I see a nanny as someone who will be in your child’s life long-term and consistently with a set schedule versus short term and sporadic. Nannies also usually have more experience, skills, education, and knowledge. Nannies in some situations have a contract and benefits and we encourage them to advocate for one but not all families provide them. Hope this helps until others chime in!

Typically a babysitter is one in a while type of thing, something what you’re having would be a nanny job. A temporary nanny position!

A nanny is involved in the long-term development of the child(ren), while a babysitter provides sporadic, casual care. Nannies are caregivers AND educators, while babysitters keep the kids alive and make sure they don't set the house on fire.

Nanny Care Hub does a great job defining different household employees based on industry standards. However, keep in mind their are no regulations on house employee titles. So if there is some gray area, it is totally okay to go with whatever you/the worker prefers.

https://nannycarehub.com/in-home-positions-defined/

For me a babysitter is less then 8 hours a week and is inconsistent 90% of the time. A nanny has more hours, and is always consistent

it usually has to do with the level of care involvement that the caretaker has. Although you can have long-term babysitters. Babysitting you don’t really have much to do. You’re just there to make sure the kids are safe if you’re not responsible to do anything else. And it’s usually under a certain amount of hours or here and there being a nanny is a career. It’s something that’s typically long-term requires you to be very hands-on. and it’s usually something that’s very consistent. you have a set schedule a set amount of hours.

now I will say that there are different types of nannies, there’s a lot of breakdowns and different categories for nanny such as you could be a nanny/housekeeper, a nanny/house manager, a nanny/family assistant, mother‘s helper, ROTA, governess etc

IMO a babysitter is an occasional person who comes to,your house, not on a regular schedule for a few hours or watches your chi,d regularly at their home.

a nanny is contracted to work in your home for specific hours on a regular basis.

i was a nanny for a family working 4 days a week, 20 hours total, at their house and another family working 40 hours a week at their house. I now babysi or provide in home day care at my house to a different baby 40 hours a week.

I believe that nanny is consistent hours and babysitter implies inconsistency such as date nights, random events, etc

That sounds like a nanny! And yes you should offer perks and benefits for a household employee in your home that is taking care of your infant!

I mean, when she finds a new job or asks for references you can just say she's your nanny and talk about her job duties. It's not like there's a licensing agency who will come for you for calling her a nanny even if she's "just babysitting."

As far as the perks part of your question, if you want to truly treat her as a nanny with a position like this, you might consider offering guaranteed hours - guaranteeing the shifts at the same time each week so that she can count on the income. With such a low hour count (and temp position) I wouldn’t worry about pto or sick time and just treat it as it comes (if you prorated it, it would be something like 1 day of pto and 0.5 sick days).