Appropriate Chores to Expect Your Babysitter to Do

Enlisting the help of a babysitter can bring immense relief to your life as you have a trusted individual to keep watch over your family while you are unable to. For every family, the expectations placed on a nanny or babysitter may vary greatly. Some families want a babysitter to spend the majority of their child’s daily life together with a live-in situation, while others may just be looking for a childcare option for a few hours here and there. One thing parents may ask of their babysitter is to take care of household chores while on the job. For some babysitters, this is no trouble as they expect it as part of the job, but for others, they may think it is well above their pay grade.

Are you unsure about whether you can ask your babysitter to complete household chores while they are on the clock? Keep reading for ideas of appropriate chores to expect your babysitter to do while taking care of your children.

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Clean-up after meal time

If your babysitter is in charge of preparing a meal for your child during their time together, it is perfectly reasonable to expect them to clean up after meal time. From stowing away leftovers to washing dishes and wiping down dirtied surfaces, reverting the kitchen and/or eating areas back to their original conditions pre-meals should be the standard.

Cleaning up after the kids

Kids are messy. As the babysitter watches over your children, there are bound to be some forms of mess created around your home. This can include anything from spilled juice or snacks on the carpet to toys thrown around the playroom after some playtime.

It is perfectly reasonable to ask your babysitter to take care of any messes that occur while they are on the clock. You can also encourage your babysitter to enlist the help of your children, encouraging your children to pick up cleaning tasks and responsibilities at an early age.

In some cases, you may be asking your babysitter to complete other child-related chores, like doing the child’s laundry, washing bedding and making their beds, and so on.

How to reason through what’s “appropriate” 

If you are still unsure about what is considered an appropriate question, there are a couple of questions you should be asking yourself before asking your babysitter to take on an extra chore. The first question should be if the task is child-related. Your babysitter is here to take care of your child so any extra tasks you give them should be related to your child, from organizing toys after playtime to washing dishes after mealtime. You should not expect your babysitter to take up any chores that are unrelated to childcare, like washing your own clothes or giving your dog a bath.

The second question should be how much attention and time the task takes. Regardless of whether or not the task is child-related or not, you do not want to delegate work to your babysitter that would ultimately take their time and attention away from your child – their current responsibility. Making them deep clean your kitchen or bathrooms, scrubbing every surface, and mopping the floors, can take their attention completely away from your child as your child sits in a room down the hall, out of sight.

If you are asking your babysitter to take up some cleaning, you can request that they complete any chores while the child is down for naptime and doesn’t require close supervision.

Take your babysitter’s opinion into consideration

Make sure to communicate with your babysitter about what chores are expected of them. Everyone’s situation is different. If your babysitter is solely looking for childcare work, they may be unwilling to take on extra housework at all, or without added compensation. Other nannies have experienced added chores with past jobs and are perfectly fine with the additional work. A teen babysitter may give you more opposition, while a live-in babysitter can come into the job with the expectation that they are going to be doing some form of housework during their employment.

Consider your babysitter’s experience and opinion before landing on your final decision. Once you do get to a final decision, make it clear to your babysitter what is expected of them through conversation and a written babysitter contract that you can reference throughout their employment. If you are asking your babysitter to pick up a few extra tasks, make sure they are fairly compensated for doing so.

At the end of the day, remember that your babysitter’s primary job is to take care of your child, not to be your housekeeper. If you are asking your babysitter to spend their time cleaning up the house instead of keeping a close eye on your children, you may consider getting a housekeeper instead.