Finding the right sitter for your new baby

Of all the many things new parents have to worry about, one particular challenge is where to look for a suitable babysitter for their new baby.  First of all there is an undeniable element of guilt associated with the decision to leave baby in someone else’s care for just about any amount of time when they are very young.

While some new parents, especially the first timers, sometimes go to the extreme of virtually never leaving their child with anybody except maybe one of their own parents, for years.  A lot of parents of newborns, because of geography, don’t even have the option of relying on close relatives for even very short term child care.

Some cautious parents have actually resolved to either take very young babies, along with their other children, with them wherever they go or they just stay at home.  As one parent we spoke with says: “Our children are so precious to us, that even though it is sometimes quite of awkward, all our kids, even the baby, go with us, or we just don’t go at all”.

However, for most parents, there comes a time when they feel they must find a suitable babysitter for at least short time periods.  So we talked to some parents who gave us their tips on how they went about finding sitters they felt comfortable with enough to leave their very young children with.

»Locating sitter options: family and the internet