Description of support system:
Kids need haircuts, have doctor's appointments and sometimes even have emergencies. A baby-sitting co-op, an organized group of families who trade off baby-sitting services, can help relieve everyone's stress level. The benefits are that your children are being cared for by experienced parents and that reciprocating the service will cost you time but not money.

How it works:
Baby-sitting hours are earned when you baby-sit for others and spent when someone baby-sits your children for you. You can spend your baby-sitting hours with any of the families in the co-op and you'll need to elect one person to keep track of the hours.
Decide who will be in your baby-sitting co-op. Ideally, you'll want to have about 5 families participating. When selecting the families consider the following: How well do you know the family and are you comfortable with their parenting styles? Do all the families have about the same number of children and are their ages compatible for this type of situation? Do all the families live within a reasonable drop-off distance?
Once the families are selected, you'll want to get the parents together for a meeting to discuss the following: The criteria for allowing other families to join, whether you'll allow overnight baby-sitting, the policy for sick children, and the selection of the hour-accountant.

Other comments or suggestions:
Check out a great book on this subject by clicking on the Purchase link above.