Babysitting Services

 When you need just a few hours of freedom to go to a nice restaurant, have coffee with friends, or run a few errands, it is great to know your children are in capable hands.

Puebla has what can be best described as short term daycares.  In many of the nicer large shopping centers as well as the downtown areas, there are small local businesses that have opened up daycares that operate on a dropin bases.  Some have one large room with various stations similar to a Montessori approach where the children can decide to paint, draw, play with blocks, play in the pretend kitchen, watch videos, and climb on small climbing toys such as Step 2 or Little Tykes.  Others have a large play area such as you would find in McDonalds as well as separate rooms where the kids can paint, draw, play on computers, and more.  All are well supervised and most recommend that the parent stays close by the first time the kids are dropped off.  They accept babies from just a few weeks, all the way to eleven and twelve year olds.  They charge by the hour and usually have a discount for more than one child.  They will feed your child provided you leave a lunch or snacks, and some even accept special needs children.  A lot of mom's will drop off their kids for two hours and have coffee with their friends at the Italian Coffee Company or Starbucks that is located only a few feet away... well within eye distance of the front door of the day care.

Many women in Puebla also have a "muchacha".  A muchacha can be a teen girl or a grown woman that will work in your home for a few days or everyday of the week.  Sometimes if space allows, they will live with you as well.  Girls come from all over Mexico to Puebla to seek employment.  A young girl would expect to work eight hours a day and to be paid about fifty dollars for the week.  An older woman would work the same hours but expect to be paid about seventy-five dollars per week.  They will clean the house and take care of the children as well.  The major benefit is if you have several children and want to get away for a few hours to go play tennis for example, you know your children are safe at home and well taken care of.  The most difficult part of having a muchacha is finding one that you can trust and is a hard worker.  There are places that you can go to hire a muchacha.  They will charge about thirty-five dollars for the service.  A good idea is to tell the company that you will hire them for a week but if they don't work out then, you want the option of contracting someone else for a week until you find one that is a good fit for your family.  It is also very important to ask for references.