uSit iSit App: Great Co-op Resource

6 Ways to Love Graham Crackers

If you have a box of graham crackers in your pantry, you can come up with a delicious and quasi-nutritious snack for the group of kids you're babysitting. Here are some great graham cracker snack ideas:

• Combine 3 oz. of cream cheese and 3 Tbs. strawberry jam to make a creamy strawberry spread for your graham crackers
• Combine 2 Tbs. honey, 1/2 cup of peanut butter, and 1/2 cup of graham cracker crumbs in a food processor. Form the mixture into balls and coat with toasted coconut, mini chocolate chips, or chopped raisins
• Line a cookie sheet with foil and place graham crackers on foil. Sprinkle the graham crackers with nuts, and then pour melted butter on top. Sprinkle sugar on top and bake at 350 for 7 minutes.
• Make a sandwich with two graham crackers as the "bread" and peanut butter, sliced bananas, and sliced strawberries as the filling.
• Spread Nutella and cream cheese on the graham crackers
• Make banana s'mores: place graham crackers on a cookie sheet, place a large marshmallow on each cracker, top with banana slices and chocolate chips and the other graham cracker. Bake in 350 oven for five minutes.

Interview: A Homeschool-Related Babysitting Co-op in Arizona

Shari from Chandler, Arizona, talked with us about her experiences in a babysitting co-op formed from members of a Sunday School class at Grace Community Church in Tempe, Arizona. Don't overlook church as a great place to meet other parents interested in forming a babysitting co-op. 

An interesting component to this co-op is that about half of the families were homeschooling school-aged children. Many homeschool parents already have a cooperative mentality. It's quite common for homeschooling parents to swap lessons, teach small groups, and to form interdependent relationships as they take on the huge task of educating their children. Let's see what Shari has to say about their co-op. 

101: How does including homeschooling families affect a babysitting coop?

Shari: We didn’t see any significant difference because all the moms in the co-op were either stay-at-home moms or worked sporadically. I personally was a flight attendant during the beginning of my time in the co-op and not yet homeschooling. I worked mostly weekends and only 5-7 days a month. Once our kids started school, I did not see any difference and I had left my job. If I was watching other kids, we just worked school into it. If the kids were also h/s, we just did our work together. The ones that weren’t homeschooled were always under 4 anyway because they were in school during the day. At night, it was a non-issue.

101: Did you originally start with exchanging coupons or tickets and then switch to an electronic currency? If so, how did you manage the switch?

Shari: We used points. We had a notebook with a sheet for every family and it was all recorded by the secretary. Our system included a president that was in office for 3-6 months (2 terms) and was a volunteer. Our secretary started alphabetically and went through the roster monthly. It was required. Pre-internet and cell phone days look very different than co-ops of today. We got the books at the start of the month and would call everyone with their total points as well as letting them know they were the secretary for that month. Math was involved! If a mom needed a sit, she would call the secretary and let her know where she needed to go and when. The secretary would look through the list to see who was closest to the location and who had the lowest points. We were allowed to get our own sits as well. The sitter would then call in the points to the secretary to record. It sounds so archaic now, but it was a well-oiled machine from the beginning. The president received one point per quarter of service from the other families because they mainly were in charge of the meetings. Those were quarterly and an excuse to go out with the girls!   The secretary got a point from each family as well. When anyone had a baby we gave a point then, too.

101: Did you always find families to participate in the co-op through Sunday School or word-of-mouth? Did you ever have to advertise to find more families?

Shari: We started with 20 families at the beginning and never had any issue replacing members if someone stepped out, until about 2003. A few years prior to that, we had agreed to allow 20% of the membership to come from outside the class if they were sponsored by someone in the co-op. In 2003, most of the families stopped having the need for it except for myself and maybe 2-3 other newer members. I have 6 children so I still had younger kids and my older ones were not babysitting yet whereas most of the other families had only 2-3 kids. At that point, we restructured a great deal of the books to an online spread sheet which we used about a year and a half. It worked well.

In 2005, we completely rewrote the bylaws to fit a non-Sunday School model. Our church had a women’s group that was like MOPS but not an official group. We had about 4 members left in the group, so we went to 2 SS classes and the mom’s group to market the program. We got about 10 families from that effort.

