If you don't personally know your babysitter...

Krisann79

DH and I have no family here and most of our friends don't have kids.  We usually go to dinner or go out for drinks with friends while the other stays home with DD.  We DESPERATELY need a babysitter now that the Holiday parties are coming up but we're just too nervous and uncomfortable w/ leaving DD w a stranger. 

How did you get comfortable & get past this feeling?

**History:  DH & I were only watched by family when we were kids.

tpandr08

I used to babysit alot before I had Riley and I would feel the same way on the babystiter end of the spectrum.. So to make things a little more confortable, try meeting them first at a public place like a library where you can all be there, then have the babysitter come to your house once while you are going to be there the whole time, then make sure you leave plenty of time before you actually go out the first time so you can hang with the sitter for a little to make sure there are no other questions.  I always found it better that the parents slipped out quietly while I had the baby happy and playing so they didn't make a big scene about leaving.  This was more for the parents than the child actually....I never had a kid freak out because mom and dad left without saying good bye.

aliciamariel

Does your LO go to daycare or preschool?  A lot of the teachers at our DCP babysit, so he's at least around people he knows.  I haven't had any of them babysit yet, because a good friend of mine from work has babysat (for free!).  I understand what you're going through, though.  We don't have family here, and I had to work at finding friends.  I joined a mommy group when DS was born, and they also babysit back and forth (plus one of the girls' sister is a nanny, so that helps).

Another option that a friend of mine used is going through the local college and looking for people studying early childhood development.  A lot of those students babysit.

Oh, and another friend of mine used care.com and got great results.

anukindaluv

We've only had two sitters (the first had to be replaced when she moved back to the East Coast) but each came to our house before we actually hired them to do a meet-and-greet.  Those lasted about 1-2hrs.  I also try to spend some time with them each afternoon while picking up Urijah..  just having small talk and going over Tooter's day.  I've gotten more and more comfortable with each passing week.