Bye, Bye Babysitter

Parting With the Perfect Sitter Is Such Sweet Sorrow

By Lyn Mettler

As a parent, partings are never easy, especially when they involve your little one. But while I expected leaving my baby behind with a caregiver would be tough, I never anticipated how hard it would be to part ways with that caregiver for the last time.

For a child who has always been leery of strangers and is very stingy with a smile for anyone except my husband and me, transitioning Patrick to a regular sitter was not an easy task. But because he was only 6 months old when she started coming twice a week and because she was patient, calm and kind, he adjusted well over time.

That said, even with my husband and me, Patrick is an exhausting child. As a baby, he liked to be entertained constantly, rotated through his toys about every five to 10 minutes (big swing, exersaucer, little swing, bouncy seat), or else you had a very cranky baby on your hands. And many days, who knows why – maybe teething, maybe missing Mom, maybe not feeling well – Patrick would cry and cry, causing me to come out of my home office to nurse him and calm him and hand him back to the sitter for another hour or so.

As he's grown into a toddler, the crying has gotten better, but we – and the sitter – still have to do the continual tap dance, now meaning piling trucks on and off the couch, running up and down the driveway (and keeping a protesting tike out of the street), trips to the pond to see the ducks and playing interference while he runs after our cat

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