Our restructure included a punch card rather than the online program, books or a secretary. We only had a president. We still had meetings, but they were low attendance. Eventually, the co-op literally just fizzled sometime around 2009. The continuity of all of us being in the same SS class on a weekly basis was gone. Even having a secretary and books seemed to be a factor that created the “glue” that held us together.

101: What did you like best about participating in the co-op?

Shari: We created lifelong friends in the first 8 years, not only for us moms, but our kids as well. Now one of the kids is my sitter for our foster babies! She was 3 when I met her and she’s 18 now.

101: What did you like least?

Shari: About 1 year into the co-op, a family joined our class. They were a couple, but they were grandparents, albeit younger ones. They were raising 2 of their grandchildren, each from a different daughter. The kids were 4 months and 6 months. The mom/grandma was a very vocal, flamboyant person. After an announcement about our quarterly meeting, she asked to attend and become a member. The reason she had custody of her grandbabies was due to drug use by both daughters. We were at a loss. They had only been in our class a month or two; no one knew them and our structure was “in the sitter’s home.” I would have no problem watching her babies in my home but the daughters (and their boyfriends) had access to their home. There was no way I would put my own toddlers in her home. So we told her at that point we would vote on it and let her know. I came up with the idea that any new family had to be in the class for one year before they could be a member and they had to have sponsorship. That event was the catalyst to our first amendment in our bylaws as well as our first negative experience. She did not take it well and they left the class about 2 months later. It did, however, give us some extra street smarts when it comes to unusual situations. I think we were better prepared for other anomalies as they arose.

Thank you, Shari, for taking the time to share your babysitting co-op experience and wisdom!

Is a Babysitting Co-op Right for You?

You may have heard about babysitting co-ops, like the North Side Babysitting Co-op in Chicago or the Garden Hills Babysitting Co-op in Atlanta, but you're not sure if a babysitting co-op is right for you. It's true that babysitting co-ops require a certain amount of commitment, but the benefits are tangible and often much greater than what you put into it.

See if you have any of these characteristics of a co-op parent:

• Has young children who aren’t enrolled in school
• Operates a home-based business
• Works part-time hours outside of the home
• Lives away from relatives who could assist with childcare
• Needs additional support as a single parent
• Attends school on a part time basis
• Volunteers in schools, church organizations, community events, etc.
• Home schools children
• Assists in medical care for aging parents or other relatives
• Pursues individual interests and hobbies regularly
• Likes to save money
• Seeks socializing opportunities for children
• Has an only child who needs greater interaction with other children
• Supervises children’s associations
• Desires safe, competent, reliable care in a known and trusted environment

As you can see, babysitting co-ops can meet a wide variety of needs and help in a variety of situations. If you don't have a local babysitting co-op to join, consider starting your own. We're here to help. Feel free to contact us with questions as you organize your own local co-op.

The North Side Babysitting Co-op in Chicago

Chicago's North Side Babysitting Co-op has been a community fixture for more than 25 years. Originally part of the North Side Parents' Network, the co-op now functions independently and currently involves about 35 families, including families from the South and East sides of town as well.

I had the good fortune to interview Monica Lasky, the co-op's current coordinator. Lasky has been involved with the co-op for nine years, and she has coordinated it for the last four years.

benefits of participating in a babysitting co-op

When Lasky was expecting her first child back in 2003, she felt the need for support. She didn't have any family in town to help with child care or general parenting support, so she began looking for a babysitting co-op before her daughter was even born. She found the family-like network she was looking for in the co-op, and says the co-op has been a way of forging a sense of community in a large city like Chicago. 

Members of the North Side Babysitting Co-op appreciate having other parents watching their children as opposed to young people who don't have any children of their own. That said, Lasky herself uses a combination of co-op parents and hired teenagers and college students to watch her children from time to time.

co-op changes over time

The North Side Babysitting Co-op has fluctuated between 20 and 35 members. Currently the co-op is about at its maximum capacity. But that's not the only change the co-op has experienced over the years.

