Babysitters... - Minneapolis,MN

I found a great nanny and many more qualified applicants on sittercity.com which is like care.com. They have references and you can choose to only interview those with background checks and who know CPR, etc. It's great!

Your braver than me. I have a 5 month old and I'm even afraid to leave her alone with her grandparents for a few minutes.

When I was taking my law classes at night I found a sitter from care.com. She was wonderful and my son loved her!!! When we moved out of state we were really sad we had to leave our awesome babysitter! Go with your gut, you'll be fine!! Best wishes!!

I found our nanny on Care.com. She has been working with us since February. She is a great girl that I trust completely. I was very skeptical and wary at first. I had some people send me unusual messages on there. I had one girl ask me to come pick her up for work. Other than that, I had great success with it. They do simple background checks on there, but you can also do one on the potential sitter as well. You would have to have their SS# in order to do it.
Hope this helps! Message me for any questions you may have!

I did sittercity and care.com. We always interviewed the nannies first. I never had any problems, but they all seemed to want a lot of money. They were all college kids and most boasted almost being out of the nursing program or something similar. However I found when I asked each of them what they could make my kids for lunch, they all stared at me with a blank look. Some told me they could warm something up out of a can or make something out of a box. Out of the 20 sitters we interviewed, only one could cook Hamberger! So make sure you ask a lot of questions about what they can do. One said that she was 19 online, but when we interviewed her she looked so young that I questioned her about her age. She came clean right away and said that she was only 15, but she was living with her boyfriend and had to pay rent so was looking for any job she could get. We did not go with her as I did not feel a 15 year old was mature enough to handle my 2 kids. The key is ask a lot of questions when you interview them. We did end up finding a goon nanny that lasted almost a year and then she decided she could not handle the sports she was in and doing the baby sitting so she quit. We have had more luck finding a nanny on line then we have doing the reg baby sitters at there house thing. The nice thing is it is your house so you can come and go and you please and keep a good eye on the sitter. Good luck!

your pretty brave-good luck with that one...good sitters are hard enuff to come by-but off the net...i couldnt do it..

In a way, this on-line service is just like placing an ad in the newspaper many years ago. I've even posted on Craigs List before to look for candidates. Sitter City, Care.com etc are just tools that you can use to find more candidates. You are not going to hire someone based on what their ad says on the internet. This is just a way to expose you to a lot of candidates…..and yes, you will be exposed to some whackos  You are still going to do your research on each person, check references, perform background checks, conduct personal interviews etc. I probably interviewed more than 20 sitters (from Sitter City and my Craig Lists responses) before I hired one...and that 20+ number were those that I chose to interview after reading their on-line responses to me. I probably discarded at least 50 applicants in my initial "weed-out" based on my gut reaction to their emails to me. I deleted all applicants who could not write to me clearly at an adult level. Some I deleted just because something sounded "off." So even though you are using the internet as the tool, you will still use the old-fashioned method of meeting the candidate yourself, talking with the candidate to learn more about them and also, get that “gut feeling” about them as a person. I can't begin to tell you how awful some of my interviews went. I remember one girl that was looking to leave the daycare she was working at to be my nanny/sitter because of how much she hated how often she was required to wash her hands at the center. I interviewed a few that rambled on so much without responding to my actual question (may be that they were nervous) but during their ramble shared some really odd tales about their personal life that left me feeling like they were a bit crazy. I really did not ask about how much her mother hates her boyfriend or how much her boyfriend’s mother drinks. I lucked out with my one and only hire from Sitter City who was a college student, studying nursing. She was an experienced sitter, intelligent, nurturing and showed up on time each day. When she returned to school, I ended up hiring the daughter of an older friend of mine. So in short, you can use the internet and still be very selective. Good luck..it is tough. I had a hard time and I was just looking for a day time sitter to watch my son while I work from home (where I am within earshot and can pop in on the two of them at any second). I can’t imagine how nervous I would be finding someone to actually leave him with alone.

I was on SitterCity.com and found my current sitter. She is great with my kids, especially my little one. I posted the job and got a lot of responses, some not so great just by what they wrote to me. Once you have a couple of people, you can interview just like you would the teen down the street or a church member as some people do. And a background check is available on the site.

I'm not sure about the online thing either. I'd recommend just asking around for references. If you are part of a church group ask around there. Good luck.

Both of my sisters are nannies right now and they both have ALWAYS gotten their "families" from sittercity. I personally asked my day care provider if she knew anyone and she offered to do it herself! But I want the kids to know she is their full-time sitter, but have someone if my husband and I want to get out sometimes. She gave me the name and number of a good friend, so I look forward to meeting her and hopefully using her in the near future!! But sittercity looked reliable and had background checks and reviews and everything to make an informed decision.

I had fantastic luck with Sittercity.com. My main sitter from there moved to WI, so need to go back on and find someone I can use during days. I also had applicants I was interested stop by to meet us... to see how the kids responded, etc. I was freaked out as well- and was preferring a friend or a friend or personal referral, but nothing surfaced. I was extremely happy

I found the family that i currently nanny for on care.com! Its a great site and you can interview the candidates at a public place! PS Im a great baybsitter! :)

if you're looking for like, a teenager to watch your kid to go out in the evenings, I would suggest going to your church's youth group leader. They can usually point you towards the responsible babysitters.

I have used both care.com and sittercity.com and had great experiences.

I now serve as a parent team for a new online upcoming company, CareNovate.com that will offer not only child care services but pet, office, home, educational and more. I like it because they have a diverse parent team (includes social workers, direct care workers, retired nurses, etc) that will approve all applicants and most care givers will have background check services via the site. They are to be cost effective, in other words cheaper than the rest while maintaining quality

The site will be launching later this year and i think it will be awesome
check out it http://www.carenovate.com or http:www.carenovate.com/blog
http://www.facebook.com/cnovate

N. Ogum