Free Printable Babysitter's Information Guide
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Leaving your children with a babysitter — especially a new one — can be daunting, and one of the best ways to relieve stress on both sides is to provide the sitter with plenty of information about your children and your family.
From contact info to allergies to bedtime routines, a good babysitter's guide will provide your sitter with important details needed to handle emergencies or uncertainties and give you peace of mind.
Important info to leave for babysitters
Here are the main important pieces of important we think you leave with your babysitter:
- Parents' cell phone numbers
- Where parents will be and when they'll be home
- Pediatrician phone number
- Poison control in case of an emergency number
- Name and number of a trusted neighbor and other emergency contacts
- Children's allergy info
- Children's current medications
- Insurance info and medical treatment release
- Bed time routine and daily schedule for each child
- Forbidden foods or behaviors
- Rules about use of electronics
- Basic house rules
- Location of household items that might be needed
Free download of our editable babysitter information sheet
We've put together a very comprehensive babysitter information sheet that has all of these main sections, and we're offering it to you as a free customizable download.
Once you download our free babysitter guide, just open it in Microsoft Word/Office to edit it for your family's needs.
Then hang a copy on the fridge before you leave, and your sitter will have easy access to vital info.
To save on multiple printouts for each time the sitter comes, consider making a reusable version. Just fill in the standard info, and leave the changing fields blank. Then laminate it and use a dry erase marker to fill in relevant info each time.
10 comments so far:
What a great form! Will be very useful. Also, here are some other tips for making a babysitting experience a good one:
# Consider preordering pizza - most websites will let you specify a time and the order. This way you can be sure to use all coupons you want, get something you know your child(ren) will eat, and prepay and tip with a credit card so you don't have to leave cash for the babysitter.
# Make sure you have plenty of drinks and snacks for the babysitter also!
# Keep the list of general contact numbers (pediatrician, after-hours dr number, poison control, plus contact for parents/grandparents/family friends, etc.) near every phone. We have laminated copies on each floor, with the one in the kitchen in a magnetic sleeve on the refrigerator door. Keeps everything handy for parents too!
# If your child isn't enthusiastic about the whole babysitter idea, plan a special activity (painting, play-doh, etc.), pull out a toy that's been hidden for a while, or pull out a new toy/movie to help them be excited.
Jenny, thanks for the great ideas! I had no idea you could pre-order pizza online. It would be nice to send a starving college student a pie that way sometime.
This was a lifesaver!!! What a wonderfully thorough babysitter's guide!! I really appreciated not having to think of all of that inforamtion on my own!! thanks again!!
You're welcome, Dineen. Glad we could help you keep your babysitter informed!
it won't open! :-(
Lila, the guide is a Microsoft Word document (.doc) so you'll need either Word or something that can open .doc files in order to open it.
Wonderful! Totally comprehensible, Great list for my granddaughter and her son.
I’m starting to babysit this summer !
This was perfect, thank you! Leaving our girls with a non-family sitter for the first time and this was very helpful.
Mallory, we're so glad this helped you out!