Like other organizations, the co-op has adapted to changes in technology to make their operations easier. In the past, co-op members attended meetings six times per year to tally up their sits and discuss problems and organizational matters. Lasky reports that this method was time consuming and downright awful at times: sometimes there were disagreements about hours and terms. 

A couple of years ago, the co-op switched to an online tracking system. One of the members of the co-op was a computer programmer, and she wrote a custom system for keeping track of hours. Co-op members would log on to the website and fill out a basic form that would update everyone's hours. It worked beautifully, but unfortunately, this co-op computer whiz moved away, and the co-op didn't have the resources or know-how to maintain the system.

So now, the co-op is in the midst of switching to a pre-fab online program (www.sittingaround.com) for keeping track of their hours. The site isn't free to use, but the North Side Babysitting Co-op charges a $10 joiner fee, and when people withdraw from the co-op with negative hours (which is discouraged), they pay the co-op $8/hour for each negative hour. Between these fees, the co-op should be able to use the pre-fab site without charging members extra fees, although Lasky says they reserve the right to collect annual dues if it becomes necessary.

The co-op has used a google group for communicating and posting sits, and that has worked well. Once their new site is up-and-running, they'll probably migrate to using sittingaround's communication feature.

a real community

Lasky likes to emphasize to members of the co-op that it's a marketplace. Parents can negotiate sits however they see fit. They may decide to pay more for difficult sits, late sits, or hours on New Year's Eve. As the coordinator, Lasky receives additional hours for her administrative services, so sometimes she uses her hours for pet sitting, which I find simply ingenious. 

The North Side Babysitting Co-op has never had any problems with its members as far as people being uncomfortable leaving their children with certain parents. Lasky believes the group is self-selecting; they're responsible, sociable people with a common goal, and they get along great.

The group continues to have meetings six times a year for organizational purposes and to welcome new members. These meetings rotate among the homes of the members, but two meetings per year are potlucks, and these potlucks are fun family events that parents and kids alike look forward to.

If you're just starting your own co-op, the North Side Babysitting Co-op in Chicago is an excellent example to follow. Many thanks to the generous Monica Lasky, a personable woman with a great sense of humor. Thanks for sharing your wisdom!

Tips from the North Austin Mother's Club (NAMC) Babysitting Co-op

Children of the NAMC babysitting co-op

Photo courtesy of Nicole Kanda

The North Austin Mothers' Club was founded in 1989 as a chapter of the Austin Preschool Mothers Club, which has been around since 1925! The club meets once a month for socializing and community service, and it offers several sub-groups to meet members' individual interests and needs. One of these subgroups is the babysitting co-op, and I had the privilege of interviewing Nicole Kanda, one of the co-op's coordinators. She discussed the following questions with members of the co-op, and they've generously offered tips and advice from their experiences in their thriving babysitting co-op.

1. Why do you participate in a babysitting co-op? What's your favorite thing about babysitting co-op?

NK - My family moved here with no extended family so I was eager to find/build community.  There are often times I want/need care for one or both of my children - doctor's appointments, date nights, errands, etc.  The Coop has become my community of friends and sitters and friends for my children.  My mom actually participated in a Babysitting Coop when I was a child, so the concept was familiar to me when we formed this Coop from the North Austin Mother's Club (NAMC).   

BJ - I participate in the babysitting co-op not just to have free babysitting but to nurture a community of families with an intentional commitment to the well being of one another's children. I feel that it is one thing to have friends with kids and for all our kids to be friends with one another, but it is entirely different thing to sacrifice one's own time to care for one another's children; it creates a thread of connectedness and even if you are not close friends with all the other families, you feel a sense of security in the interdependence you have all shared.

The children grow a bond between the other families apart from their parents and get to experience what life is like in another family, learn how to get out of their comfort zone for a bit in a safe way.

JC - So that I can have several people that I know and trust to babysit my kids when family members are not available.  My favorite thing about the co-op is the flexibility of the members.  It is easy to find someone to sit for me and I can sit for others based on my schedule.

MP - It's really helpful to have babysitting at no cost, with people we know and can trust, and that our child knows too. 

LQ - knowing that my kids with be with another Mother, some one with experience.    

