It is not uncommon for parents nowadays to leave their children, even infants, with a babysitter as most parents have to work. Sometimes it may be only for a few hours so that you can leave the house to run some errands. One issue that many parents sought baby advice for is whether it is necessary for babysitters to be trained in first aid? If not, would you feel confident enough to leave your precious little ones with her?

There are more important questions to ask when you are interviewing a potential babysitter beside her charges, her schedule available to do babysitting for you and the dates that she is available to help you out. What are these important queries? Such questions might be issues like would she be able to clear the baby’s airway in case of choking? Should the baby stop breathing, would she be able to administer CPR and is she qualified to perform the Heimlich Maneuver? These are the more important criteria to consider rather than which babysitter will help you to save a dollar or two each hour.

In fact, there are many first aid training courses available to encourage babysitters to take them up. Interested babysitters can easily look up flyers from institutions for such types of training or call up the Red Cross organizations. There are also many other profit as well as non-profit organizations that conduct such first aid training courses.

There are some teenagers who like to earn money by babysitting. As such, organizations have conducted courses such as First Aid Training for them so that they can be a better choice for parents when selecting babysitters. Besides learning how to apply first aid, teenage babysitters can also take up courses on how to effectively play with the little ones, how to answer calls for you when you are out of the house, how to feed, change diapers and take charge in emergencies involving water. Such useful courses are targeted at teenagers between the age of 11 and 15.

With the passing of each course, the babysitter will be issued with a course completion card. You can ask the babysitter for this completion card before employing her because it is not enough to only look for someone who loves kids, the babysitter must also be able to make the best decision when faced with an emergency. No doubt the babysitter will only need to apply first aid on the victim until medical help arrived but it will be a great sense of security for parents if you know that the babysitter will be able to handle such emergencies. However, it is also important to note that having a first aid training completion certificate does not mean that the babysitter is also trained in administering CPR, she must have a separate certification for that, so you might want to keep that in mind.

According to researches carried out, parents have indicated the importance of babysitters having the ability to tell what syrup of ipecac is and its uses, which sized trinkets are dangerous for a child to be putting into his mouth and how to handle situations where the child happen to choke on the small trinkets. However, for many teenage girls, such knowledge is actually not simply common sense situations but are actually things that they have to learn. Besides having your child’s interest at heart, it is useful to know that the girl has gone through the steps to have herself certified because it shows that she is very serious in her work and will be a responsible babysitter. 

Therefore, it is essential for anyone who is interested in child care to be trained in First Aid. As a parent, my baby advice for you is never to leave your little ones in the hands of someone who does not have the proper qualifications or necessary knowledge to take good care of them in any situation. It is now very common to have both parents going out to work every day, so it makes one wonder if having the babysitters trained in First Aid should be made mandatory rather than being only an optional and personal choice.