The sensory-friendly sitter checklist
The same room can be fine for you and much too loud for your child. Here is the walk-through to do before you hand over the keys.
Walk the house once, at their height
Before the sitter comes, take five minutes and go through the rooms your child will actually be in. Not to tidy. To notice what your ears and eyes have learned to skip.
You stopped hearing the fridge years ago. The bathroom fan is background to you. The hallway bulb that flickers before it settles is just how that bulb is. To a kid who is already working hard to hold it together, none of that is background.
Anything you find goes on the sitter's page as one short line. Five lines beat five paragraphs, every time.
Sound
Sound ends the most evenings, and it is the easiest to plan around. List the loud things in your house and what to do about each:
- The vacuum, the blender, the coffee grinder — a countdown first, or save them for tomorrow.
- The doorbell and the microwave beep — say what they are before they happen, if you can.
- Music and TV volume — write the number, not “not too loud.” Numbers travel; opinions do not.
The line to put at the top:
I need a warning before loud noises.
Count down from 5 before the vacuum, blender, or bell.
Sudden sounds are scary. A heads-up keeps me calm.
If your child wears ear defenders or headphones, say where they live and that they are allowed at the table and in the car. Otherwise a sitter will treat them as something to be earned, and hold them back at the exact moment they were needed.
Light
Overhead lights are harsher than most of us remember. If your family runs on lamps in the evening, write that down — a sitter walking into a dim room will flip the big light on to be helpful.
- Which lights stay off, by room.
- Whether blinds go down before dinner.
- The one lamp that has to be on at bedtime, and which side of the bed it sits on.
Screens count as light, and evening screens count double. Whatever your screen rule is, write it as a rule set before the screen goes on — one turned off with no warning is the hardest moment of a lot of days.
Touch, clothes, and hands
Write down what your child does with their body when they are settling themselves, and say it is fine. Sitters stop things they think are a problem, and from outside, the thing that is helping looks a lot like the thing that is going sideways.
Say it like this:
Rocking, hand flapping, and humming are how I settle myself.
Let it happen. Do not ask me to stop or hold my hands still. It is helping.
If I stop moving, the big feeling grows instead of shrinking.
Clothes belong on the same list. Which shirt is the good shirt. Whether socks come off the second you are through the door. Whether the pajama tags have been cut out already, so nobody grabs the pair from the back of the drawer.
And put your family's rule about hugs and hands in one line, so nobody has to guess:
Please ask before you touch me.
Ask first: 'Can I help you with your coat?' Wait for a yes. A wave works instead of a hug.
Surprise touch startles me. When you ask, I can say yes.
Food and the table
Food is where a good sitter's instincts work against you. They want to be generous. They want your kid to eat something green so they can report back that it went well.
Give them the yes list as a full sentence: crackers and apple slices are always a yes. Then give them the how, because with food the how is often the whole thing.
The plate matters more than the menu:
I like my foods kept apart on the plate.
Give each food its own spot and put sauces on the side. A plate with dividers works great.
Once foods touch, I usually cannot eat any of it.
Then take the pressure off: nobody has to eat a new food tonight. A sitter who knows that is the plan will relax, and so will the table.
An allergy is a plain fact and it belongs in writing, in short words: chocolate — allergy, no exceptions. Anything about medicine goes to the sitter out loud, from you, every time.
Name the quiet spot before it is needed
Pick the place ahead of time and write down where it is. The corner behind the couch. The bottom bunk. The car, parked in the driveway, with the engine off.
And say what a grown-up does once they get there:
When everything gets to be too much, I need a quiet spot.
Take me somewhere calmer: a hallway, the car, an empty room. Stay nearby and stop talking for a few minutes.
I am not in trouble and I am not being rude. I need the noise to stop so I can come back.
Add the part sitters most need permission for: it is not a punishment and not a time-out. Nobody is in trouble, and nobody has to talk about it after.
The exits
If the evening includes going somewhere — a park, a party, the store — the sitter needs to know that leaving early is a real option.
Write the permission down so they can use it:
Sometimes I need to leave a place early.
If I go still and quiet or start covering my ears, head for the door with me. Leaving early is a win, not a failure.
Ten good minutes and an early exit beat an hour that ends badly.
Sitters stay too long out of duty. They think leaving early means they did not manage. Tell them the opposite and they will make the better call.
The short version to hand over
Everything above lands in about ten lines. Yours will look something like this:
- Loud things and what to do first.
- Which lights stay off, and the bedtime lamp.
- What the body does when he is settling — leave it alone.
- Ask before touching. Hugs are offered, not given.
- The yes foods, kept apart on the plate.
- Where the quiet spot is and what to do there.
- Ear defenders live in the hall basket and are allowed anywhere.
- Leaving early is a good call, not a failed evening.
Ten lines, on one page, in front of someone who will read them once. That is the whole job.
Your house already works for your kid. The checklist is just the part of it that lives in your head, moved somewhere a visitor can see.