Would you...

Hire a park sitter to go shopping

  • Why not?

    Votes: 4 36.4%
  • Maybe

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No, I wouldn't

    Votes: 7 63.6%
  • Other, cuz it is the Dis

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    11

Pumbaa_

>Hakuna Matata!<
Moderator
Joined
Jan 7, 2001
curious

In a fb group there was a post recently asking for recommendations on a sitter service for them r child so they could go shopping while the sitter took their child to the parks.

Would you do this?

Mods feel free to remove if it gets crazy
 
I would think they have really good background checks done on them, and what’s the difference from getting a new sitter for the first time at home? Chances are most people don’t do background checks on neighbors before they let there kids have a play date or a sleepover at there friends house. I wonder if they have some kind of tracker so you would know where they are at?
 
Absolutely yes. In fact...been there, done that. Long story short, years ago we wanted to find a local babysitter there so that DW and I could enjoy a night or two in WDW on our own. Our kids were fairly young then, if I recall they were about 8, 5, 5 I think. We stay offsite, so we wanted a sitter to come to our rental house. We had used live in au pairs for years, so we were pretty familiar with interviewing childcare providers sight unseen (the au pairs are from other countries). I don't recall 100%, but we used sites like Care.com and Sittercity (or something like that). We interviewed several people via phone and decided on one. Turns out she is not only a local resident, she was a CM. The first time, she watched them in our rental home. It went great, the kids LOVED her. So after that, we asked her privately (so the kids wouldn't hear if she declined) if she'd be willing to spend a few hours in the park with them instead of just being confined to our rental home. She was all for it, and the kids were super excited. Ever since then, she has now become a family friend, and even at ages 13, 10, 10 the kids look forward to seeing her every trip. When we're putting together our loose outline for a trip, they always ask when they'll get to see her. They love exploring the parks with her, and we enjoy the "mom and dad" time. We even take her out to dinner sometimes, which is nice, so that DW and I get to spend some time shooting the breeze with her (when she babysits the kids just want to go running off with her, so we don't get to talk to her much, LOL. :D )

EDIT: In fact, to circle back to OP question about shopping, it's kind of funny...our kids always save part of their allowance/chore money in a special WDW envelope that they bring down with them for souvenirs. So it's not DW and I doing the shopping, it's the kids, and they want to do the shopping with her. We don't object, and yes, we often will use that time to do any gift shopping for the kids we want to do.

So I'd suggest using due caution and due diligence, but I would have no problem whatsoever with it. It's been absolutely wonderful for us.
 
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Seems like an expensive way to get the kids out of your hair for Christmas shopping but hey.... YMMV!

I see no problem with it, it's like any other situation where you need childcare... do your research, trust your kids' reactions, etc.
 
I'd feel more comfortable about it if there was a way to tag the Magic Bands together or make sure the kid couldn't leave on their own. We have a petting zoo up here that tags each family member with a group number and all members of the party have to leave together at check out.
 

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