So many teenagers babysit to earn a few extra bucks throughout middle and high school, and well, I am one of them. A couple of months ago, a close friend and I were asked to babysit for an event some friends of a friend were having. She took the older kids, and I decided to take the toddlers and babies. But right after I decided to take care of the toddlers, I decided that I needed to figure out different activities to do with them. I frantically searched Pinterest for ideas, but I didn’t find much, and the thing I did find were too elaborate and messy to do with 5 toddlers. Today, I want to share a list of simple things that you can do when you babysit a toddler.
Playing with cars. Almost all toddlers love these, and they are small, so you can easily grab some and put them in your bag.
Coloring with crayons or other toddler appropriate drawing things. They might try to eat the crayons, depending on their age, so I would definitely recommend checking to see if they are toxic or not.
Play dough (I would recommend checking the recommended age on the container)
Play music/have a dance party. Music is also a way to soothe a baby or toddler, and might help them to stop crying for their parents.
If you are babysitting a girl, have a little purse or change purse at the ready with an empty lip balm, an empty air pods case and a big coin (at least quarter sized, so no one tries to swallow it), crayons that they give at restaurants, etc. You can play make believe and she act like she is grown up!
Have a tea party (again, if you are babysitting a girl, of course) with her and all her stuffed animals and dolls. You don't even need anything, just a really good imagination! I still don’t know how the girl I babysat tasted the tea... It tasted pretty much like air to me.
One thing I always try to have on me if I know that I am going to be taking care of or even around a younger kid is a stretchy plastic hair tie. I know that sounds kind of weird but I know that a bunch of babies and toddlers who love playing with them. I would always disinfect it afterwards so that it isn’t all disgusting and they aren’t accidentally putting too many germs in their mouth if they happen to put it in their mouth, and so that you don’t get those germs in your hair afterwards…Yuck!
If you have a pair of toddler scissors, those might come in handy. Toddler scissors have a very blunt blade, often made of plastic and not sharp or pointed. It should probably say it somewhere on the package. Honestly, they don’t work very well, but kids love them because they can still kind of cut paper up and put it everywhere…. Which is always fun for the person who has to clean up behind them! Just be careful: I would keep an eye out to make sure that they are just cutting the paper, and get any documents or papers left near the place you are sitting out of reach.
Roll a small ball back and forth or gently toss it back and forth with an active young one.
Peek-a-boo
Hide and seek
In the same context, hide an object and get one of them to find it, without it being too hard to find.
Duck Duck Goose
I would only use this as a very last resort, but, if needed, there is a show available on youtube and on netflix that is age appropriate called Cocomelon. It is basically a bunch of nursery rhyme videos. It is available in a large variety of countries if you want to download a few episodes just in case. You can also find their youtube channel here. Again, I want to put a strong emphasis on the fact that this would be a last resort for me, especially since a lot of parents don’t want their young children watching TV.
I would like to say that in my experience, babysitting a toddler is mainly playing it by ear, being flexible and avoiding many crises using distraction and new activities. Also, no one is perfect, you’re going to make mistakes. What I am trying to say is don’t beat yourself up when you do, just deal with it and move on. It never hurts to be prepared, or to stuff a few toys and items on this list in your bag before you leave, though!
I hope that these ideas helped you out!
~Rose
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