Make time on a regular basis to talk with your babysitter or nanny about your child’s care. It will be easier to have informal discussions than to have formal ‘reviews,’ however both are very important to you.
Set aside time within your daily routine to talk with your nanny about your child’s day. Be on the lookout for any trends with your child, you, or his sitter which might indicate a problem or concern. The sooner you discover and talk about problems, the easier it is to fix them. Also, if you don’t feel informed about your child and his daily routine, you might miss an opportunity for helping him.
For example, you are perplexed to find that your six-month-old is suddenly very restless and cranky during his evening walk — something you especially look forward to. After trying several different options without any luck, you happen to mention it to your nanny. It turns out she’s been taking him for a walk every afternoon, which he loves, but it’s apparent his limit is one walk a day. Now that you’ve uncovered the whole picture, you and your nanny can decide on the best waya to handle things.
In addition to your daily informal sessions, you should set up a schedule of regular reviews. In the early stages of working with your nanny, these can be effective to have every other week. Every two weeks gives you both time to get a feel for needed changes and still review your progress within a reasonable time. Once you have settled into a routine, an occasional talk about ‘how things are going’ will accomplish several things:
- It gets you away from the day to day inssues and lets you anticipate upcoming phases in your child’s life.
- It creates an open forum to talk about how you can beter handdle situations.