Online Babysitting Courses

Babysitting offers a great way to make some money and gain working experience. If you've never babysat before, it's a good idea to take a course that will prepare you for the very serious responsibilities of caring for a child. Check out a couple of courses that allow you to learn valuable babysitting skills on your own time at your own pace.

Take an Online Babysitting Course

Although you can readily find babysitting courses in most communities, there are very few online courses geared for preteens and teens. Here are two options that cover the entire age range of prospective sitters.

Babysitting Class.com

Babysitting Class.com offers a course that's geared for future sitters ages 11 and up. The course covers safety aspects of babysitting as well as how to run your service as a business.

The material is broken into six chapters, and you must work through them in order at your own pace. Each chapter has a test at the end, and you must pass that test before you move on to the next chapter. If you fail a test, you can go back and take it again until you do pass, so there's no failure unless you completely give up. The course offers prompts on what to study if you answer a question incorrectly, and live help is available from and instructor Monday through Friday from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. PST. When you pass the final Mastery Test, the site's customer service department will send you your own personalized babysitter's certificate and business kit.

The course also gives you access to the Babysitter's Encyclopedia which is filled with advice on how to handle a wide variety of situations that could occur on the job. Sample topics include how to give a baby a bath to handling tantrums and so much more.

Cost: Currently listed as $17.50 for a one year membership, but cost is subject to change
Availability: Online 24/7
Estimated completion time: About one hour per chapter, so about six hours at the minimum
Requirements: Designed to work best with Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher; compatible with FireFox or Safari wit Javascript enablhed

Expert Rating Babysitting Certification

Expert Rating offers a certification course geared toward college-age teens and up who are interested in pursuing babysitting as a career.

The course is divided into seven sections that cover a variety of topics including activities and playtime, discipline, a plan to avoid problems, and your responsibilities as a sitter. You can take the certification exam once you've studied all the course materials, and you must take the exam within one year of purchasing the course.

Cost: Currently listed as $19.99, but price is subject to change
Availability: Online 24/7
Estimated completion time: One week to one month, working at your own pace
Requirements: Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, as well as an email account

American Red Cross Babysitter Training

The American Red Cross offers one of the most highly-regarded sitter training courses for 11 year olds and up, however, the course is not available online. You can learn more about the course and enroll online, but you must attend the class in your local community in order to be certified. The Red Cross does offer some helpful resources that sitters can download in PDF files which they can use to get organized.

Babysitting Is Serious Business

Taking care of a child is hard work, and it's also a major responsibility. Taking an online course is a convenient way to learn the skills you'll need to become a very qualified sitter, and it will also help you decide if you're mature enough to meet the challenge. If you decide you're not ready yet, all you've lost is a minimal investment for the cost of course, and you can always go back and take it later when you feel the time is right.