3 Tips To Help You Prepare For Babysitting Your Grandkids

If you’re a grandparent who’s going to be babysitting your grandkids for the first time, there are a few things that you’ll want to know or keep in mind to make sure everyone has a safe and fun time. So whether you’ve just recently moved into the same area as your grandkids or have just become a grandparent, here are three tips to help you prepare for babysitting your grandkids before it becomes too much of a burden on you or you find yourself moving into an assisted living facility where you can no longer babysit. 

Learn Their Sleep Routines

For small children, or even for older children that you’ll be babysitting into the night, it’s important that you learn about their sleep routines from their parents. By learning what your grandkids usually do before going to bed and what environment is best for them to fall asleep, you’ll have a much better chance of actually getting them to sleep on time. And if it’s for a nap, you’re going to want to be sure they get this sleep so that they’re pleasant for you throughout the rest of your time babysitting. 

Knowing this, you’ll want to have a chat with their parents about how to prepare the kids for sleep and what their sleep usually looks like. This could include things like swaddling the baby, turning on a sound machine, giving them a bath, reading a story, closing the blinds, and getting them to bed at the right time. 

Work To Childproof Your Home

If you’re going to be babysitting at your grandchild’s home, the home is likely already babyproofed since that child lives there. But if you’ll be babysitting at your house, you’ll want to take some steps to get your home childproofed before they arrive. 

To do this, you’ll want to put away anything breakable that could hurt your grandchild, lock up all of your medicines and harmful substances so that they can’t get to them, and keep anything dangerous like scissors or needles out of reach of the kids you’ll be babysitting. 

Don’t Be Afraid To Ask Questions

Kids today are different from the kids that you raised. Because of this, there are going to be things that come up while babysitting that you won’t be prepared for. 

Rather than assuming that you should already know everything, it’s best to just reach out to the parents if and when you have questions about something. By doing this, not only will you not have to guess at things and try to figure them out on your own, but you’ll also be showing the parents that you trust their judgment with their children and respect how they do things. 

If you’re going to be babysitting your grandkids soon, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you prepare for this. 

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