Babysitting at a hotel: who may look after a guest's child, the rules and the paperwork

A hotel babysitting service is supervision of a guest's child for a fixed window in a fixed place, nothing more. The hotel chooses one of three models: its own trained staff, a contracted outside provider, or a referral. Whichever it picks, a signed parent form, vetting records and a written scope carry the service.

A parent at the desk asks whether someone can watch their child for two hours while they go to dinner. The receptionist says yes, because the hotel is quiet and a colleague is free. That answer, given kindly and without a form, a roster line or a vetting file, is the moment the hotel takes on a duty it has not prepared for. This article gives you the pieces to prepare it: a written scope, the choice between three service models, the carer's file, the parent form, and the rules for place, hours and ratios. It is written for guest relations and front office managers who have to decide, not just for those who have already decided yes.

What does a hotel babysitting service actually promise?#

It promises supervision, for a stated window, in a stated place, by a named person. It does not promise childcare in the educational sense, medical care, or a substitute parent. Getting that sentence agreed inside the hotel is the first task, because everything else, the training, the form, the price, follows from it.

Write the promise in one paragraph before you write a price list: which ages you accept, which hours, in which room, and what the carer will and will not do. Then draw the line at care tasks. Warming a prepared bottle, settling a child to sleep, changing a nappy and playing are supervision. Giving medicine, judging a fever or deciding whether a child needs a doctor are not, and the terms should say so in plain words.

Separate the two products. A supervised playroom where parents stay on the premises and one-to-one care in the guest's own room carry different risks, different staffing and different paperwork. A playroom session with four children and one carer is not the same service as a carer alone in room 214, and treating them as one product is how hotels end up under-prepared for the harder of the two.

Say what the carer is not: not a swimming supervisor, not a tutor, not a nurse, and not a driver of children in a staff car. Publish the scope on the website and in the room directory, so the front desk is not inventing it at nine in the evening. The scope also doubles as the training document. What a carer is allowed to do is exactly what you train, test and review, and nothing more. Families judge a hotel on the whole stay, and babysitting is one of the things what families check before and during a stay.

Offer, refer or decline: which of the three should you choose?#

Choose by how much control you want over the person in the room. Own staff gives the most control and the most responsibility; a referral gives the least of both, but it is still a recommendation a parent will trust, and it still reflects on the hotel.

With own staff, the hotel recruits, vets, trains, rosters, supervises and insures. This is the highest cost and the clearest line of accountability, and the easiest way to keep the child protection rules identical across the property. With an outside provider, a contract moves employment and vetting to the provider, but not the guest relationship and not the premises. The hotel still decides who may enter a guest room and who may be alone with a child in it, and it should keep evidence it can audit.

A referral only means the hotel gives a name and nothing else. Even here the hotel has chosen the name, so keep a written record of why that provider was selected and when it was last reviewed. Declining is also a legitimate choice, especially for a hotel without the staffing to roster a dedicated carer. A clear no, given early, is a better service than a half-service that depends on whoever happens to be free.

Whatever the model, requests should land in one place: a log of every babysitting request, who handled it, what was agreed and what was charged. Whether a licence, a registration or a particular insurance cover is required for childcare is a question for your lawyer and your insurer. Confirm your own case before you launch.

What checks must a carer pass before they look after a guest's child?#

Identity, a criminal record certificate, references, first aid training and a signed code of conduct, all recorded before the first booking. With an outside provider, the same list moves into the contract as evidence the hotel can audit, so the file exists either way.

Check identity and the right to work against the original document, copy it and file it with the date it was seen. Request a criminal record certificate for roles that involve children at recruitment, and again on a fixed cycle you write down. Take two references by telephone, by someone who knows what to ask, and write them into the file rather than remembering them. First aid training must cover infant and child resuscitation, with the certificate expiry date visible in the roster.

The code of conduct the carer signs is the heart of the file: never alone with a child behind a closed door, no photography or social media, no gifts, no private contact with the family after the stay, no transport in a private car. Name a supervisor on every shift, and set a rule that the carer can reach that person within a minute. With a provider, add contract clauses for vetting evidence per named carer, an insurance certificate, the ratio, same-day incident reporting to the hotel, the hotel's right to refuse or remove a carer, and one named person who speaks to the parent. These checks sit inside the wider framework of a child protection policy for hotels: what to write, train and report.

