Ages 1–3 · Brooklyn
The age that breaks most sitters.
Toddlers are physical, opinionated, and exhausting in a way no one warns you about. The teenager you grabbed last summer can't do it. The marketplace stranger doesn't know your kid's tells. We do this age all the time.
How we run a toddler session
Burn the energy first.
Toddlers don't calm down by being asked to. They calm down by physically running out of fuel. If the weather works, we go to the playground in the first 30 minutes. By the time we're back inside, dinner is the natural next thing.
Mealtime is the negotiation.
Whatever your toddler eats — even if it's the same three things on rotation — we serve it without trying to sneak vegetables in. Tonight is not the night to introduce broccoli. Tonight is the night to get a fed kid into a bath.
Bedtime is yours, not ours.
We follow your bedtime script exactly — same songs, same number of stories, same lovey, same hallway light on or off. Toddlers know if you skip the second song. We don't skip the second song.
Wake-ups, when they happen.
We don't pick up at the first cry — toddlers self-soothe most of the time if you let them. We watch the monitor, we give it 60 seconds, we go in if it escalates.
Why a known sitter matters more at this age
Toddlers go through separation-anxiety phases that can make a new sitter the difference between a calm bedtime and a 45-minute cry. Once your toddler has met Becky or Shelly twice, the recognition kicks in fast — by the third session there's no goodbye meltdown.
That's the case for a recurring slot over a marketplace booking, especially in this age range.