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Original poster

What do you do if no babysitter?

175 replies

ReturnofSaturn · 16/09/2019 12:01

We have a 19 month old son.

Me and DH are desperate for a night out just me and him.

However we have no one to babysit. The only family I have here is my parents who can't do childcare as my dad is my mums carer - she has dementia.
I have a sister but i just can't ask her right now as she works full time as well as doing a lot for my parents. Plus her work is usually evening hours too ( casino)

So my question is, what do other people do in this situation? Just never go out? Pay a stranger to babysit? (I really struggle with the idea of a stranger in our house with our baby while we are out)

I'm not really looking for a solution here, just wondering what other people do?

OP posts:
Settlersofcatan · 16/09/2019 16:31

We weren't comfortable with an agency so advertised locally and a lovely local lady responded. She had 10 years experience in a nursery, DBS check, first aid qualifications etc. I phoned her manager at the nursery for a reference which was all good. She spent a bit of time with our son before we left him the first time.

We used her regularly for some time until she had her own baby and wanted to stop

Paying someone doesn't have to mean that they are an anonymous stranger from the internet - I would explore ways to find someone you can get to know

Parker231 · 16/09/2019 16:34

My sister and I did baby sitting as teenagers. Wealthy part of London. My DM joked that she was our booking agent as she usually took the phone calls from the parents. Having two daughters available was a big hit with the parents as usually one of us was available. We avoided accepting jobs with a couple of families where the DC’s were never in bed and fought over the jobs from the families who provided the best supper. Pay was good!

ElizaPancakes · 16/09/2019 16:39

We didn’t go out. We did try sitters.com or similar but I don’t think they operated on our area at the time.

My parents and sister babysat every so often but they live 200 miles away so it certainly wasn’t often!

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ElizaPancakes · 16/09/2019 16:42

I babysat from 16 to when I went to uni at 19. I remember my regular family, the mum laughed when I asked for a fiver an hour - on NYE! Typically I got £3 an hour, money for old rope. The kids were almost always in bed and if they weren’t they were older so didn’t require too much interaction.

MotherSpider · 16/09/2019 16:50

Apart from very occasional parents babysitting for special occasions, we hardly went out until they were into their teens and old enough to leave on their own. I've certainly never paid anyone or left them with a stranger, but plenty of people do do this and it's fine. I was always left with paid sitters when I was small, and while I didn't like it much, I survived.

Hobbitfeet32 · 16/09/2019 16:57

So really it seems that if you want to go out, there are various options available.
If you’re not bothered about going out then don’t.

FrenchJunebug · 16/09/2019 16:59

I pay for a sitter. What are you worried about?!

NeverGotMyPuppy · 16/09/2019 17:03

@stealthbanana completely agree - no wonder divorce rates are so high! We have an auntie who is willing to babysit but if we didnt we would pay someone. No chance in hell would I give up evenings with just DH.

ilovepixie · 16/09/2019 17:04

Get a friends teenager to babysit.

ilovepixie · 16/09/2019 17:04

Or ask friends who they use.

confusedandemployed · 16/09/2019 17:08
  1. Nursery key worker
  2. Friend's younger sister
  3. Babysitter who came highly recommended from other school mums
  4. Exchanged sitting favours with friends.

It's really not that difficult, but you do need to put yourself about a bit, and start friendships with other parents.

YaySeptember · 16/09/2019 17:22

Dh & I both have siblings who are happy to have our dc occasionally, and my mum babysits about 1x a year, which is all she's able to do.

If we didn't have that, we'd ask our childminder - she provides overnight care but it's very expensive!

The thing we do most often if we can't get anyone to look after our dc is take a day off together when they're at school and either enjoy the quiet house Wink or go out for a meal or a walk or shopping or whatever.

oldenoughtobehavebetter · 16/09/2019 17:43

Tbh we went out a bit but not much, I couldn't keep a proper babysitter as we never used them often enough. But we did always eat out as a family eg pizza express from the beginning, going for the early evening sitting. Or having family days out together, then a movie night at home.

But if you do want to go out, Write a list of all the suitable people you know who are local to you. And rank them in order of how comfortable you'd be asking them a favour. To swap childcare or be paid or just as a favour. No one is going to be ideal and it will be hard to ask but if you make a list you might find there's someone on it you hadn't thought of - a friend's mum, or DH's colleague etc

Alternatively pay a professional

Or don't go out and find other ways to enjoy your time at home together

Dinosauratemydaffodils · 16/09/2019 18:02

*1. Nursery key worker

  1. Friend's younger sister
  2. Babysitter who came highly recommended from other school mums
  3. Exchanged sitting favours with friends.

It's really not that difficult, but you do need to put yourself about a bit, and start friendships with other parents.*

It's not that simple.

  1. Won't do babysitting because has small children/a life of her own
  2. None of my friends have little sisters who want to babysit
  3. If they were over 6, I'd have no issues getting a babysitter but they aren't and even the most confident teenage babysitters draw the line at dc2.
  4. I have plenty of friends but virtually all their husbands work away so it would need to be sleepover babysitting and whilst they are happy to have dc1, no one wants dc2 (she's a dreadful sleeper and is going through a fun stage of screaming the second I'm out of sight) on top of their own kids.
BuggerOffAndGoodDayToYou · 16/09/2019 18:04

How do you actually maintain a semblance of a relationship?

