to have a serious conversation with your sitter because it is an obvious sign of neglect.
It might be a good idea to provide a child monitor, so that she can monitor all parts of the house.
To prevent this possibility altogether, you should purchase a crib that does not have a drop-side. These cribs have been shown to cause a number of infant deaths and are banned in the United States for example.
5. She is giving the baby foods that you don’t approve of
Babies have sensitive digestive systems, so they must have a well-balanced and particular diet according to their age and development state.
That’s why babies up to about six-months-old do not eat solid food because their stomachs are not ready to process these foods.
Your doctors may have advised you what to feed your baby, and it is recommended that you stick to their plan. If your sitter is not respecting your decision, you should address this issue or end your professional relationship.
6. Letting him play with inappropriate toys
Sometimes a sitter will bring toys with her when she comes to watch your child. If not, just supply good quality toys for your kids.
To choose toys for your kids, normally they should address two points.
First,is the safety factor good enough? Which is what we are covering here and Second, if it’s enjoyable for kids. This is what you should decide yourself.
With regard to the safety factor, it depends on their age.
Selecting toys for toddlers is easier as they are more cognitively advanced and will typically understand the do and don’ts made by us.
But for babies, especially under the age of 3 years, they still tend to put objects in their mouth.
According to Kids Health, one of the reputable websites made by experts:
“Toys should be large enough — at least 1¼ inches (3 centimeters) in diameter and 2¼ inches (6 centimeters) in length” quote from Kids Health.
Without any ruler while shopping, just make sure your baby can’t swallow it.
Starting from 1995, CSPC or U.S Consumer Product Safety Commission have made regulations that all toys must comply with CSPC safety standards.
Here are some of the recall cases due to this act:
We assume most parents knowabout this brand: Toys “R” Us. In 2007, they needed to recall back one of their products here, due to it containing too much “Lead.”
A just recently on July 23th and July 28th, two products UPPA baby Recalls Strollers and Kyber Outerwearwere recalled due to Choking Hazards.
7. In case you provide foods for the baby, will she serve them to the child?
It is normal for a mother to make sure there is enough and appropriate food in the fridge for their baby.
But will the sitter actually serve that to your child?
If you get home and notice the food you prepared for the child is gone, it doesn’t mean that the sitter is feeding it to him. Check the cameras and see if she is doing that or she is just wasting the food.
8. Same can happen with diapers, how many do you provide and how many are left behind?
Diaper change frequency depends on the condition of a baby. For example, their bowel movement. Expert from Parents.com, Dr. Ari Brown said:
Charts show how often diapers need to be changed
9. Yelling at your child
No child should be yelled at, especially by a stranger. Usually, children do not know what they are doing. They are not mature enough to understand the difference between what is wrong and what is right.
So the sitter should have the calmness and patience to find a way to explain to the child what he did wrong and why he did it.
This should always be their reaction instead of yelling. It is not a good option to educate your child with violence.
10. Stealing your stuff
This is probably the best reason to install spy cameras (or nanny drop cams as some people refer to them) in your house, especially in your bedroom or other rooms where you know you may have some valuable items.
Unfortunately, not all sitters are trustworthy. You can start from the presumption that they are innocent and honest until contrary evidence appears.
And there is no better way to gather evidence than by using a surveillance camera. In the event your sitter steals a valuable item, like jewelry, at least you will have the video and images as proof when you call the police over.
It is not a general rule for a babysitter to steal, but there have been some cases when parents confronted them with such issues. And if they don’t steal, they might still go through your belongings, which is not appropriate either.
11. Watching porn on your computer
Now this is something you would not like to happen in your house while your children are around. And more importantly, not from a babysitter.
Such explicit images are not appropriate for a child to see because they are too young and may not understand what is happening. They may get scared or it might leave emotional traces on their personality.
Even if the children are not around, it is too risky for a babysitter to do such a thing because they can always appear in the room and see what’s going on.
To prevent this problem, decide if you want to totally block these websites or just remind your sitter. What I meant by remind is, in the event you knew they watched inappropriate content.
If the website is just blocked, you do not know if she would have watched it or not. Which bring us to a different problem.
First, your computer is not the only place they can watch.
Second, better if you know compared with you not knowing.
Because, when you know. Even though they watched it already…
At least you know how they behave, right? And if they are caught, you can decide if you want to hire someone new or not. If they are caught again, you can just hire a new one.
How to track this? The option below still depends on how good the sitter is about IT.
Either way, we will try the easiest one first until you have to move on to more advanced systems.
Option 1
1. Browser history
In case they delete the history, you just need to remember what sites you viewed earlier, for example,Facebook, and see ifwhat you saw earlier had already been deleted or not. If yes, there is a possibility that she is hiding something.
Remember, you may not get solid proof yet because, for example, in Chrome, there is an option to delete the previous past hour only.
Plus, they may use the incognito function to browse. But if you have more time to spend, read this guide, which will teach you how to restore the deleted files.
2. Cookies.
If they delete the browser history, you can use Cookies stored function in the browser too.
Again, in case they forgot to delete the cookies file.
Like we said earlier, they may forget to remove individual cookies too. This guide will show you how, http://www.wikihow.com/View-Cookies (Include all popular browsers)
3. Using built by windows application.
If you dont know how, it’s quite a lot of work for you to read the step by step guide here. In my opinion it is easier to use the last option, which is using sofware to track others.
4. Free Software.
Raymond Dot CC has offered a great explanation of how you can use this software to track user actions.
Basically, most of the software applications out there just simply block the sites, which mean you cannot monitor if its really happening or not.
But, if youstill wanna know more about it, try reading this post.
http://www.abattleplan.com/2012/06/how-to-confirm-your-husband-watching-porn-the-net/
That article was used to check if a husband is watching porn, but you can use it to track a babysitter too.
Well, there you go! 11 possible situations that your sitter might be doing.
How about it?
Before you go, try add one more unique point for the list.