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Strollerderby
The good sitters have us over a barrel. You don’t want to pay too little and risk losing the rare chunk of gold that is a responsible sitter with good references who your kids actually love.
But you don’t want to bankrupt yourself just get a date night either. And surveys like the recent “Nanny Survey” out of Park Slope, Brooklyn, don’t make life much easier with statements like “Pay rates vary considerably from family to family, depending on a wide variety of factors, including some not obvious in these statistics (e.g., how demanding the employer is, Nanny’s ability to be flexible with hours, etc).”
So how do you throw all those factors out and just get down to the dollars and cents? Turns out there are just five factors you really need to consider when it comes time to pull out your wallet – or woo a new sitter. Continue reading »
Is there anything you can’t do on the Internet? You can order a pizza, pick your hairstyle, and even find the love of your life. And these days, it turns out, you can even be a hero without having to leave the comfort of your parents’ basement. In fact, a 17-year-old girl from England managed to foil the rape of a five-year-old North Carolina girl, thanks to the internet.
Granny daycare is supposed to be the next best thing to being able to stay home and care for your own kids 24/7. But a new study out of Britain claims letting your parents watch your kids could be bad for their health.
Granny and Gramps might just be making your kids fat. Continue reading »
You might not have heard the kids’ screams of joy at the prospect of a snow day in the northeast today. That’s because their parents were crying out in anguish.
They were faced with some tough choices: pay a sitter, take a day off of work or what? How about sending the kids to snow camp? Continue reading »
In case you missed the gazillion and one ads for large screen TVs these past few weeks, word has it there’s big doings Sunday night on TV. And if the first thought that came into your mind was Puppy Bowl than stop reading now.
Because Puppy Bowl is an obvious one for keeping the kids IN the room. The Super Bowl, well, that seems to vary by family.
Babysitter finders Sitter City say you NEED to find a sitter this weekend, and although we’re pretty well aware of what’s in it for them, we were intrigued by their reasoning: Continue reading »
A good sitter is worth her weight in gold – or in my house, chocolate – but they have a lot in common with sexy straight men who aren’t flying the freak flag: they’re all taken.
No wonder some moms are taking the same steps they took to hook a sperm donor to find their new nanny. They’re going speed dating. Continue reading »
Last week on Babble, Shannon Rassmussen told us how to get and keep a quality babysitter. But what happens if the person you’ve already hired turns out not to be the person you thought they were?
Over at Motherlode, an anonymous mom tells her story: Her beloved nanny, described as a selfless young woman who is unusually skilled with children, is suspected of feeding the kids — one three, the other 16 months — Benadryl every day at nap time. The nanny has been fired, but the mom wonders if she’s got a responsibility to the nanny’s next family:
Lori Garcia 
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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