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Sitter City: Great Resource to Find Baby Sitters ... Really?

Every parent, sooner or later, will be in need of a babysitter. Whether it's because you need to be at work, have an appointment that you can't miss, or simply need to have a break from family life to keep your sanity ... having a babysitter that you can trust your precious little ones can sometimes (or is it most of the time) be a challenge.

For the lucky ones who have family members, relatives, or their neighbors to depend on for baby sitting, I envy you. For parents like us who need outside help for baby sitting or do not want to hassle others, we have two options: find baby sitters the old fashioned way through recommendations from family and friends or find baby sitters the modern way via the internet.

A Parent's Concerns

Most recently, my husband and I were faced with a situation wherein the only option we had left was to go online to look for a babysitter. Through some friend's recommendation, we decided to check-out Sitter City.

As parents, one of the most important criteria we have in mind is the safety of our seven year old child. Can we trust the babysitter with our little girl? Do we feel comfortable leaving our child with the babysitter alone in our house? Can the baby sitter take care of our child and at the same time be a mentor and sort of a role model? Since we are using an online service, are the baby sitters screened at all? Are they certified to be baby sitters? What about first aid ... are they knowledgeable just in case an incident occurs and they need to be able to administer fist aid.

I Felt Compelled to Do My Due Diligence

While Sitter City came highly recommended, as a parent, I felt that it was my responsibility to do my due diligence on this service. My husband and I initially combed the web to find out what others had to say about Sitter City. Based on what I have seen, most of those who actually used Sitter City provided positive feedback about the service. Those that had negative feedback about the service pretty much focused on the fee that they had to pay.

Given that we have seen quite enough actual Sitter City user feedback, we decided to do some background check on Sitter City. Through our research, we found out that Sitter City.com was started by Genevieve Thiers back in 2001 while she was a Boston College student. She modeled Sitter City after successful online dating services wherein you can try to match those who need babysitters with those willing to provide the service.

From its small initial base of clients in the Boston area, Sitter City has grown and now serves more than half a million users nationwide in cities all across the United States. Sitter City has also expanded the scope of its services to pet sitters, elder care, tutors and more. For us, our interest is just for babysitting for out seven year old.

If you want to learn more about how Sitter City started and became what it is today, here is a link to the company's background.

So ... What Can Sitter City Do for Us?

My husband and I were impressed by how Genevieve Thiers was able to grow a simple idea into a service accessible by people on nationwide. After learning about the company's background, we thought that it was time to learn more details about their service. So the main question in our minds was: "What can Sitter City do for us?".

Aside from being able to look for babysitters from the comfort of my home or office, I have access to a number of sitters searchable by zip code. We thought that this was so simple and really made it easy for us to start our search. You also have the option to post a job and let the babysitters contact you.

So after we punched in the zip code, we were taken to a page where we were able to further narrow our search by distance, whether the babysitter has transportation, whether the babysitter is willing to do light housekeeping, has experience with special-needs kids, etc. Sitter City also allowed us to further narrow down our search to see who has first aid and CPR certification. For us, we think this is very important, just in case something untoward happens (of course, we hope that such a situation does not happen but it is good to know that whoever is watching over our child is capable of really taking care of her).

We were also able to browse through a babysitter's profile, see her availability, do a background check (Sitter City uses LexisNexis for this at $9.99 per background check person), and read through available references, and most importantly, their reviews. For us, the $9.99 background check is well worth it considering that we are insuring the safety of our precious child. As far as we are concerned, this is also an investment for our peace of mind so that we can at least relax knowing that our daughter is safe. Sitter City's background check includes an identity check, a national criminal search, traffic violations, and a check through the sex offender and violent crime registry.

Sitter City also has some great resources on how to interview a babysitter, a rate calculator to determine how much we should pay the babysitter based on the going rate in the area and her background, and an indicator which tells us the last time a babysitter candidate signed into the site. If it has been a long time since the babysitter signed into the site, then she probably might no longer be interested in babysitting.

What Sitter City Isn't

Keep in mind that just like other babysitter services, you may find certain issues with the service if you think that this service will do everything for you. Keep in mind that services like Sitter City only facilitates the process of the search. It provides you with the tools to help narrow down your choices from an extensive pool of baby sitting providers. This means that if you do not know how to narrow down your choice of candidates to a few choices, then you might have tough time finding the right set of candidates to interview. Eventually, the screening criteria starts with you.

