Leaving the kids with a sitter: what they actually need to know

Write it in the order a sitter would need it in a bad moment, not the order the evening happens in.

Allergies and medical needs come first, with what a reaction looks like and exactly what to do about it. A sitter who knows a child is allergic to nuts but not what to do about a swollen lip has been told half of it.

Medicines next: what is due tonight, how much, and where it is kept. If nothing is due, say so, because a sitter who finds a bottle of antibiotics on the counter will otherwise wonder.

Then the evening itself: dinner, bath, bedtime, and the one ritual that makes bedtime work. Then the house rules that will be tested, since children know exactly which ones a new adult has not been told.

Contacts go last on the page and first in an emergency: you, the other parent, a neighbour who is usually home, and the doctor.

The information barely changes between visits, which is the argument for keeping it somewhere other than a sheet of paper you rewrite each time.

Health Cards holds the first two items on the list for each child: every allergy with its severity, triggers, symptoms, and what to do, every medicine with its dose, where it is kept, and when to give it, and the emergency contacts. It prints as a card for the fridge or the nappy bag, and it can be shared as a read-only link that expires on its own. The same card serves the babysitter, the grandparents, and the school trip form.

Routines turns bedtime into written steps, so a sitter can do it the way the children expect rather than the way the sitter was raised. From any routine, a caregiver packet copies out only the steps and notes you choose, which matters because a routine written for the household usually contains things a sitter does not need.

Shared Notes takes the rest: wifi, where the spare key is, which door sticks, what the dog is allowed to eat. A single note can be shared as a link too.

Contacts keeps the numbers the whole household uses, so the sitter's list is never a different one from yours.

In Case of Emergency is for the bigger version of the question, if you cannot be reached at all, and only adults, or a group you name, can read it. That is not the sitter. It is the grandparent or the neighbour the sitter would call.

There are two ways to get it to a sitter, and which one fits depends on how long they are staying.

For an evening, send links. The health card and the caregiver packet each open as a plain page on the sitter's phone, with no account and nothing to install, and each link stops working after the day, week, or month you picked. You can revoke one early from the app or from your household settings.

For a longer stay, such as a house-sitter for a week or grandparents over the holidays, a guest invite lets them sign in and use the apps you choose, for a set time between four hours and a year. It ends by itself. Two things to know. Inside the apps a guest is treated like a child in the household, not an adult, so the health details and caregiver packets still travel by link. And a grandparent who does pickup every week is not a guest at all but a member, because guest access is designed to run out.

Either way, do the handover ten minutes before the doorway rather than in it:

1. Send the links, or the guest invite, when you book the sitter, not when they arrive.
2. Ask them to open everything before you leave, while you can still answer questions.
3. Point at the one thing that matters most tonight, whether that is the medicine or the bedtime or the neighbour's number, and leave the rest to the page.

Ask one question when you get home: was anything missing? Whatever the answer is goes into the card, the packet, or the note that evening, while you still remember it.

After a few visits the handover stops being a speech. It is a link sent in the afternoon and a sitter who already knows where the thermometer is. The information was always the same. It just finally lives somewhere other than your head.

• Health Cards
• Routines
• Shared Notes
• Contacts
• In Case of Emergency

Every app in the library is included with the household plan. Install the ones this guide uses and skip the rest.

• How guest access works
• The first year with a baby, when nobody in the house is sleeping
• Pets, plants, and everything else that needs doing on a schedule