Sounds like you’re an adult with limited non-family references. Ask to babysit your nieces and nephews on a weekend. Then arrange for it to be a play date with their friends (just 2-3 kids to start). Do it a couple times, let the friends rave to their parents about you (and they will, if you’re involved in planning activities and fun, no parks or the like!). In 1-3 months, start offering to babysit those those kids. After you’ve been doing that for 2 months, it would be reasonable to ask them to be references.

My babysitter walked around the neighborhood and shook our hands and left nice flyers on the doors. She was 16. Everyone was so impressed she got a ton of jobs. She not sits after school every day and has a weekend job too. $15 an hour

If your nieces and nephews are local, take them to the playground and chat with other parents. The plus side to that is that you're able to see their children, so you are able to see their personalities more before you babysit.

Friends of nieces and nephews. Then you can get some non-family references.

First, get fully Infant and Child CPR certified at the Red Cross.

Volunteering at a daycare center for a couple months can make you more desirable too.

Then start answering ads in care.com and neighborhood list servers.

I left a stressful career and am taking some time to figure out what's next. In the meantime, I would love to babysit. I've baby sat for a niece who was 2 weeks old (parents had to go to funeral) up to 6 year olds. I've done over nights for the same niece who is was 6 months at the time. I genuinely love kids. What would be the best way to start to branch out?