What is the difference between a nanny and a babysitter?
I’m looking to start working as a nanny or babysitter. I have a few friends that are doing it and recommended it because I’m in between jobs right now and it’s somewhat easy to get started doing it right away. So I’ve been doing some research to see if I would actually be interested in it and ‘nanny’ and ‘babysitter’ come up a lot. I really don’t understand what the difference is. A babysitter can be hired for any length of time, even all day. But when someone watches kids all day they are called a nanny instead of a babysitter. For me to do this I need to figure out which one I want to do, but that’s a little hard when I don’t get what’s different between the two words.
1 solution
A babysitter is a person you hire to watch your kids for a short period of time. So if you have a work event or a date night planned, a babysitter will watch the kids for that short time. A nanny is a person who will be around your kids almost every day, if not every day. They take care of your kids all day while you are at work, and are basically another caregiver for your kids. Nannies will be with a family for a long time, while a babysitter will be an every once in a while thing.
and 1 other answer
Nannies and babysitters both provide child care. A babysitter as the name implies is a once in a while job taking care of children for a couple of hours until the parents return home or even all day like you said but not everyday. A nanny however is a full time or part time professional childcare provider usually with educational background or training who is heavily involved in child's development and wellbeing, caring for the children physically, mentally and emotionally day in and day out. While nannies are employed on a regular or semi regular basis and are involved in raising the child which most likely includes preparing them for school, making them meals, babysitters usually tend to be as needed givers that whose main focus is to watch your child and keep them safe. Nannies mostly work for one family, might even live with the said family working up to 50-70 hours a week. A babysitter works a couple of times a week or month depending on the amount of need for different people.
