Bang For Your Buck: Kiddocare, connecting parents with trained babysitters and empowering women
Did you know that modern babysitting, where someone comes by to look after the child, started in the 1950s in the American suburbs? The post-World War II, where the Baby Boomers were born, kick-started the babysitting system due to the temporary mark increase of the country’s birth rate.
It is said that the demand for babysitters spiked due to working parents who need someone to look after their kids while they are at work.
Now, how has babysitting evolved in Malaysia especially in this 21st century? Muhaini Mahmud, a co-founder of a local online babysitting platform named Kiddocare tells Sinar Daily all about it in the latest episode of Bang For Your Buck.
Before that, Kiddocare is a platform that connects parents with trained and certified child care providers.
Muhaini said it was founded in 2018 by her and another founder, Nadirah Yusoff, with the aim to help parents get easy access to trained babysitters and give them the accessibility of time, location and various other preferences.
As parents themselves, she said they understood the struggle of parenting especially for those with careers that demand time and effort, and that's how Kiddocare came to be.
“We understand that while being at work, our minds are constantly thinking of our children whether they are being taken care of properly.
“This is based on our personal experience as mothers and we were able to generate ideas in order to offer solutions to people who go through the same thing we did.
“We want to help parents looking for reliable carers for their children,” she said.
She shared that since their operation in 2018, they have been able to provide income opportunities to women and later on to those who lost their jobs during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
Now after four years of operation, there are approximately more than 4,000 babysitters registered under Kiddocare Malaysia.
Getting back to the evolution of babysitting in the country, Muhaini said it became a major challenge during their early days when parents were not yet used to babysiting services.
Apparently, the concept of a stranger coming to their house to babysit the children was something unfamiliar to most people at that time. This could be because most parents were too used to the live-in maids who would be taking care of the children at home as well as the routine of dropping off their children at the childcare service centres for the day.
“It is natural for people to fear what they don’t know, and in 2018 this was something unfamiliar to the people.
“We came up with the idea of a stranger, a woman coming to your house to take care of your children. Just for a few hours and they will leave.
“This is the challenge we faced in the initial stage and we had to struggle to find the people who believe in our idea. Back then, people we talked to did not think that Malaysia would be open to adopting alternative ways of childcare,” she added.
However, Malaysians started getting used to their services and over the years, more people have trusted them to care for their children and their management team has expanded to 30 people with average bookings of 350 in a day.
So what makes the parents confident to leave their children to the babysitters under Kiddocare? Well, the company puts a lot of effort in making sure their babysitters are certified and trained to handle children.
What does it take to be a babysitter under Kiddocare? Firstly, they only employ Malaysian women from the age of 18 up to a maximum of 60 years old.
If they decide that the candidates are qualified, they will then get through a strict background check to ensure their safety and security, as well as making sure that they have no criminal records.
What makes Kiddocare different is that they will provide childcare training for the babysitters including CPR and first aid training, regardless of their babysitters’ background.
“Majority of our babysitters have a basic degree or diploma for childhood education. “Some of them also have KAP (Kursus Asuhan PERMATA) certification, but regardless of whether you have experience or not, when you come on board, it is a requirement for them to undergo our basic child care training that is done by our in-house trainers,” she said.
Parents can also rest easy since the babysitters are required to do regular updates so parents know what the children are up to at home, if the parents are outside the house.
It is encouraged for them to do hourly updates and if necessary, to capture photos or videos as proof for the parents.
Since the services are done at their homes instead of a child care centre, parents can even check on their own by installing surveillance cameras (CCTV) in the house and regularly monitor their babysitters from time to time.
Muhaini informed that Kiddocare has now functions with a new application available on Google Play and Apple Store, instead of using web booking like they had previously.
How does the application work? Once the application has been downloaded, a client needs to sign up as a member and login where they will need to fill in information about their personal data and details of their children.
They can then book at the booking section and fill in the necessary details for the babysitting services such as address, date and time.
There are also additional requirements where they can request for carers to do with their child - they can be specific like for example, that day they want the babysitters to help their children with their online classes or do these games with them.
After that, make sure to confirm the booking and when the system has finished processing it, the babysitters will be notified. This is a matching platform so those who are interested will take the job.
The profile of that babysitter will be shared with the client for approval so that clients can check their name, age, qualification, experience and if for whatever reason they don’t feel comfortable with the babysitter from what they have seen in their profile, they can choose to decline and request for another profile. Imagine using the Grab application but instead of rides, you are looking for a babysitter.
Their services are available at all times everyday, including overnight stays but it also depends on the availability of the babysitters.
They are available in Klang Valley, Cyberjaya, Shah Alam, Johor Bahru, Seremban and the latest ones are Alor Setar, Penang.
A client must book a minimum of two hours of babysitting and the price is RM60 for two hours, RM90 for four hours, RM120 for six hours and so on. However, there are certain situations where surcharges might apply like public holidays.
A PARENT'S REVIEW
Ranukka Singham who is a long-term user of Kiddocare, shared how the application has helped her with her parenting journey as she juggled being a mother of a one-year son and also a businesswoman.
She said she was introduced to the application by a friend and it has helped ease her worries of not being able to care for her first child.
“A friend of mine told me about this platform last year when I was pregnant. Being a working mom means dealing with long working hours, so I was really worried about taking care of my kid and my family is not in Kuala Lumpur to help. My friend told me to check out Kiddocare and that was how it started,” she shared.
She started using their service when her son was two months old last year, and at least once a week.
She admitted that thinking about a stranger coming into her house while she was not around to take care of her child was a bit scary at first and her son used to cry when she left the house.
However, after staying for the first hour of every session, she got to know more about the babysitter and was able to see how they feel about her son.
Her son also got comfortable with his babysitter that he was now alright with her leaving the house for work.
“I think it has made me a happier parent because it has really helped when I have clients who want me to work during the weekend and I am not worried about my child.
“To all working parents out there, you should definitely try Kiddocare because it does help me in my parenting journey as it removes the stress of finding a babysitter after working hours too. You should give them a try and I am so glad I found them,” she said.
In addition, Kiddocare has also contributed to women empowerment in the society as they have helped many Malaysian women to earn income during the pandemic.
Punithavathy Kupasamy is one of the many babysitters, who was grateful for Kiddocare since for helping her generate a steady income during the pandemic.
She mentioned that what attracted her to be a babysitter under Kiddocare is their flexible working hours since she is able to decide on which offers that suits her schedule best.
“I also enjoyed what I am doing and whenever I babysit the children, I make sure to do fun activities such as colouring and many more,” she said.
