Questions to Ask a Babysitter Interview
Questions for interviewing a sitter you hope to use regularly: availability, how they handle siblings and screens, homework and outdoor play, what they do when patience runs short, and what they need from you as a family.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What experience do you have with children the age mine are?
Why ask it
The gap between a toddler and an eight-year-old is the whole job. Someone who has mostly sat for older children may be excellent and still need telling that a two-year-old cannot be left in a room alone for five minutes.
How did you start babysitting, and how often do you do it now?
Why ask it
Whether this is occasional work between other commitments or something they do most weeks tells you how reliable the arrangement will be. Someone with one regular family and a full timetable elsewhere will be hard to book.
How much notice do you need, and which evenings are you usually free?
Why ask it
Ask before you get attached to the idea. The most common reason a good sitter does not work out is not judgement or skill, it is that their free evenings never match yours.
What would you want to know about our house and routine before the first evening?
Why ask it
Turn the interview around and see what they ask for. Experienced sitters want the bedtime sequence, allergies and where things are kept. Someone with no questions has not pictured being alone in your house yet.
How would you spend the first half hour after I leave?
Why ask it
The handover is when things go wrong, and the answer shows whether they plan to distract or to comfort. Either can work, but a sitter who intends to start with a screen has given away their whole approach.
What do you do when a child keeps asking for something after you have said no?
Why ask it
Persistence is the standard test children run on a new adult. Listen for whether they hold the line calmly or start negotiating, because once they negotiate the same request returns every fifteen minutes.
How do you handle two children arguing over the same thing?
Why ask it
Answers divide into judging who had it first and removing the object. The second causes a bigger row and fewer repeats, and a sitter who names that trade-off has clearly done it.
What would you do if the older one would not let the younger one join in?
Why ask it
This is the most common sibling problem of an evening and it rarely gets asked about. You want someone who will give the older child a legitimate space rather than forcing inclusion, which usually backfires.
How do you get children off a screen without a fight?
Why ask it
Warnings before the end, and finishing at a natural break rather than mid-episode, are the answers that work. A sitter who says they simply take the tablet away is describing the evening you will come home to.
Would you help with homework, and what do you do when they are stuck?
Why ask it
Some sitters will sit alongside and some will not touch it, and both are fine as long as you know which. The useful part is whether they would give the answer or leave a note telling you what was hard.
If the weather were good, what would you do outside with them?
Why ask it
You are checking whether outdoors is part of their plan or a last resort. A specific answer, the park at the end of the road, the garden with chalk, is more convincing than enthusiasm about fresh air.
How do you keep track of them at a playground or in the garden?
Why ask it
Look for a positioning answer rather than a vigilance answer: standing where both children are visible, choosing an enclosed space, counting heads at the gate. Promising to watch carefully is not a method.
What would you do if one of them got upset about me being out?
Why ask it
The answer you want acknowledges the feeling and does not offer to phone you at the first tear. A sitter who would ring you every time has not learned that most upset passes in ten minutes.
What do you do when your own patience is running out?
Why ask it
Asking it directly gives permission to be honest, and honest answers exist: stepping into the hall, changing the activity, putting the television on and accepting it. Anyone who claims never to feel it has not worked long enough.
If you were not sure whether something was allowed, what would you do?
Why ask it
Text you and wait is the answer. Guessing correctly once teaches them to guess again, and the second guess is the one that causes a problem.
Would you be making them a meal, and what would you cook?
Why ask it
Establishes both willingness and range before it becomes an assumption. If cooking is part of the job, say so now and agree what they may use, since sitters are often nervous about helping themselves to food.
What do you expect from us as a family?
Why ask it
A sitter with clear expectations, a finishing time that is kept, food available, being told about a bad day in advance, is easier to work with than one who says they are easy-going. Vagueness here often becomes resentment later.
Has there been a family you stopped sitting for, and what happened?
Why ask it
Everyone who has done this for a while has one, and the reason is usually late payment or late parents. How they describe it tells you how they would describe you, and whether they raised the problem before walking away.
What do you want to ask me about the children or how we do things?
Why ask it
Leave time for this properly rather than tacking it on. The questions they choose show what they think matters, and the things they do not ask about are the things you will need to write down.
Which families could I contact about working with you?
Why ask it
Ask for families who used them more than once. When you call, the question worth asking is what the sitter is not good at, since a reluctant pause there is more informative than any amount of praise.
Interviewing for a regular arrangement
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Getting a real interview rather than a chat
Do it in your home, at the time they would work
A meeting at seven in the evening, with your children tired and the kitchen in its usual state, is a more honest preview than a coffee on a Saturday morning. It also lets them see the house before agreeing to anything.
Ask about behaviour, not values
"What would you do if" produces answers you can judge. "How do you feel about discipline" produces answers everyone knows how to give. Keep to situations that will really happen in your house.
Say what the job actually involves
Bedtime alone is different from a full evening with dinner, homework and two bath times. Describing the real workload up front avoids the common ending where a sitter quietly stops being available.
Agree these before the first booking
- The rate, whether it changes after bedtime or at weekends, and how and when you pay.
- A firm finishing time, and what you pay if you are late.
- Cancellation on both sides, including how much notice counts as fair.
- Whether they cook, tidy, or handle laundry, so the expectation is stated rather than assumed.
- Whether they may take the children out of the house, and where.
Making a regular sitter want to keep coming
- Be back when you said, or message the moment you know you will not be.
- Pay promptly and at the agreed rate, without needing to be reminded.
- Leave the routine written down and food they are welcome to eat.
- Tell them in advance if a child has had a hard day or is coming down with something.
- Book ahead for the dates you know about. Good sitters lose evenings to families who ask earlier.
After the first evening
- Ask your children what they did, not whether they liked the sitter. The account of the evening is more useful than the verdict.
- Ask the sitter what was harder than they expected. Their answer shows whether they will tell you the awkward things.
- Notice whether the house is roughly as you left it, and whether anything that went wrong was mentioned before you found it.
- Decide about a second booking on the handover and the honesty, not on how much your children liked the evening. Children like the sitter who says yes to everything.