With increased child-care and first-aid credentials, baby sitters are demanding and getting better pay for their wider array of skills

They come bearing resumes, business cards and billing invoices. They’ve got child-care training, first-aid expertise and an arsenal of educational activities to keep the kids amused.

These are not Super Nannies. They’re not even child-care professionals.

They’re the bubble gum-chewing baby sitters from down the block, those trusty neighborhood teens who keep an eye on the children for a few extra bucks.

And these days, they mean big business.

"I can remember getting $1 — $2 an hour, if I was lucky," said Kris Evans Viner, 37, a Wethersfield, Conn., mother of two who pays her formally trained baby sitter $7 an hour.

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"When I was (a teenager), you just kind of went out and you did it."

Today’s sitters are likely to come with more training and business savvy than their ponytailed predecessors. They’ve taken hours-long instruction in baby-sitting, studying the ins and outs of diapering and feeding, of household safety and first-aid. They’ve learned to entertain finicky toddlers and coax the petulant to bed. And given the realities of today’s modern families, they’ve learned to maneuver delicately around the potential land mines of divorce, blended families and special-needs children.

For all this, these business-minded teens can command as much as $10 an hour (a princely sum, considering that child-care professionals earn an average of $8.57, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.)

"If your local McDonald’s is paying kids $10 an hour, you can pretty much bet your local sitter is going to charge you the same rate," said Karen Willson, program manager for babysittingclass.com, an online training program based in San Diego.

Willson’s course has been training teens to deal with these new challenges for five years. For $17.50, students age 11 or older get six hours of schooling that includes accident prevention and general child care — and how to occupy their charges with inventive activities.

The company teaches adolescent entrepreneurs how to operate like a business. Networking and marketing, rate negotiations and billing — it’s all part of the course.

"This is an actual job. And we have to teach them that," Willson said. "Keeping the proper records, showing up on time, showing up prepared, not calling your boyfriend on your cell phone, not using this as a time to pig out on the parents’ refrigerator or sit in front of the TV.

"The sitter is not there to amuse herself. When she’s on duty for the parents, she’s there to be the protector and the watcher."

Students earn their certification by passing a comprehensive set of tests. They get a handy wallet card that attests to potential employers their official baby-sitting credentials. They also can check back with instructors by e-mail for pointers and solutions to unanticipated problems.

But is all this training really necessary for a few hours of baby-sitting on a Friday night? Have we gone overboard?

"Not at all. It’s a different world. Both parents are working, and they don’t have a lot of time," said Willson, who estimates the course has certified about 5,000 teens from across the United States and as far away as Australia in the last year.

"Do you want to assume that your baby sitter knows what to do if your child is choking, if your child is bitten by a dog? Are you sure that teen down the street knows how to handle an emergency?"

Baby-sitter training is nothing new. Community centers and local health and safety groups have been offering such courses for years. The American Red Cross has trained baby sitters since 1980; today, the organization estimates it trains about 150,000 annually.

"It’s good for the parents, because they know the baby sitter’s gone through a whole day of formal training, so it makes them feel safer," said Laura Zambrano, a Red Cross instructor.

It also puts the teens at ease themselves, Zambrano said, giving them confidence to juggle the complexities of a job that has the potential for a host of pitfalls and problems.

Zambrano recently taught the daylong $42 course to nine eager 12- to 16-year-olds at the Red Cross’ South Central Connecticut chapter in New Haven.

Some had baby-sat before; others were untested. All said they wanted to make extra spending money and have fun at the same time.

And it seemed like fun, until it came time for these sitters-in-training to learn one of the more unpleasant tasks of the trade: diapering.

"Newborns and babies may need up to 12 changes a day," Zambrano informed the teens before cueing an instructional video on the subject.

Eyes widened. Uneasy glances were exchanged.

"Here’s a tip," said a teen sitter on the video: When changing a boy, keep him covered with a cloth or tissue. "Or else, you might get a squirt."

Squeals and more uneasy glances.

And now came their turn. With each using a lifelike doll, Zambrano talked them through the tricky chore with a drill sergeant’s precision.

"How do you wipe?" she asked.

"Back to front?" one student offered.

"No. Front to back," Zambrano corrected.

She demonstrated. Lift up legs, gently but firmly. Pull out the diaper carefully, wipe thoroughly.

"And when you do this," she said, "take your time so that stuff doesn’t go flying."

Khyia Darmand said she took the class at her mother’s suggestion; she has dabbled in baby-sitting, watching her cousins on occasion.

"I thought the class could help me get jobs outside of my family," said Khyia, 15, of Hamden, Conn. "And I wanted to expand my knowledge with children. I want to be a pediatrician one day."

Joe Rapuano of East Haven, Conn., also wants to branch out, and he sees baby-sitting becoming a business. The 12-year-old so far has only watched his 4-year-old sister.

"I know some people who might be interested. They said once I got my baby sitter’s license and they see my resume, they’d go from there," Joe said.

Evans Viner, the Wethersfield mother, has two sitters in their late teens who charge about $7 an hour. One came knocking on her door several years ago to talk about her training, offer her sitting services and leave her business card.

"I was so glad," Evans Viner recalled. "It’s nice to know you’ve got that extra insurance, to know that they at least know what to do in the case of an emergency."

But resumes, references, invoices?

You do want to know what you’re getting, Evans Viner said. "But, no, we’ve never gotten an invoice."

Prices have climbed here too

The going hourly rate locally can reach double digits when sitters are experienced or when they are watching multiple children, says Christie Hackett, who leads Medford baby-sitting classes offered by the American Red Cross.

Hackett says while it’s hard to pinpoint fair payment for a sitter, she recommends $1 to $2 per hour per child for sitters 15 and younger and $2.50 to $5 per hour per child for sitters older than 15.

Parents, she says, should talk to sitters before hiring them to go over experience, what’s expected and payment. They shouldn’t just assume any teen can care for any child.

If the job involves a baby, "ask whether they’ve ever taken care of an infant before," she suggests. And questions shouldn’t be only for the parents — teens need to know what they’re getting into as well, including agreeing on money before the job begins.

"We try to impress that on the kids," Hackett says, "so they know what they’re doing."