Booklet reveals babysitting bloomers

Advice handbook: Does your babysitter need babysitting? Apparently many people feel they do. And reading through research that prompted publication of a new handbook on babysitting, it would seem some parents could do with guidance too.

Published by the Irish Red Cross the Handbook for Babysitters and Parents is full of advice and tips - and horror stories.

The guide exhorts sitters to give parents as much warning as possible if they need to cancel and not to smoke or drink on the job. It outlines 20 responsibilities for the baby-sitter and 15 for the parents whose children the sitter is looking after. Parents are advised they must engage a "responsible, trustworthy and reliable babysitter who will put the safety and welfare of the children before anything else" as well as "point out the rooms where the children are sleeping".

So far so obvious. However, research carried out in secondary schools found some stories that would leave one concerned as to the welfare of the children once the baby-sitter leaves. One 13 year-old told her teacher she had been expecting to finish a baby-sitting job at about midnight.

"However, at four in the morning one of the parents, the mother finally came home and was with three men. They were all drunk. One of the men was asked to bring this girl home. Not knowing how else to get there she accepted. It was only when she told her own mother the next morning that she realised she had been in the company of a drunken stranger." Almost 10 per cent of those surveyed shared this experience.

The majority of parents give no instructions on how to deal with a fire in the home, while over half of the babysitters found themselves on at least one occasion, nursing ill children.

One of the parents' responsibilities outlined is to cancel the babysitter if your child is ill. "It is not fair to expect a babysitter to nurse you child." And not, one would assume, fair on the child.

Usefully, and not just for babysitters, there are first aid hints though the line which urges young readers to take an Irish Red Cross First Aid course betrays something of the reasoning perhaps behind bringing out the booklet.

The Handbook for Babysitters and Parents booklet, co-produced by Domestos, is free and available from supermarkets or by phoning 1850 650 651.