Discreet about your evening. Serious about your children.
Those two things do not pull against each other. This page sets out what we check, what we cannot know, what sitters see and when, and what happens when something goes wrong. We have tried to write it without adjectives.
What every approved sitter has passed
A sitter appears in search only after all six steps are recorded as passed and their application has been approved by a person on our team.
On each profile you will see a badge for each step that sitter has passed, and only those. We do not use a single catch-all label, because it would tell you less than the list does.
Checks go out of date, so steps carry an expiry date: the CPR and first-aid certificate expires when the certificate does, and the background check is renewed every 12 months. Sitters are reminded 30 days and 7 days ahead. When a step lapses, its badge comes off, and the sitter is hidden from search and cannot accept new requests until it is renewed. If a sitter with a lapsed step already has a booking with you in the next few days, a person on our team looks at it before the booking starts. Sitters must be at least 18, and at least 21 to take overnight bookings.
- Identity verificationA government-issued photo ID is checked against the applicant.
- Criminal background checkCarried out by a third-party screening provider with the sitter's written consent. It includes a search of county criminal court records and a sex-offender registry search.
- Two childcare referencesTwo people who have seen the sitter care for children. Each is contacted by a member of our team.
- CPR and first-aid certificateA current certificate, uploaded and checked, with the expiry date tracked.
- Video interviewA live conversation covering experience, judgment in an emergency, late-night work and discretion.
- Signed code of conductThe Sitter Agreement: conduct, confidentiality, and the child-safety exception to it.
What checks can and can't tell you
They can tell you
- That the person is who they say they are.
- What appeared on record in the sources searched, on the date the check was run.
- What two previous families or employers said about them.
- That they held a current CPR and first-aid certificate when we last looked.
They can't tell you
- What someone will do in the future. No check predicts behaviour.
- Anything that was never reported, charged or recorded, or that sits in a source that was not searched. Records vary by county and state and can be incomplete or out of date.
- Anything that has happened since the check was run.
- Whether this sitter is the right fit for your children. That decision is yours.
We do not promise outcomes and nobody honestly can. Read profiles and reviews, use the message thread, and if anything feels off, do not book. Sitters can read more about the screening itself in About background checks.
What a sitter sees, and when
Private by default. Your details are released in two stages, and the second stage happens only for the one sitter you have confirmed.
A sitter sees
- Your display name, which you choose
- Your city and ZIP code, so they can judge the distance
- The date and times, and how many children and their ages
- Your rating from previous sitters, and whether your identity is verified
- What the booking pays
Not your street address, phone number, emergency contact or household notes.
Your confirmed sitter also sees
- Your street address and notes about the home
- The phone number you will answer that night
- Your emergency contact's name and number
- The brief: routines, allergies and medical needs, pets, cameras, other adults at home
Only that sitter, only for that booking. You see the sitter's first name, last initial and, once confirmed, their phone number.
What nobody sees
Where you are going. There is no field for an occasion, a reason or a lifestyle anywhere in SwingSitters, including our own records. We cannot disclose what we never collected.
Quiet notifications
Discreet notifications are on by default. Email subject lines and previews say things like "You have a new message" and never include the brand name or booking details. The Android app sits on your home screen as "Sitters".
No ad tech
No advertising pixels, no analytics inside your account, no selling of your data. Our public pages use Google Analytics to count visits. Children are listed by nickname and birth month, with no photos. Details are in the Privacy Policy.
Every booking, without exception
A sitter cannot look after children well with no information. So each booking carries a brief, and a booking cannot be sent without it.
- A firm return time
- A phone you will answer, switched on
- An emergency contact who is not one of the parents out that night
- Children's ages, routines, allergies and medical needs
- Pets, cameras, and any other adults in the home
- Confirmation that pools, firearms and similar hazards are secured
- For overnights, where the sitter sleeps
Notice what is missing from that list. Why we ask for each item.
Check-in and check-out
Your sitter checks in when they arrive and checks out when they hand your children back to you. Both are time-stamped on the booking, so there is a clear record of when care started and ended, and overtime is worked out from it and not from memory.
