NEW YORK – Mom and Dad are going out for dinner, eager to have two hours to themselves. Does the baby sitter have the cell numbers? Check. The BlackBerry address? Check. The restaurant number? Check.

So, they’re ready to go, right?

Not so fast, said Meri-K Appy, president of the Home Safety Council. There are other questions to ask, ones that probably matter much more in an emergency.

Will the baby sitter be cooking? Bathing the children? Neither are great ideas, Appy said. And what do you know about the baby sitter anyway?

“The question to ask yourself isn’t, ‘Is this person responsible under normal circumstances?’ The question is, ‘If something horrible happened in an instant, can I trust this person to handle it when life and death can hang in the balance?’” Appy said.

True, the likelihood of such a catastrophe is slim, but for parents who buy five-point safety car seats and don’t let their kids eat hot dogs until they’re 3, taking precautions is nothing new.

You might know their parents or other children they’ve cared for – and references certainly should be checked – but take the time to know the sitters themselves.

Make sure you’re hiring someone with maturity, even if it’s your own older child. There’s no magic age for a good baby sitter, though Appy thinks older is better.

“Sixteen and up is preferable,” she said.

Also, someone who has taken the time to be trained in CPR and the like by the Red Cross or local health or fire departments likely is someone with initiative and skill, she said. It’s OK in the job “interview” to ask what-if questions, so parents will know the potential sitter’s way of thinking.

And let your own kids be in on the interview, at least part of the time, so you can see how the sitter and the children react to each other.

Go through Plan B

Tell baby sitters if they smell smoke, don’t spend time verifying a fire, just get everyone out of the house. Do fire drills with baby sitters; if drills are a regular part of the family routine, which they should be, children won’t be scared seeing baby sitters going through them, Appy said.

Appy suggests if there’s a baby in the scenario, keep a baby carrier that goes around the neck nearby so the sitter’s hands will be free to open the door or hold the hand of a toddler.

Since cooking innately introduces a fire risk, why not skip it altogether and serve sandwiches instead? Also, why risk grapes, hot dogs or popcorn, all candidates to cause airway obstruction, especially when parents aren’t home?

Baths also might be skipped. There are two risks in the tub: drowning, the second leading cause of unintentional injury-related death among children, and burns from scalding water. Water temperature should never be more than 120 degrees, Appy said.

All medicines and poisons, including cleaning supplies, should already be out of children’s reach, but parents should make sure the number for poison control is by the phone. A national number is 800-222-1222.

Even less likely to happen is a natural or national disaster, but we all know it’s a possibility, even if a remote one. Appy said baby sitters should be left with a list of emergency contacts, including someone from out of state, and supplies, such as water and infant formula, for three days.

Set rules

To avoid any confusion or differences in judgment or opinion, parents and their sitters should go over house rules, maybe even going so far as to write them down.

Appy suggests prohibiting smoking, since that would involve matches or other fire tools. It’s also a bad habit for children to witness.

Can they have their friends over, or spend time on the phone or text messaging? That question might be answered differently in each household depending on the duties, age of the children or the amount of time the sitter will be there, but it should be emphasized that the sitter’s job is to focus on the children.

But, while you want sitters to play and interact with the children, they also should establish themselves as authority figures – and that should be backed up by parents, Appy said.

And, lastly, Appy said, baby sitters who do a good job filling the gap when parents are gone should be rewarded with good pay.