Easily, we love each other and chose to make the children together. Once they were at school we would have (short) days out or lunch - easy because I was a SAHM and he gets lots of leave.

Now the youngest is 16 we go out a lot and regularly go away together.

no wonder divorce rates are so high!

We’ve been married for nearly 30 years... no sign of divorce...

Stompythedinosaur · 16/09/2019 18:06

We used to have limited childcare (what help we had helped us work but we would not have been able to go out). We used to go out with friends separately, and have a night in together after bedtime.

Makesmilingyourbesthobby · 16/09/2019 18:07

Nowadays I don't go out, but when I was younger and only had my eldest, if my mother or sister were busy, me and a woman I grew up in the same street with, had a dd the same age as mine who went through primary school together and would babysit for each other she had two other children I would watch for her as well it worked pretty well for us and helped enormously that the dd's were close friends so they loved going to each other's house so did her other two

Grobagsforever · 16/09/2019 18:17

I am widowed parent and have been for five years. If I didn't go out I'd probably have slipped into a full depressive state by now. My solutions have been:

a) Childcare workers who offer babysitting who I knew or met through friends
b) From when youngest was 18 months, sleepover swaps with friends (so sometimes I end up having 4-6 kids on a Saturday night..)
c) Neighbours teen from age 14
d) Friends au pairs
e) Swapping day time care for evenings e.g I'll have your kids for Saturday day while you do DIY/lunch, then one of the couple can come and babysit for me one eve

Dalooah · 16/09/2019 18:39

I struggled with the idea of leaving my little one with a stranger to. However, we had tickets to go see a show and my cousin was supposed to babysit and couldn't at the last minute. We'd spent loads on the tickets and weren't willing to not go. Our babysitter managed fine- little one didn't sleep till really late but at least we enjoyed a night out!

I don't know if this would be an option for you, but maybe you could have your DS at your parents' and have a babysitter at theirs? Babysitter can manage DS and you'll be comfortable knowing they're not alone with DS?

BackforGood · 16/09/2019 20:08

Personally I couldn't go through life being so restricted that you could never go out for a meal/ a movie/ show etc

Me neither. It isn't just for those treats for yourself though.
When we were settling my Mum into the Hospice and got a call from parents' neighbours to say they'd had to call an ambulance for my Dad, I was mighty glad that my dc were confident and happy being left with caring friends and that was one less worry.

You see threads on here regularly saying people have no-one to leave dc1 with when dc2 is born.
You see threads on here saying they've no-one to leave the toddler / baby with for an hour so they can go and watch the little one's nativity etc.
There are so many reasons it makes sense to build up a network of people you are comfortable leaving your dc with for a short time, and nobody has ever suggested leaving them with strangers - don't be ridiculous. Think about it - your dp was a stranger before you got to know him. Your best friend was a stranger before you got to know her. It's the same principle. You've had so many suggestions as to where you can find sitters. No skin off anyone else's nose if you choose to martyr yourselves, (That's to everyone who says they have no-one to leave their dc with, not just OP), but why ask if you aren't prepared to take on board any of the numerous suggestions ?

CalamityJune · 16/09/2019 20:16

I would use a baby sitter agency and build it up so they don't feel like a stranger any more. Could you go out for an hour the first time, somewhere nearby until you feel less wierd about it? Lots of people have au pairs or nannies. This would be the same, just for a few hours.

Answerthequestion · 16/09/2019 20:16

I have to say that my gob is genuinely smacked by all these people professing not to have been out alone in years with their spouses. Is this the norm? How do you actually maintain a semblance of a relationship?

I agree. The idea of not going out for 27 years or ever having an evening out without children is beyond alien to me. I get the reticence when you have pre school children although never shared it, but once they’re at school I can’t imagine never going out.

Seriously, if you have a school age child who sleeps ok, is highly unlikely to wake up, has met the babysitter and the sitter is someone you know I struggle to see the reluctance.

We used 6th formers whose parents I knew and who came with armfuls or homework, people from Sitters who were mostly TA’s, teachers and nannies and several of whom my kids adored and even the ones they didn’t were fine, friends au pairs, staff from nursery etc

sunglasses123 · 16/09/2019 20:19

I SO agree with Back. Some people really do claim they have no one in the whole wide world to look after their children. No friends, no other parents any school/nursery, no parents. Just nothing.

As others have said. You need to get yourself around and there will be other parents with the same gear. But honestly - don’t be a martyr.

isabellerossignol · 16/09/2019 21:14

I have friends I can ask for help when it's important. They were very supportive when my dad died, or when I have had to take my mum to a hospital appointment. That sort of thing. But there's no way I could risk using up their goodwill on something like babysitting whilst we go out for dinner.

Parsley65 · 16/09/2019 21:33

We used to rely on my DM, but while very willing she was also frail and it got to the point where I was asking the kids to look after her! At that point we began to leave them on their own.

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