What goes on the parent form?#

Everything the carer needs in order to act without guessing, signed by the parent before the care starts, and checked again at collection. The form is not decoration; it is the document that tells a carer, who met the family an hour ago, what to do when something unexpected happens.

The child section holds the full name, date of birth, languages spoken, and anything about routines the carer must know. The parents section holds names, room number, mobile numbers that actually ring, and a second adult contact who is on the premises or nearby. Under health, record allergies and conditions, and print an explicit line that the hotel does not give medication and does not provide medical care: if a child becomes unwell, the carer calls the parent.

Collection is the control that matters most. Record the names of every adult allowed to collect, check ID at the door, and agree a password with the parent. Check it every time, including when the parent is recognised, because the form is the record of who was authorised, not who is familiar. Consent covers what the parent authorises in an emergency, drafted with your lawyer, plus a separate consent for any photograph. Practical detail, sleep and feeding routines, nappy and toilet needs, comfort items, and screen rules the parent sets, fills the rest. The form is signed with date and time, per session or per stay, a copy handed to the parent and the original kept with the booking record. If the worst happens, the first minutes follow a different document: a child goes missing in the hotel: a search procedure for the first minutes.

Where, when and how many: place, hours and ratios#

The hotel sets the room, the hours and the ratio, writes all three down, and does not let them drift on a busy night. Drift is the quiet failure mode of this service: one extra child in the playroom, one carer covering reception at the same time, one session that runs forty minutes past its end.

Place is either a designated room that is visible and reachable, or the guest's own room. In-room care puts the carer alone with a child in a private space, so it needs its own rules: a door policy, check-in calls to the supervisor, and a written start and end time. Hours need a hard end time, a named person to call when a parent is late, a late-collection charge agreed in advance, and an escalation path for when nobody answers.

State a ratio and staff to it. For example, one carer for two children under three and one carer for four children over three, with no carer running two groups; set your own numbers and label them as an example, not as a standard you found somewhere. Group sessions and one-to-one care are different products: a playroom can take a group, a guest room cannot. The carer is not on another duty at the same time: no covering reception, no answering the hotel phone, no leaving the room to fetch something. And a child with a fever, a rash or a stomach upset is not accepted, with the terms saying why in one neutral sentence. The ages you accept also need to match your wider hotel child policy: age bands, free places and extra beds.

How do you price and bill it without surprises?#

Quote the unit, the minimum and the late fee in writing before the booking, and put the charge on the guest's bill with the parent's signature. Surprises on the bill are what turn a well-run service into a complaint at checkout.

The unit is per hour per carer, not per child, because the cost is the carer's time. If you charge per child as well, say so on the same line. Set a minimum block and a cancellation window, both in the written terms and both repeated at the desk when the booking is taken. Late collection carries a stated charge per started period, agreed in advance, applied without argument at the desk because it was signed.

Charge to the guest's bill, the folio, and have the parent sign that line, the same discipline you apply to any other hotel charge. With a provider, decide whether the hotel bills the guest and settles with the provider, or the provider bills the guest directly: one route, not two, or the guest will be charged twice. The tax treatment of the charge is a question for your accountant. Do not let the desk improvise a rate at the counter.

What do you say when you decline?#

Say it early, say it plainly, and offer what you can do instead. A vague maybe at nine in the evening is worse than a clear no at booking, because the maybe invites the parent to push and the desk to improvise.

Give the desk a short script: what the hotel does not offer, one neutral sentence of reason, and what it does offer instead. Alternatives that cost nothing include family rooms and adjoining rooms, a cot in the parents' room, a supervised playroom at set hours, and written information about local providers given as information rather than as a recommendation. Do not give a reason you cannot stand behind, such as an insurance position nobody has checked with the insurer.

Record every request you decline, with the date and the number of children. A year of requests is the evidence for hiring a carer or signing with a provider, and without it the decision stays a matter of impressions. Review the decision once a year against staffing, insurance and demand, and change it deliberately rather than in the middle of a busy evening.

What to do next#

Write the one-paragraph scope this week, then choose the model: own staff, an outside provider, a referral or a clear no. The rest follows from that choice. The scope decides the training, the checks decide who may be in the room, the parent form decides who may collect the child, and the written price decides what the guest sees on the bill.