Sara, occasional childcare - S1 Sheffield

I am a student at Sheffield Hallam University with more than 2 years' experience in childcare and I am currently looking for a babysitting/ part-time childcare job.

I worked as a live-in au pair for two and a half years, for two families.

I have spent a year and a half with a family in Esher, Surrey, where I looked after a sweet little girl, who was 2 years old when I started to work there.

I got her ready for nursery school in the morning, took her to the park or to the playground after nursery or played with her at home. I have prepared meals for her, changed her nappy and helped with the potty training when she reached that age. I bathed her and helped putting her into bed. I also babysit occasionally when her parents had plans for the weekend.

Besides childcare I also had household duties including cleaning and keeping the whole house tidy, dealing with the laundry and so on. In addition to these tasks I also took care of the families pets (walking, feeding, etc.), 3 dogs and 3 cats and occasionally kittens.

I worked as a live-in au pair for another year for a family London, where I looked after two lovely girls, aged 4 and 6 at the time. My usual routine looked like this: I helped them getting ready in the mornings and dropped them off / pick them up from school. We played in the afternoons, went to the park, playground or the library sometimes. I also helped with their homework and looked after them and their friends during playdates. I cooked for them and in the evening I helped bathing them, getting ready for bed. I usually did babysitting for that family once or twice/week and did light housework.

During school holidays we had trips to the zoo, cinema or theatre together.

I used to babysit regularly for other families in the area, night-time and day-time as well.

In my opinion, working with children is very rewarding, there's nothing like making a kid smile after all. Working as an au pair and being part of these families has helped me gain more experience and skills than I could have hoped for.