Making a heavenly babysitting arrangement for your little angels

High-quality child care is much in demand from parents either because they are busy with their careers or because they need time off to enjoy a personal space.

Child care options are manifold – nanny, manny (a male nanny), babysitter, au pair, baby nurse, governess, day care, child care sharing, mother’s helper, and family and friends. But, most often, the choice is between hiring a babysitter or a nanny.

Relationship:

A babysitting arrangement is generally opted to, on an intermittent basis.

Whenever an occasion arises that compels both parents to be away from home without the children accompanying them, a temporary arrangement is made with a babysitter for child care.

Of course, there could also be a need for a babysitter on a daily basis – for a limited number of hours every day - in the event that children return from school prior to the arrival of their parents from their workplaces. Compared with a babysitter, a nanny usually spends nearly the whole day, every day, with the children and indeed much time with the family. The bonding between the nanny and the children and family is, therefore, far more intimate than that of a babysitter.

Children may get very attached to a nanny but such an eventuality with a babysitter would be rare. In fact, toddlers when they start school may need to transit from a nanny (whole time services no longer being essential) to a babysitter and the transition is never easy because of the loving relationship.

Compensation:

The compensation for a babysitter is usually on an hourly basis. Babysitters are hired for specific contracts and are paid the agreed cash compensation.

There are no further obligations to be fulfilled. When you arrange for nanny care, the nanny is regarded as your employee and is entitled not only to payment of monthly remuneration but also to other perquisites such as breakfast, lunch and dinner, holidays/vacation time, medical benefits, etc. that may be negotiated at the time of appointment. If the nanny is requested to perform additional services that are not a part of the arrangement, you may have to pay compensation, though, much depends on the rapport between the nanny and the family.

Due Diligence:

Your personal circumstances will dictate whether you need a babysitter or a nanny.

Whatever your choice, due diligence should be a critical part of your endeavour to hire the best possible person for your child. If you elect to hire personally, you must insist on an identity check, residence check, family background, criminal history, if any, reference check from at least three previous employers, etc.

However, you could also approach a reliable agency for the assigning a babysitter or a nanny.Before you select the agency, you need to check its reputation, track record, number of years in existence, the personal reputation of the founders/promoters of the agency, facilities they provide like App based booking, conveniences like WhatsApp message interaction etc. Once satisfied with the assessment, you can deal with the agency which itself will have robust systems in place to weed out suspicious and undesirable elements from their retainer roll.

With the personal hiring, you will need to carry out the due diligence each time you make a hire (there is no guarantee that the babysitter you identified will be available each time). With an agency, you need to do the due diligence just once.

Children are your future and great nanny care brings an assurance of child safety, the qualitative all-round growth of the child and a helping hand for family responsibilities. A first-rate nanny is often a babysitter, a governess, a baby nurse, a mother’s helper and a family member rolled into one.