Engadine · Grisons

Childcare in the Engadine

St. Moritz, Pontresina, Samedan, Zuoz, Silvaplana and down the Lower Engadine to Scuol — for residents, for cross-border families and for guests.

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Sitters in the Engadine.
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Residents, cross-border families and guests need three different things. This page covers all three.

Three different needs in one valley

Residents need someone reliable through a season that runs from December to April and again through the summer, with two shoulder seasons when almost nothing is open.

Cross-border families — around 5,600 Italian cross-border workers commute into the Maloja district and about 1,600 into the Lower Engadine — need cover at hours that start before the border queue and end after it.

Guests need one evening, or five mornings, and they need it in a language they speak. Profiles show which languages each sitter actually uses: Italian, German, Romansh, English, sometimes Portuguese or Albanian.

Rates

Babysitting rates in the Grisons are typically around CHF 25-35 an hour, against roughly €9-14 in Valtellina. The gap is not a mistake and it is not negotiable downwards on our side: each sitter states their own rate and you agree it directly. We take no commission on it.

The special private extract

Switzerland has an instrument designed exactly for this situation: the special private extract from the criminal records register, intended for activities involving regular contact with minors or vulnerable people. It is ordered by the person themselves and shows, in particular, any prohibition on working with minors.

We do not collect it and we do not store it. The sitter undertakes to show it to you, freshly issued, before the first engagement. Ask for it. It is normal, it is not rude, and a sitter who refuses is telling you something.

Practical things people forget

  • Italian and Grisons school holidays do not coincide — check both calendars before you plan
  • Public holidays differ too; a sitter living in Tirano may be working on a day you assume is free
  • 112 works on both sides of the border. In Switzerland 144 reaches an ambulance directly, 1414 the Rega air rescue, and 145 is Tox Info Suisse, which also advises on animals
  • If the sitter crosses the border to reach you, ask how — the Bernina line and the Maloja road behave very differently in February
In an emergency call 112. It works in Italy, in Switzerland and across the European Union, free of charge and even without credit. This site never gives medical instructions: first aid is learned on a certified course, in person.

In the Engadine this season?

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