AKA I don't keep snacks in my house because I don't have hungry babies of my own
AKA Don't spoil your kids and expect other people to want to watch them
AKA Stop. Just, please, stop.
AKA I understand everyone needs a break every once in a while, but if watching your kid is a humongous pain in my ass, I'm not going to be the one to do it.
* Please note that I said "People you ask to watch your kids" and not "Babysitter" - because one is just someone who gets stuck with your child and the other is actually a professional (or, at the least, someone who enjoys kids) who does this for a living and probably has the supplies and state of mind to deal with your brat-a-tat-tats.
Rule 1 Do not (I repeat, do not!) drop your kids off hungry.
Everyone's got to eat. That includes your kids. If you're asking a friend or family member to watch your kids (whether it be for a couple of hours while you run errands or for date night), make sure your kids are fed before you drop them off. Watching your kids is hard enough, don't add an extra load by making your friend scrounge around their fridge for whatever leftover scraps of food they may have laying around.
If it's an emergency situation and you just didn't have time to feed your kids before-hand, make sure you make arrangements with your friend before you leave. Let him/her know that the kids haven't eaten and leave a few bucks for food to be bought. If your kids might get hungry during their stay, bring their snacks. Remember, your kids are your responsibility, so make sure they're all set before you jet off.
This rule is especially important if...
1. You made arrangements last minute.
2. You have picky eaters.
3. Your friend doesn't have any kids of their own (so there's no reasonable reason to expect them to have "kid" food).
4. Your kid has allergies or other special food needs.
Rule 2 Do not drop off your kids filthy.
Hygiene is important, people! Your kids shouldn't smell when you drop them off with a friend. Give them a quick bathe and change of clothes before you bring them over. Your kids are NOT cute when they're dirty and they're especially not-cute when they're wiping their gross, kiddy-grime all over your friend's house.
Also, if your kid is especially messy, bring along a change of clothes. Just in case. Same goes if your kid is new to potty training or otherwise still in diapers. Accidents happen and it's important that your kid doesn't have to sit in his own filth until you get back.
* Your friends will probably bathe your kids if it comes down it, but it's probably not #1 on their list of things to do. You might really enjoy baby bath-time, but probably, your friends would like to avoid that task whenever possible.
Rule 3 Provide entertainment.
Again, this is really important if your friend doesn't already have kids of their own. There's a good chance they don't have kid entertainment in their house, so please send your kids with some toys or books or DVDs or whatever it is you use at home to keep them out of your hair. There's very little worse than dealing with a bored three year old for four hours.
Rule 4 If it's not life-threatening, ease up on your home-rules.
We get it, you want your kid to be pure. Like water pure. Like Angel of the Lord pure. Fine. But remember that friend you begged ten minutes ago because your sitter called in sick probably doesn't want to spend the next few hours playing prison guard-dictator to your kid. So, yeah, at home maybe your kid can't have juice, or candy, or watch TV, or sit for more than five minutes, or drink non-organic milk, or turn left on Wednesdays, or stay up past 8. We get it, we can even respect it (when it's your responsibility to make sure they don't do all that stuff), but when we're facing your gub-gub eyed kid who keeps begging and whining and crying for that mini-snickers bar, we're going to give it to him (as long as chocolate or peanuts won't kill him) and you need to make peace with that.
There's ten-thousand rules in your house, and that's okay. But we're neither equipped nor trained to handle all that. If you need a by-the-rules baby-watcher, you're going to have to hire a sitter and pay him well. I can only guarantee that your child will be alive and fairly unharmed when you get back. I can't promise she'll still be gluten and sugar free or uncorrupted by dangerous PBS-Kids programming.
* Yes, if your kid has allergies or some sickness that limits their food intact, that's cool. We'll deal with it. But you better pack him up with every snack or drink he's going to need for the entire stay.
Rule 5 It's something my mom calls 'home-training' and it amounts to raising your kids to be minimally decently behaved.
(This might be a hard one and it's a long-haul kind of thing but it's important if you want to have friends that are willing to watch your kid on occasion.)
"Home training"
"Some kind of goddamn sense"
"Act like they some sort of behavior"
It all amounts to the same thing, your kid shouldn't be a wild, out of control, manner-less, wildebeest. And, yes, you know if your kid is that type, so don't act as though it's news to you. Your kid shouldn't need to be yelled out twenty times before they actually do something. Your kid shouldn't regularly throws fits and tantrums. Your kid shouldn't be overly rude to their sitter. Your kid shouldn't break most things in the house. Your kid shouldn't color on walls or furniture. Your kid shouldn't smear poo on the bathroom walls. Your kid shouldn't cough or sneeze directly into other's faces. Your kid shouldn't go ballistic if they don't get their own way. Your kid shouldn't otherwise be a terror to be around. And if they are, you should be okay with your friends and family refusing to watch them for you.
Don't make your child into a monster and expect others to care for it.
My aunt often says something really wise, I think, "Don't raise your kids for you, raise them for the person who'll have to care for them if you're gone." Basically, it means try to raise your kids right because while you (as their parent) are willing to put up with a lot (and love them for it), someone else won't feel the same.
Rule 5 Return on time!
This one is just common, goddamn, courtesy. If you ask someone to watch your kids and you say you'll be back in two hours, be back in two hours. If you say you'll back by ten, be back by ten. If you say you'll be back before dinnnertime, you better be strapping them back into your minivan before dinnertime! The quickest way to lose a sitter is to not value their time (or to act like your time is more important) and that's exactly what you do when you arrive for pick-up late!
And that's basically it! If you need someone to watch your kid, just make sure they're fed, clean, entertained and not monsters...and pick them up when you say you will. That's all!
** Message brought to you because of my cousin who dropped his three kids over here last night (asked me to watch them fifteen minutes before dropping them off) and followed absolutely none of these rules. And because of that, that will be the last time I watch them.**