If you know what you are looking for in a babysitter, the service can actually do a good job of paring down your choices. The key is for you to know exactly what your requirements or credentials are for your ideal babysitter. Do you want to them to still be in college or a mother who does babysitting on the side? Do you want someone who has their own means transportation?  Do you require someone who knows how to communicate in other languages. How about CPR or first aid? Do you require these? Again, it is important that you know the requirements that will make you feel that you are getting the right babysitter for your child.

Another potential issue that we see with using Sitter City is that some people might let down their guard regarding background checks. Just because a babysitter is listed in Sitter City does not mean that you should assume that Sitter City has done their due diligence in screening people.

Remember, Sitter City is like the eBay or Amazon.com for babysitters and those who need babysitting services — it facilitates the process of finding the right match for those who need the service with those who can provide the service. Once you have chosen the your final list of candidates, it is your responsibility to do the final screening through in-person interviews, going through the reviews of the babysitters, checking with references, and most importantly, background checks.

Keep in mind that Sitter City can facilitate the background checking. Even with the $9.99 fee for background checks, we found this worth the investment since I do not think my husband and I can do the comprehensive background check ourselves. Doing so will also cost us more dollar-wise plus time-wise.

Did We Find Our Ideal Babysitter?

Just like the process in looking for your "ideal" employee, Sitter City helped screen through potential candidates so that we can get to the next stage in the process — the interview.

For my husband and I, we arranged for separate face-to-face interviews with three potential candidates on Sitter City who matched our criteria. To make a long story short, we eventually settled with Sarah, to whom our daughter instantly warmed up to. Our daughter loves "hanging out" with Sarah and looks up to her like a big sister. Sarah has been a wonderful and very responsible babysitter — someone we can truly trust to look after our daughter. We have been using Sarah since then to care for our daughter whenever we need a babysitter.   

Our Bottom-line Thoughts on Sitter City

A common negative feedback that we have seen about Sitter City is the cost. Sitter City has two payment options: an annual plan that comes down to $7.99 a month billed upfront ($95.88) and a monthly plan costing $39.99 for the first month then $9.99 every month. Obviously, the annual plan is a better deal it cost less, which means that you get more bang for your buck.

Do we find the $95.88 up front fee and additional $9.99 charge for background checks sort of overboard? Personally, not at all. For the convenience and time savings that this service has provided me and my husband in our search for a baby sitter, I believe that this service provides such a great value for our money. We would not have been able to find a great pool of candidates to chose from if it wasn't for Sitter City's extensive list of babysitters within our area. And if it wasn't for the ease of use of  Sitter City's screening process, what would take us hours and hours to do on our own can be done within minutes.

We think of it this way. How much of our time, as well as other people's time, will we be spending just to find a baby sitter the old fashioned way? Well, maybe it's just us but the whole process of finding a babysitter by calling friends and neighbors is, based on our experience, is just a lot of work. Sitter City scores high with us in terms of the convenience and value for your money factors. We definitely would be willing to pay that $7.99 a month for the convenience Sitter City provides us.

Also, if you are not willing to invest $9.99 for a comprehensive background check on people you will be entrusting to look after your kids, we think that for a minimal investment, you are taking too much of a risk, especially when it come to the safety of your kids.

Based on our overall experience with Sitter City, is this online babysitter service something that we would recommend to other parents? By making the search process for a babysitter more convenient to do, Sitter City is a service that parents should seriously look into. In short — yes, we would highly recommend this to other parents.

Just in case you are not aware of the other services that Sitter City has, the site also offers searches for petsitters, nannies, housesitters, tutors, and senior care. These are all part your membership, which makes the deal even sweeter. For us, it's nice to know that we have access to all these services within the convenience of our home.

As a final advise, if you decide to use Sitter City and end up finding a potential babysitter who you think might be perfect to take care of your kids, we suggest that you really spend time learning more about this person. Regardless of how and where you are looking for a babysitter, whether through friends or online, you are always bound to run into some risks. Sitter City has the tools to help you minimize the risks. We also urge you to never be complacent about any potential safety concerns that you may have, especially when it comes to hiring someone you will be entrusting your most valuable asset ... your kids.

I hope my review of Sitter City will help you decide if this online babysitter service is best for you and your family.

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