2. Has your babysitting co-op changed much since it first started? If so, how has it changed?

NK - We haven't changed much yet as we're still less than 2 years old.  We've grown from 6 to 12 members but haven't changed in structure, membership or operations.

JC - Other than adding new members, it really hasn't changed.

3. What have been your co-op's biggest challenges? How have you overcome them?

NK - It's been pretty smooth but we could always use more sits.  Also, we work on a point system and people are sometimes nervous to request sits and go negative.  So we give each new member 20 points to begin with so she doesn't feel hesitant to request her first sit.  We want members to feel free to get a sitter when they need one - that's what we're here for!

JC - Probably getting people to use the co-op more frequently.  We try to have quarterly meetings to remind everyone of their points and come up with ideas for when people might need to use the co-op.

LQ - I haven't noticed any challenges. But, I've only been with the co-op for 5 months. 

4. How do your children feel about babysitting co-op?

NK - My children love the playgroups, especially in the summer when NAMC takes a break in many activities.  Babysitting Coops helped both of my children work through their separation anxiety and stranger anxiety.  I felt secure leaving my sad/crying child with a fellow mom who had helped her own children through the same phase.   

BJ - My littlest one always has lots of fun and loves his friends; he is learning how to play with other kids and getting some time apart from mommy is a great way to begin.

JC - They like it.  All the moms in the group are very nice and my kids have enjoyed having opportunities to play with other kids.

MP- She's fine, and it helped a lot to get her used to be without me. She loves to play with the other kids of the babysitting co-op.

LQ - My oldest son (4) LOVES hanging out with his buddies and playing with their toys when I bring him with me to a sit or he is sat at someone else's house!

5. Does your co-op plan whole-family activities from time to time? If so, which ones have been the most successful?

NK - So far we have not planned whole-family activities because NAMC hosts dinners and parties that Coop members often attend.  We have planned various playgroups, field trips and an Activity Day last summer.  We also have done a few Group Sits where one or more moms offers for other members to drop off their kids around the holidays for shopping/errands/cleaning. 

BJ - Not yet but that would be lovely! Eating out, backyard BBQs, campouts, they'd all be fun!

MP - It will plan some for the spring if I'm not wrong... Picnic at a park for the whole family for babysitting co-op families.

LQ - We are looking at planning a family activities in the summer, when our club is on summer break. 

6. What advice would you give to parents who are just starting a babysitting co-op?

NK - Start with a few committed people who can help guide the formation of the coop.  Agree upon some of the details ahead of time (we have Membership Guidelines) and remain flexible to changes that need to be made as the Coop progresses.  Keep opportunities for members to meet, with or without kids, to get to know each other better.  Give an extra welcome to new members.  Keep it active and fun!  

BJ - Keep at it, and offer to watch kids when the sit requests are slow. Make the first move!

JC - Don't be afraid to be the first one to ask for a sit.  Sometimes it takes some nudging to get people started.

LQ - Have a well organized "head" of the co-op! 

Much thanks to Nicole Kanda and the members of the NAMC babysitting club for offering their great advice and tips! We love to see thriving babysitting co-ops and their great feelings of community. If you live in the Austin, Texas, area, get in touch with the NAMC to learn more.

Storytime: Over in Australia by Marianne Berkes

If you haven't yet checked it out, find a copy of Over in Australia, written by Marianne Berkes and illustrated by Jill Dubin.

This isn't exactly a bedtime story, although you may get requests for it at bedtime. Instead, it's a toe-tapping, knee-slapping rollicking counting book. The rhythm is contagious, and if you read it at a clip, your kids won't be able to help bopping their heads to the rhythm.

It's educational, too. It follows a basic counting book format (one crocodile, two kangaroos, three koalas, etc.), but it also names the animal's babies: hatchlings, joeys, and platypups. Platypups! I had no idea. When you reach the end of the story, there's an extra treat. You're informed that each page harbored a hidden animal to go back and find.

If your kids want more, the back matter of the book gives more information about each animal, and there are links to online treasures like the Australia Zoo and the Great Barrier Reef. You can even find sheet music, which gives you a melody for singing the words instead of chanting them. It's a very fun book, and it has the potential for changing an ornery co-op session to a happy one.