by David Comfort

According to recent reports, the post-Covid cost of home daycare has jumped over 70%, averaging between $12,000 and $16,000 annually. Since caring for the 21^st Century toddler entails little or no sitting, service providers are no longer called babysitters, but childcare specialists and nursery practitioners — licensed, accredited, bonded.

These professionals can be unaffordable for non-millionaires, so many Millennial and Zoomer parents depend on It-Takes-a Village helpers: family, friends, or the odd Mrs. Doubtfire.

Volunteers face daunting challenges, especially with New Age parents who lay down ground rules for harmonious interaction with their kid. No raised voices, no shaming, spanking, or even stink-eye, and absolutely no use of the “N”(O)word — since this might cripple Chuckie’s free expression in the bud, blighting him for life.

Until now, no no-nonsense advice has been available for the amateur caregiver who must abide by Woke rules while trying to avoid a nightmare evening with an Alpha-Gen Rosemary’s baby.

FEEDING

A toddler spends its time doing four things: Peeing & Pooping, Napping, Nursing & Fucking around with food. The last is the favorite activity of many. Here now, some common mealtime emergencies and how the rookie nanny should handle each:

• Baby impales your eyeball with a spoon.

Remove spoon from eye before baby tears it from socket, but without making baby cry.

In future, keep your goalie mask on.

• Baby goes down on your pinkie, earlobe, or nose.

Gently extricate body part before toddler starts teething. Replace with pacifier, beef jerky, or a child-safe artificial limb. In future, put more Tabasco sauce on extremities.

• Baby begins to nurse you.

Gals: Tell Munchkin you’ve got a headache. Put your bra back on.

Guys: Gently withdraw nipple, give Ms. Muffin your Bud.

CHANGING

#1 is usually no biggie for the beginner. #2 can present challenges. Especially if you’ve shared your burrito with the baby, or it has a touch of the trots. For these and other exigencies, arrive on the job in a hazmat suit, with Hefties. Other common problems, with solutions:

• Cuddles freaks and flails on changing table, as if being tased.

If Tummy Trombone doesn’t work, try other distractions:

Perform the Navaho Peyote Dance around crib, making melodic birdlike cries.

Give Norwegian yodeling and polka dancing a shot.

If still no go:

So the kid doesn’t feel like the lone ranger, change your own Depends or colostomy bag first, without weeping.

• Baby begins to fuck around with soiled diaper.

If negotiation or bribery don’t work, try a bait and switch: Mister Stinky for tot’s Shreddy the Teddy, Grumpy Shark, or Snugglesaurus.

• Baby slips his crib cuffs, takes off in the house in his birthday suit, giggling and throwing kaka like a Rikers’ inmate.

Down him with your Wild Kingdom dart gun.

But if this, too, is prohibited by the parents, barricade yourself in the bathroom till the they return. (If they’ve already fled to a safehouse or checked into a psych ward, call 911 and request SWAT.)

BAWLING

Bawling is the baby mother tongue. The child uses it from the Delivery room to the Terrible Twos and beyond. The two guaranteed attention-getters, making Nine Inch Nails sound like Easy Listening, are:

The Machine Gun: sharp staccato cries punctuated by choking gasps as if Chuckie is having a kidney stone attack.

The Psycho: stabbing violin screeches (ee-YE–YEE-YEEE!) from the Hitchcock shower scene.

During any given recital, for variety’s sake baby will usually switch between the Psycho and the Machine Gun. Like most punk rockers the tyke usually just needs to be changed, fed, held, burped, or degassed. Or it’s just tired, colicky, or pissed. Other times, though, everything is OK: it’s just warming up its cords for the day, doing scales.

The big question for amateurs when babysitting: How do you find the kid’s OFF button before the onset of Exorcist-like telegraphic vomiting, head banging, or crib levitation?

• Try a diva duet: baby’s Courtney Love to your Carrie Underwood. Or baby’s Johnny Rotten to your Sid Vicious.
• Play Voice Hide’n’Seek: hide yours first, putting it in your pocket; then hide baby’s under duct tape.
• Add a tad of your tequila, valium, or Prozac to its formula.

But, if all else fails:

• Attempt reason: Convince the child his or her troubles are nothing compared to yours:

Discuss your own Angela’s Ashes youth and begin bawling yourself.

Review your history with eHarmony or Planned Parenthood and throw up.