Josh and I have a wonderful team of sitters that include my childhood best friend, my sister, and my best friend's sister that runs a daycare out of her home. We never have to worry about her. I check in periodically during the day, but I know that's not necessary. 

Jaime (my childhood best friend) has her most of the time and loves her nearly as much as we do. For as long as I've known her she always said she wanted a boatload of kids, but her husband cut her off at 2 and they're both boys. Jaime was a dancer so would love to have a girl, but that's not going to happen because her husband's not on board. So when I was pregnant and found out that I was having a girl she jumped all over the opportunity to watch her for us. Jaime plays with Mia all day, takes her for walks, talks to her and best of all gives her lots of hugs and kisses. Her younger son loves to see her before he leaves for school everyday and even her "no more babies" husband is pretty attached to her. Jaime works full time, but she has a day or two off during the week and when she has to work it's usually a combination of days and night shifts. When she has to work at night she just drops Mia off at Grandma and Grandpa's on her way about a half hour before Josh gets done with work. On the days that she works during the day Mia goes to my sister Andi's or to Mimi's daycare.

My sister Andi loves to cuddle Mia all day. She makes sure Mia gets tummy time and play time in the boucey chair and exersaucer, but snuggles her a lot. My nephew Hayden goes to 4K so he's home half the day and loves to sing and dance to entertain Mia. My sister is expecting a baby girl on April 25 via C-section so she won't be able to watch Mia for a while so it's nice to know that our other back up is pretty great too.

Mimi, my best friend Felicia's sister, is the same age as my sister and has 3 children. Her youngest is a month older than Mia and after having her she decided that she had to quit her job because she'd pay more for daycare than she made. So she started her own state licensed daycare out of her home. I think it's great that Mia gets to interact with other kids especially another little girl her age at Mimi's house. Everytime Mia comes home from there we get a nice little report of the activities they did and her feeding times, changing times and nap times.

Mia is a pretty easy going little girl, but it's pretty cool to see her light up when she sees her baby sitters. That's an important thing to watch for when you are evaluating your sitters.

Here are some tips to watch for if you're worried that you may have chosen the wrong person to watch your baby:

• Your baby isn't happy to see her babysitter or becomes anxious or withdrawn
• Your sitter seems secretive about how they spent the day
• Your baby has had too many avoidable accidents
• You notice your requests aren't followed
• Your sitter isn't reliable
• Your baby is often unkempt or dirty
• Your sitter seems to be lying to you