Robert H.

Meet Robert

• Comfortable with pets

Hello! My name is Robert, and I am the oldest of four children; so I grew up babysitting my own siblings as well as other family friend's children. I have also given music lessons to children in the past. I had one guitar student who was four years old at the time. Being so young, he could only stay focused on the guitar lesson for about fifteen minutes; so the rest of the time would turn into me babysitting him so his mother would have time to do work and run errands. I had another piano student who was seven at the time I was giving him lessons. He is now eight, and I have baby-sat him on a few occasions as well. For the past two years, I have been babysitting two girls (sisters) on a weekly basis. They were ages four and five when I started and now Read more they are five and six. I was watching them a few days a week at first, and now mostly just watch them on the weekend since they are back in school. A typical day/evening with them usually consists of: -Watching age appropriate movies (almost always Disney/Pixar stuff like Finding Nemo) -Sometimes we will go outside in the backyard, and they will bounce on the trampoline or play on their jungle gym while I watch and make sure they are being safe. On occasion we will go out front and, under my very close supervision, they will ride on their scooters or bicycles. I make sure they wear their helmets when we do the scooter and bike riding. They live near the end of a cul-de-sac street in a suburban community, so it's a pretty safe area for them to ride around; but I still keep very close tabs on them to make sure they stay close and to make sure no cars are coming down the street. Sometimes they will use chalk to draw on the driveway before we go back inside. -Unless they have already been fed, I will make dinner for them around 5:30. Usually simple stuff like PB and J, oven-cooked chicken and fries, or microwaveable pot pies or pizza bites- whatever options their parents told me they could choose from. -Bedtime is at 8pm so around 7:45 I turn off the TV, they go potty and brush their teeth, and then we read a couple short stories before they go to their rooms and go to sleep. Sometimes it is a bit tricky getting them to stay in their rooms and go to sleep. Their rooms are right across the hallway from one another, so sometimes they will try to sneak out of their room and go to the other ones room- or they will try to talk to each other from across the hallway. I can see the hallway from the living room, so I just kind of keep tabs on them after they initially "go to bed" to make sure they actually go to bed. The older one usually falls asleep with little to no trouble. It's not uncommon for the younger one to come out of her room a few times and tell me she is scared. Most of the time, I think she is faking it to see if I will just let her stay up- but I just remind her that, while I am there, nothing bad is going to happen and that I will tell her dad to come check on her when he gets back. Then I walk her back to her room and tell her to lay back down and try to fall asleep. Sometimes it helps if I let her take a book to bed with her. The lights are off, so she can't really read it; but she likes to take one with her to go to bed, and I am okay with it if it helps her stay in bed and go to sleep. -Once they are asleep, I will just sit and watch TV or work my laptop until their parents get home. On extremely rare occasion, the younger one will wet the bed in which case I will put the soiled sheets into the dirty laundry and put a fresh set on the bed. I have become pretty familiar with the rules that their parents have for them, so I basically just try to enforce those as best I can when I watch the girls. The older one will often try to convince me to let her get things out that she is not supposed to which is pretty funny, but I just remind her that the rules are the same with me as they are when her parents are home. I also have my own set of rules that I told the girls the very first time I babysat for them which are: 1. Share 2. Be nice to each other 3. If they get something out to play with, they have to clean it up and put it back before we can get anything else out These are also rules their parents would enforce, but I've found that it helps that I laid those out in the beginning because any time they are fighting over something or using unkind words to each other, I'll say "What are my rules?"; and they usually respond positively to my reminder. I love babysitting and getting to be a part of children's lives as they grow.

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