The times are watched. If there is no check-in 15 minutes after the start, you and your sitter are both emailed and our team is alerted; if there is still none after an hour, the booking is flagged as urgent for a person on our team to chase by phone. If your sitter does not arrive, you are refunded in full. If a sit runs more than 15 minutes past its end with no check-out, you get a quiet reminder by email, and if it runs on, our team is alerted with the phone number from your brief and your emergency contact's number so that a person can call. We never contact your emergency contact automatically, and we never mark a sit as finished without a check-out or a person confirming it.
The sitter's safety screen
During a booking, every sitter has one screen with the things that matter in a hurry: call 911, call your emergency contact, call you, start the "I need to leave" steps, and report an incident.
The ride-home stipend
When a booking that is not an overnight ends between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., $25 is added for the sitter's ride home and paid to them in full. Nobody should be working out a bus route at 2 a.m. We ask that sitters are not driven home by a parent who has been drinking.
At the end of the night, care goes back to an adult who can take it.
A sitter hands over only to an authorised adult who is able to look after the children at that moment.
Most nights this is a non-event: you come in, you say thank you, the sitter goes home. You are allowed to have had a wonderful evening and a few drinks. Nobody is assessing you at the door, and a sitter is not there to form opinions about how you spent your time.
The policy exists for the rare night when no returning adult is in a state to be responsible for small children. If that happens, the sitter stays, at the overtime rate, and calls the emergency contact you named in the brief. Afterwards the sitter files a short incident note so that there is a record of why the booking ran long. That is the whole procedure.
It is the same rule a good friend would follow, and it protects your children, you and the sitter.
The easy answer: book the overnight. If the evening might be a big one, an overnight booking takes handoff off the table. The sitter is there until morning, the children sleep through, and you can come home at any hour, or not until breakfast.
Zero tolerance, stated once and meant
Sitters provide childcare. That is all they provide.
A sitter is never a guest, never a participant in a parent's social plans, and never to be invited to become one. Any sexual advance, invitation or exposure directed at a sitter, by a parent or by anyone else in the home, is a breach that ends that family's use of SwingSitters. One report is enough for us to act: the account is paused the moment the report is filed, a person on our team reviews it, and a confirmed breach closes the account for good and stops that email address from registering again.
Care takes place only in a family home, or a hotel room registered to the parent. It never takes place at a venue, club or event.
What sitters can count on
- An accurate briefIncluding who else will be in the home and whether there are cameras.
- The right to leaveAn "I need to leave" protocol if a sitter feels unsafe: from their safety screen the sitter calls your emergency contact and stays until an adult takes over, or calls 911 if anyone is in danger. A sitter who has to end a sit for their own safety is still paid for the time worked or three hours, whichever is more.
- Pay that is protectedOvertime for late returns, payment for late cancellations, and a ride-home stipend on every late finish. Overtime is charged to the family's saved card at check-out; if the card is declined we keep collecting it, and the family cannot book again while it is overdue.
- A report button that worksIncident reports go to a person, and every message in a booking thread can be reported. Either side can also block the other from future bookings; the other person is never told.
The full rules for everyone are in the Community Standards.
When something goes wrong
Incident reports
Either side can file an incident on a booking: safety, conduct, a late return, a handoff problem, a payment issue, or anything else. An open incident pauses the sitter's payout for that booking and alerts our team by email. You get an acknowledgement straight away, and our team is reminded if a report is still open after 4 hours and again after 24. A person reviews it, hears from both sides, and resolves it, which may mean releasing the payout, a refund, or removing someone from the service. What you write in a report is read only by our team; it is never shown to the other person, and when the review is finished both of you are told only that it is complete.
A report about a child's safety, or about sexual conduct, pauses the other person's account at once while we review it. Messages are also checked automatically for a few patterns, such as requests to take a booking off the service; a match puts the message in front of a person and nothing more.
In an emergency, call 911 first. We are not an emergency service.
Confidentiality stops at a child's safety
Sitters agree to keep what they see and hear in your home private. That promise has one firm limit. Nothing in our agreements prevents or discourages a sitter from calling 911, or from reporting suspected abuse or neglect of a child to the authorities. We would never ask a sitter to stay quiet about a child at risk, and we would not work with one who did.
Just as plainly: a parent's consensual adult relationships are not a child-welfare concern. How adults arrange their private lives is not evidence of anything about their parenting, and sitters are told so in their agreement and their interview.