An infant or baby is the very young offspring of human beings. Infant is a formal or specialised synonym for the common term baby. The terms may also be used to refer to juveniles of other organisms. A newborn is, in colloquial use, an infant who is only hours, days, or up to one month old. In medical contexts, a newborn or neonate is an infant in the first 28 days after birth; the term applies to premature, full term, and postmature infants.
A nanny is a person who provides child care. Typically, this care is given within the children's family setting. Throughout history, nannies were usually servants in large households and reported directly to the lady of the house. Today, modern nannies, like other domestic workers, may live in or out of the house, depending on their circumstances and those of their employers. Some employment agencies specialize in providing nannies, as there are families that specifically seek them and may make them a part of the household.
A nursemaid is a mostly historical term for a female domestic worker who cares for children within a large household. The term implies that she is an assistant to an older and more experienced employee, a role usually known as nurse or nanny. A family wealthy enough to have multiple servants looking after the children would have a large domestic staff, traditionally within a strict hierarchy, and a large house with nursery quarters.
Child care, otherwise known as day care, is the care and supervision of a child or multiple children at a time, whose ages range from two weeks of age to 18 years. Although most parents spend a significant amount of time caring for their child(ren), child care typically refers to the care provided by caregivers that are not the child's parents. Child care is a broad topic that covers a wide spectrum of professionals, institutions, contexts, activities, and social and cultural conventions. Early child care is an equally important and often overlooked component of child's developments.
Baby talk is a type of speech associated with an older person speaking to a child or infant. It is also called caretaker speech, infant-directed speech (IDS), child-directed speech (CDS), child-directed language (CDL), caregiver register, parentese, or motherese.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to childhood:
"My Sister, My Sitter" is the seventeenth episode of the eighth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 2, 1997. In the episode, Marge and Homer leave Lisa to babysit Bart and Maggie. Annoyed that his younger sister is his babysitter, Bart does everything he can to annoy her. When Bart is injured, Lisa must find him medical attention without spoiling her reputation as a good babysitter.
Penelope Jane Leach is a British psychologist who researches and writes extensively on parenting issues from a child development perspective.
A latchkey kid, or latchkey child, is a child who returns to an empty home after school or a child who is often left at home with no supervision because their parents are away at work. Such a child can be any age, alone or with siblings who are also under the age of majority for their community.
Jack and Sarah is a 1995 romantic comedy film written and directed by Tim Sullivan and starring Richard E. Grant, Samantha Mathis, Judi Dench, Eileen Atkins, Cherie Lunghi and Ian McKellen.
Gina Ford is a British author of childcare books in the United Kingdom and a former maternity nurse who has cared for over 300 babies during her career. Ford's 1999 book The Contented Little Baby Book advocates a daily routine for both the baby and the parents, with the day divided up into very precise slots.
The babysitter and the man upstairs—also known as the babysitter or the sitter—is an urban legend that dates back to the 1960s about a teenage babysitter who receives telephone calls that turn out to be coming from inside the house. The basic story line has been adapted a number of times in movies. The 1950 murder of teenage babysitter Janett Christman is commonly cited as a source of the legend.
Bringing Up Baby is a four-part British television documentary series which compares three different childcare methods for babies: the Truby King method, the Benjamin Spock approach, and the Continuum concept. Each method was advocated and administered by a nanny for two families each. The series was controversial when it aired on Channel 4 in 2007, particularly due to the actions recommended by Truby King advocate Claire Verity, and questions over Verity's qualifications.
The Capitol Hill Babysitting Cooperative (CHBC) is a cooperative located in Washington, D.C., whose purpose is to fairly distribute the responsibility of babysitting between its members. The co-op is often used as an allegory for a demand-oriented model of an economy. The allegory illustrates several economic concepts, including the paradox of thrift and the importance of the money supply to an economy's well-being. The allegory has received continuing attention, particularly in the wake of the late-2000s recession.
Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years (PACEY) is a charity and membership organisation based in London and working in England and Wales. A standard-setting organisation, it promotes best practice and support childcare professionals to deliver high standards of care and learning.
In etymology, back-formation is the process or result of creating a new word via inflection, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes associated with the corresponding root word. The resulting is called a back-formation, a term coined by James Murray in 1889.
UrbanSitter is a San Francisco-based online service and mobile app that allows parents to search for, book, pay, review, and recommend babysitters and nannies. UrbanSitter integrates with Facebook Connect and an internal database, allowing parents to view babysitters hired and reviewed by their Facebook friends and parents from children's schools, sports teams, and local parenting organizations. The company's online booking technology lets parents search for babysitters by specific time and date and schedule a booking. Alternatively, parents can post a job to a virtual job board. To date the company has raised a total of $22.75 million in venture funding.
A babysitter is one who temporarily cares for a child.
GreatAuPair is an American au pair organization based in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 2001 by Shannon and Jamie Pitts, who were living in San Ramon, California, and had hired au pairs in the past to take care of their children. By 2013, the firm had connected more than one million families and caretakers.
