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Looking for a good babysitter is very similar to dating. You contact scores of sitters, looking for "the one," you meet and after some awkward small talk. You may pick the wrong person, go through a bad breakup, and then hit the bricks looking for your rebound sitter.
Throughout the process you find some doozies as well as some truly amazing individuals, who, of course are booked every Friday and Saturday night.
A few moms out there are making the process a little easier by taking their cues from the dating scene.
They are organizing speed-dating-like events to help other parents meet potential babysitters. The events go by different names, such as sitter mixers, babysitting meeting services and sitter soirees, but all use the speed-dating model -- the parents and the sitters sit down for four to eight mini-interviews to get to know each other, and the parents leave with a few potential sitters' phone numbers.
"We are trying to take some of the work out of the process," Katy Langhorst, co-founder of Sitter Mixer in Massachusetts, told AOL News.
She said parents usually still have a more formal interview later with the sitters they met, but after the initial meeting, "you now know if you have chemistry and you can take it from there."
According to Langhorst, babysitters fill out an online resume that covers their skills, experience, first aid certification, hours available, rates and references. Langhorst and her business partner, Tara Harville-Fry, check the references before the event.
The parents also fill out an online registration form with their children's ages and what they are looking for in a sitter. When both parents and sitters arrive at the event they have a list of those people who best match with their needs and experience.
The event begins with a little mingling, but when Langhorst blows a whistle the interviewing begins. Langhorst says the mini-interviews are a good way to see if the parent and sitter click.
The sitters at these events often provide critical assistance to families living far from grandparents, aunts and uncles. Tracy Crowley of Extraordinary Mamas in Redmond, Wash., organized an event recently with the Lullaby League, a sitter matching service. She said many families in town have moved across the country or across the globe to work for nearby Microsoft.
"When you don't have a support system in place, finding someone you trust with your children is really hard," Crowley told AOL News.
Shannon Choe of Premier Sitter Services in Philadelphia started her sitter "speed dating" events because of her own need for a sitter. She needed reliable babysitters to watch her three children while she ran her primary business, a baby planning service.
"I had one day with seven interviews booked back to back," she recalled. "Some didn't show up, and I could tell others weren't a good fit when they came to the front step."
Suzanne Barker of Peabody, Mass. found two sitters through Sitter Mixer for her 18-month son at an event in December.
She left that mixer with a few valuable phone numbers -- which like in the dating world, are priceless, because competition for a good catch can get ugly.
"I know a few moms in the area who have sitters, but no one is willing to share them," Barker said.
AOL
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