How Your Babysitter Can Stay Healthy When Caring for Your Sick Kids

Between school or daycare and bringing germs in from your jobs, it’s only a matter of time before your kids get sick with some type of bug. While their sickness may range from something mild such as a common cold or more severe like the flu, there is a risk of it spreading to you and your babysitter. Preventing your babysitter from getting sick is incredibly important so that they can keep taking care of your children in good health. It may seem difficult given the nature of children, but here is how your babysitter can stay healthy when caring for your sick kids.

via Pexels

Washing Hands Often

One of the best and easiest ways to ensure a healthy babysitter is for them to wash their hands often. They should wash their hands after taking care of your children before they touch anything else, especially their face, to prevent germs from spreading and infecting them.

However, they should also wash their hands after tidying up or touching other surfaces your children have been on. After feeding and putting the dishes away or cleaning up any toys or clothes, your babysitter should wash their hands to keep themself safe from any germs on the objects. Provide a powerful hand sanitizer in case the babysitter and your child need to go out of the house and do not have access to a sink.

You should also stress the importance of proper handwashing to your babysitter, as they should follow CDC guidelines. While that may sound intense, it is best to stop the sickness from spreading. They should use warm water and lather their hands with soap for at least 20 seconds.

Lastly, consider investing in a higher-quality or different soap for your babysitter to use. Ideally, you want liquid soap as opposed to bar soap as the latter harbors germs and can spread the more it is used. With liquid soap, you, your children, and the babysitter can all safely use it without worrying about spreading germs.

Disinfecting Surfaces

Next, you want to ensure that your babysitter does not just clean surfaces and items, but disinfects them. As opposed to simply cleaning, disinfecting kills most of any remaining germs. This is essential to keep everyone in the house, including your babysitter, healthy. You can buy disinfecting wipes, sprays, or surface cleaners. Find what works best for you and your babysitter and provide them with the proper materials to keep themself healthy. Encourage them to disinfect everything before using it, just to be safe!

Continue a Healthy Lifestyle

While your children may be sick, your babysitter should continue their healthy lifestyle outside of work. This means that your babysitter should continue to exercise, eat healthy, and most importantly, get enough sleep. Our immune systems are weaker when we are overly tired or find ourselves snacking on too many unhealthy foods.

Encourage your babysitter to leave early one night so that they can get a good night’s sleep before coming in early, or vice versa. While your babysitter does need to take care of your children, they also need to take care of themself. Do not overwork them to the point of exhaustion or where they do not have time to make healthy meals. While you may not know what kind of lifestyle your babysitter lives outside of taking care of your children, it is best to assume they follow healthy guidelines.

Not only that, you should not start changing up your demands or their schedule too much so that their body does not get confused with a change of pace.

Keep Their Distance

If possible, your babysitter should try to keep their distance from your children as much as possible. Given their profession, this isn’t exactly the easiest task., especially if your child is a clingy one. During this time, encourage your babysitter to make hugs quick or nonexistent, and to avoid cuddling close to them on the couch.

Your children should stay in bed and get as much rest as possible, so hopefully they will not need too much hands-on attention from your babysitter. By encouraging your babysitter to keep their distance as much as possible, you can prevent excess germs from spreading to and infecting them.

Wear a Mask

Lastly, you may want to encourage or enforce your babysitter to wear a mask when in your house or spending time with your child. This can prevent your babysitter from being infected in the times they need to stay close to your child which further protects you from your children’s germs in interactions with the sitter. While masks may be uncomfortable, they are still a vital tool to protect ourselves from getting sick!

Your children are inevitably going to come down with some type of bug, but by encouraging your babysitter to stay healthy and implementing some new rules, everyone can stay healthy!