Babysitting Blog: Sample Guide To Getting Through The Day

Come one, come all! Parents, older siblings, babysitters- no matter what position you find yourself in, dealing with one or many kids can be quite a handful. I have been babysitting my nieces and nephews for roughly eight years. During that time, I have come up with numerous tricks, tips, and game plans to get you through a long day with the kiddos.

Let’s start with the basics. Every parent wants their child to be happy, healthy, and safe. However, kids naturally tend to go against these basic parental desires.

Children often go through a wide range of emotions on a daily basis which can be difficult to cope with, particularly if more than one child is involved. As far as health and safety goes, there seems to always be a constant battle going on between kids and adults. They want to get messy, take risks, eat candy, and avoid anything that interferes with their creative mindset (such as taking a bath after finger painting in the hallway).

Listed below is a sample guide I’ve made for how to get through the day. Feel free to use these tips if you’re in a bind and need some help!

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Sample Guide Broken Down

Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner

-When TV’s Your Friend: Best to turn the TV on or get the kiddos involved when it comes to preparing meals. My three year old niece Hannah will often refuse to eat eggs or vegetables. I’ve found that offering her small bites when she is zoned into her favorite show helps.

-Fun Food: Make the food pretty. If it looks fun to eat, they will feel like they’re playing a game and we all know kids LOVE games! I like to make green eggs and ham and play the show while they are eating it.

-Easy Clean-Up: if they’re going to help you cook, I advise laying a towel over the kitchen table for easy clean-up after you’re done. Also, try to use plastic bowls because kids tend to drop stuff. Glass bowls are more likely to break when they drop! If you’re making cookies, pancakes, or other baked goods, try measuring out what you need for the recipe using different measuring tools. The kids can dump the ingredients from the tools into the bowl and stir away (with less mess than if they were to pour the ingredients into the measuring tools themselves).

-Hidden Nutrition: If you have a blender, experiment with food by adding blended veggies or fruits into the mix. One of my nieces’ and nephews’ favorite recipes is for banana pancakes. That recipe includes blended cucumbers, carrots, zucchini, and bananas. If you get the portions just right, they won’t be aware of your diabolical plan.

Learning Activities

–“Games”: When you suggest these activities to your kids, call them “games” because, essentially, that is what they are. Games can be fun AND educational! You just have to know what your kid likes and combine those things with what you want them to learn about!

–Arts and Crafts: paper, crayons, and Google. Ask them what they would like to draw and look up “how to draw ___ for kids.” I like to make story books with my nieces. I help them write down a story that they come up with then help them draw what they described in the story. We then will use those storybooks for Reading Time later in the day.

–World Travel: Have some spare paper lying around the house? Perfect! That, a pen, and some chairs are all you’ll need for this game.

• Draw Train Tickets for the kiddos and hide them somewhere. I like to add in a Hotel Key (literally just “Hotel Key” written on a scrap piece of paper) and Free Drink/Snack Coupons.
• Use scrap paper to draw arrows that guide the kids to the tickets and then to the Train Station.
• Train Station: line up some chairs in a row. Have arrows that lead the kids to the “station” where you will be, announcing, “all aboard!”
• Let the kids pick where they want to go. Anywhere in the world!
• Ask the kids to help you move the train along by moving their arms like they’re pushing the wheels round and round. Encourage them to “blow the whistle” by pulling their arms up and down, shouting, “choowoo!”
• Escort them to their “hotel.” It can be anywhere that has a bed or couch for them. Next, let them play while you set up some games that relate to the location they decided to visit. My seven year old niece always picks some place in the U.S. like Florida followed by a far away place such as Africa or China. You can give them Airplane Tickets if you wish!
• Google some cool kid facts about the places they want to visit. Walk around the house with them on a tour and explain all the things you would see if you were really at that location. In China, my nieces visit the spa (manicures, massages, and baths). In Africa, they like to make an obstacle course and pretend they are in the jungle. Use your imagination! Be sure to ask them questions about what they see around them. For example, “We are in Africa! What animals do you see?”

Exercises

-Best to call these exercises “games” as well. It’s simple really: kids love games so if you can convince them they are playing one, they will react positively.

–Obstacle Course: this is my absolute favorite exercise for the kiddos. Why? Because you can use just about anything to make this game work. Get the kids involved!

• Tell them you are setting up an obstacle course for an adventure game.
• Have them clear a large space in your house (or outside) for the course.
• Next grab all the pillows you’re comfortable with letting them jump on and spread them across the floor. These can be the “stones” they jump across. If they fall off, they have to start over!
• I like to throw in stuff for them to crawl under (such as a blanket stretched across two chairs) or jump over (for example, a hoola hoop- jump three times in and out before moving on to the next part of the course).
• Be sure to demonstrate how the obstacle course works. If you have an older kid, have them show and/or help the younger kids through the course.
• My nieces LOVE for me to time them and tell them who won first, second, and third place (I always take third just to give them an ego boost).

-Dance Time: this exercise is pretty self explanatory. It’s simple but effective! It’s fun and it tends to wear them out a bit.

Bath Time

-Some kids LOVE baths! Others… don’t. I turn bath time in to (you guessed it) a game. Here’s how you do it:

-Figure out what show your kid is currently obsessed with.

-Run the bath. Make sure it’s not too hot or too cold!

-Does your kid have a favorite bath toy? Hide it in the back corner of the tub, in a place where they would have to actually be in the water to reach the toy. I like to hide a baby rubber ducky.

-Become an evil villain. My three-year old niece is in love with The PowerPuff Girls. When her bath is ready, I’ll cackle evilly, “MWAHAHAHAHA! I am Moooojo-JoJo! I have stolen the baby duck from her family and no one can stop me!”

-Put on a show. Switch back and forth from your bad guy voice to your good guy voice. The good guy voice should be used to encourage your kid to save the ducky!

-Sometimes kids don’t want to get down to their birthday suit because they know it means bath time. The trick with this is to distract them WHILE you help them dress down for tub time. Use funny voices and tell them a story about how they could save the duck. I always tell my niece that the water is too high and the baby duck can’t swim so she needs the “Hannah-Puff Girl” to save her!

-Having trouble washing hair? Grab a dry washcloth and a large plastic cup. This is where the bad guy voice comes in handy. If you’re pretending to be the evil Mojo JoJo, you can pretend to make it rain by dumping water on their head and laughing evilly. Then you can switch to your normal voice and offer them the washcloth to get water out of their eyes.

-The biggest thing is to distract them and help them have a good time! Think of it as a productive, interactive play.

I hope that these tips and tricks will come in handy for you. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to comment below! Thanks for reading.