Bambino: Babysitting made easy

I am a sitter and have been using the app regularly for about 8 months. I have built a steady clientele of parents in my area that I babysit for regularly. It has proved to be a lucrative side job for me! There is always local support readily available for parents and sitters alike. The process is incredibly simple - I receive requests from parents, I let them know that I am available and then they confirm! I get to set my own rates and don’t have to worry about haggling my services. I show up (with a babysitting bag full of fun and parent-approved toys and activities) and have a blast with the kids! When the parents return I don’t have to worry about collecting payment - the app takes care of it for me. Parents can even leave a tip through the app! I then get my payment from Venmo about 2 business days later. This is definitely my favorite childcare app!

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I am 16 years old and have been using the Bambino app for over a year. It is a good way to connect with parents in your area. Unfortunately it is a bit biased and parents tend to be favored. Payment is through the app so when a babysitter is done with their job and the parents have come home they hit the button that says end job and they are given the option to give a thumbs up or a thumbs down about the parents. Parents can then confirm the payment and give a recommendation. But in order for that to happen the babysitter must ask for it when they confirm the sit is over. They have no idea what the parent will say about them (which is public and permanently on the sitter’s profile)and that’s when a parent can say very negative things about a babysitter and not worry about it because they won’t have to see them if they choose not to hire them again. Unfortunately a babysitter cannot defend themselves and state the facts on why the parents negative views may be incorrect or unfair. Also, a babysitter can’t rate a parent which seems logical but actually is frustrating because some parents have standards that are way too high to begin with. Watch out future sitters! I recommend this app but it will most likely be a bit of a rough experience.

I think it for the most part it is very well designed, it is very easy to accept or deny jobs, you can update your profile easily, and I love the rewards system. However, I think an improvement that would be really helpful on the sitters’ end would be to have an availability feature. Currently you can only switch your profile on and off, but I would love to be able to set time availabilities so that parents can’t request me during a time I’m not available, and maybe even a calendar where you can mark off days that you are unavailable for vacation purposes or prior commitments. Many parents request far in advance or for during the day, and I always feel bad denying parents because I have prior commitments, or because I am at my full time job during the times they are requesting. Some sort of calendar/time availability feature would be extremely helpful and a great addition to an already great app!

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I was really excited to get this app because as parents, things come up where we need a babysitter. This was going to be my last case scenario if I couldn’t find anyone that I knew. Especially since almost everyone has only one review. So the day finally came where my regular nanny couldn’t watch my daughter due to being sick and I requested a few sitters on the bambino app. I picked out a girl. She seemed just as good as any other person that accepted my request. 10 minutes passed and no one showed up. I called the sitter and she answered. I explained who I was and if she needed help with directions. She then hung up on me. And I had to stay home from work. You can’t give a review if they don’t show up to warn other parents that this sitter isn’t reliable so I contacted the app. They just apologized and DID NOTHING! I still see that girl available to be requested. How do I know if any of these girls are reliable if the app won’t let you review a no show or delete an account if they don’t show up? Like I said, it’s a great concept but pointless if it doesn’t work.

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I’ve been using this app for a couple months now and I’ve had a couple successful sittings. Well today I had to cancel as I had a family emergency and I alerted the parent as soon as I possible could. I got a message from the owner of the app saying they were suspending my account for being untruthful about family emergencies and cancelled 3 times in the last few months. I cancelled once today and the only other time I can remember cancelling was when someone booked me but did not respond to any of my messages and I DID NOT feel comfortable just driving to someone’s house without any response back. Apparently I was in the wrong there, anyway I feel disrespected when all I did was cancel because of something happening in my personal life that I can not control. This is not a good app and the people running it are very disrespectful and very invasive of your privacy. I have since deleted my account and want nothing to do with this app or it’s owners.