Are you bleary-eyed from grocery shopping with three kids, or ready to collapse after caring for baby twins? Participating in a baby-sitting co-op can provide sanity-saving free time. And if you don't have a co-op nearby, you can easily start one.

A babysitting co-op is a group of mothers who decide to exchange free babysitting services. "I believe babysitting co-ops will change the world as moms know it!" says Gary Myers, author of Smart Mom's Baby-Sitting Co-op Handbook: How We Solved the Baby-Sitter Puzzle (Tukwila, 2000). "Any mom can meet with three friends for one hour and create a neighborhood babysitting co-op that will still be around when their grandchildren are born," says Myers. The book is based on the University Place Baby-Sitting Co-op, near Seattle, Wash., available to moms since the early 1980s.

Babysitting co-ops use a point system. Each mom is allocated a certain number of points per month. For instance, a club could hand out 20 game chips to members monthly, with each chip worth an hour of baby-sitting time. Moms would then pay one chip per hour to the co-op member that watches their children. Moms earning chips use them for their own babysitting needs.

Myers stresses that not all babysitting co-ops are alike. He recommends establishing a sit-coordinator job. "The sit-coordinator keeps track of points and calls the mom with the biggest point deficit first to give her the chance to babysit and earn back points," explains Myers. The sit-coordinator eliminates the need for chips. To keep co-op duties balanced, the sit-coordinator position should rotate monthly among members, and the person performing this duty should receive extra baby-sitting points. Without a sit-coordinator, moms may have to place several frustrating calls before finding a sitter. Conversely, if a mom runs out of chips she will have to call around to find opportunities to baby-sit and earn back points.

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