Child Care Dilemma

This weekend the ever ripe child care dilemma once again presented itself in our house. No, I am not talking about our day care provider. We have taken all the necessary steps in finding the perfect one. I am talking about a baby sitter.
We don’t have one.
Thus far the only people who have watched our kids for the most part have been my husband’s mom along with his brother and my parents. My parents are going on their annual summer trip, and will be unavailable until the end of summer, and his mom hasn’t been feeling too well making it difficult for her to watch our little ones regularly.
We haven’t had an evening to ourselves since mid February. Some of my friends have asked why we don’t just get a baby sitter. Simple enough question. But I have no answers. Wait, no, I have a lot of answers, just no solutions.
Aside from the fact that getting a baby sitter entails leaving her in our house with all our possessions, an even more poignant problem is that we are leaving him/her with our children. Which are worth considerably more than our big screen TV. Except when they are screaming their heads off. Then I am pretty sure no one would want them. Most kidnappers would bring them right back.
But seriously, who would I leave my kids with? Granted there are several neighborhood girls who I would trust to not maliciously harm my kids or steal my stuff, I can’t account for the unintentional damage that might occur.
I mean, these are young girls, trying to earn a few bucks by watching my kids who are small and quite the handful. Even when they are not being naughty Munchie runs around, Ducky needs a lot of attention. What if something happens that could not have been prevented? What if one of them falls or gets hurt, and the young baby sitter is too scared to tell us? Ducky might fall of the changing table and have a concussion. We wouldn’t know about it, not take the appropriate precautions, and next thing you know he can die in his sleep. I know this is worst possible case scenario, but this is just an example of what goes through my head when thinking about leaving my kids with other people.
Of course the answer to this would be to leave the kids with a more mature and thus responsible individual. But that brings me right back around to who. We don’t know anyone, outside of family, who would watch our kids for money or otherwise.
Munchie is only a little over two, and Ducky can’t talk. So if anything happens the kids would not be able to tell us. Munchie can talk pretty well for her age, but in all honesty she is not the best narrator. For example, earlier today she told us Ducky ate our day care provider. This may or may not have happened, and currently there are no pending charges of cannibalism against him. So it is safe to say that in all probability her story is not altogether accurate.
I think when the kids are older and capable of better speech I will feel more comfortable hiring the neighbor girls to watch them. But until then we are just stuck in a our child care dilemma.
How do you find a sitter? How do you know who you can trust?  

2 comments

  1. I feel the same about this as well. As much as I would love to be able to go out with my husband and have some alone time once in a while, we have never used a babysitter other than grandparents. I have the same worries about trust, especially when my son was too young to talk but even now (he’s almost 4), I still can’t get past all the “what if’s” in my head. It’s a tough call, I think (and hope) I’ll finally be more comfortable once he’s school age but who knows. I do hope my husband and I can figure out a way to go on dates again before that though – haha!

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