What do you do if no babysitter?

[ReturnofSaturn]

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?

My daughter’s Brownies had a 16 year old helper who babysat.

Ask local pre-schools if any staff do babysitting.

Local college running childcare qualification courses may have students advertising as babysitters - look in college foyer notice board or ask reception.

Ask local infant school teachers / email them if they can recommend any staff (learning assistants/TAs) who babysit, or if they know of any parents who are childminders.
Or ask at school gates who might be a childminder locally.

Neighbours with kids.

If you’re local to me I’ll do it!

We’ve done a mix of:

Unreliable in laws - enough said

Creche/nursery staff - fine but can easily add another £50 onto your night out.

Babysitting swap with friend - this is great because I actually love going and sitting in her nice house watching her Sky channels while her kids sleep 😄 and then of course me and DH get to go out in turn too. Really handy when friend or I have an appointment too, quick half hour babysitting is no problem. I despise dragging the kids along to appointments with me.

I leave DH at home and go out alone or with friends 😂

No, @BigSandyBalls2015 eldest has autism and younger 3 are too young. We often will go for lunch if we can arrange some flexi but otherwise we just manage. We are certainly not unhappy. I am however off to Italy in 2weeks with friends. First break without kids ever!

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.

Same here. I had a friend who took care of DD when I had to go to hospital in an ambulance BUT we couldn’t do a reciprocal arrangement for going out as she had two sets of grandparents and two aunts practically fighting to have her DCs for her. I honestly didn’t know anyone who didn’t already have family babysitters on tap and when mine were small paying for a babysitter would have meant no money for going out anyway.

My relationship with DH hasn’t suffered at all... why is time spent in a restaurant actually considered to be better for a marriage than spending time together in your own home with the children in bed?

I think phrasing it as "paying a stranger" is a judgmental and slightly dramatic.

Exactly.

I’m glad my children ate growing up confident and secure enough to be left with a babysitter. They love it when she comes

Exactly. My dc always looked forward to having their babysitters. If they got wind that one of us was off out somewhere they would be very disappointed if they found the other parents was still in and they wouldn't get the 'treat' of having a sitter.

I'd never use a babysitter I didn't know.

Oddly, nor would more parents - that isn't what people are suggesting. Read all the posts - there are lots of ideas.

Lack of social life is par for the course with young children I'm afraid

Social life changes once you have dc, but it only stops if that is the choice you make. The idea of not going out at all for potentially 15yrs+ (with more than one child it could be that length of time until the youngest is old enough to be left), is quite frankly pretty sad. Yes, you can create 'couple time' in your own home, but you can't go to other friends weddings or birthday parties or other life celebrations in your own home. Or go to a gig or a concert or the theatre. Or meet up with friends who work in the day. Or even just take part in your hobby or volunteering or whatever you "me" time is, whilst your partner is away, in your own home.

Good post Backforgood.

We were lucky to have ils but they couldnt babysit more than about twice a year so just had date nights in and then when the dcs started school, had the odd date day!

Surely all babysitter are strangers before you meet them? My son is looked after by the friend of my previous babysitter who was a stranger before she came to my house?!

I don’t go out in the evening. We used to take days off together when he was at nursery and do lunch dates. Or evening dates at home with wine and takeaway.

The idea of my child waking in the middle of the night to a stranger is not something I could contemplate.

Cookit - why would you have a stranger babysit ? We used the staff from DT’s nursery who we and DT’s knew well.

@Cookit yes I’d be scared to wake up to a stranger too. As a child I was fine waking up to the nice lady I’d played with for an hour before bedtime and had met several times beforehand.

There’s no prize for being a mummy martyr.

We found a neighbours dd who was 17 and doing her A levels. It suited us all. She got some money for sitting, her Mum was happy as she studied while there and her Mum agreed her dd could ring her if anything came up she could not deal with and we got to go out. Some schools run babysitting courses including basic first aid. Great if you can find a student from one of these schools.

Do you have friends you could leave him with and maybe you return the favour? If that's a possibility but you don't think he would settle somewhere else at night, how about going out in the daytime for lunch/afternoon tea?

Backforgood But a lot of people don't feel the need to socialise like that so aren't missing out.

Apologies @skyejuly - have a fab time in Italy!

Paid teens we knew through church, did swaps with other families, asked for favours from young adults in church - gave them dinner and a bottle of wine in return. I'm now trying to return the favours as the young adults who babysat for us now have kids of their own, and my teens now babysit for people who used to babysit them.

I too wouldn’t leave my child with a stranger. I do leave them with a dbs checked, usually qualified in something childcare related, recommended babysitter from an agency.
I view it the same way in that I don’t know all the staff at school or clubs or when they were at nursery.
Perhaps the reluctance to put parents needs above children now and again is contributing to the generation of children being raised with little resilience.

I can be heard saying to my children frequently that my hobbies/need to exercise and be healthy/need to have time out with friends and dad is important even when sometimes they may not want me to go out.
I’m also confident that in an emergency I have a network of options available to help me out and am happy to reciprocate (and have done with other friends).

Another option is something we’ve started doing now the littlest is in nursery - DH work from home, I’m home anyway, kids at nursery and school and me and DH go out for a pub lunch.

We rarely go out together, but have asked nursery nurses from the DC’s nursery, then TAs from school.

I asked for recommendations on my local FB page. One was highly recommended so invited her to meet us for a cup of tea to see how we all got on. We really liked her so we asked her to babysit initially for an hour, and it went well. She's been babysitting for us for a year now and she's a godsend.

To be fair it is easier once you can explain to a child that mummy and daddy are going out, will be back at grown up bedtime and x is going to look after you until then.

There's a short period when i worried about them waking in the night and being disoriented too, which is why i paid a premium for nursery staff my youngest knew and was used to being put to sleep by. By age 3 it was easier to explain who would be looking after them and expect them to remember if they woke up. Now age 4+ they can be put to bed by a babysitter with a story just like we do. This was v useful when we had to go to a funeral out of town and they needed collecting from after school club and putting to bed. It is not only for social life reasons (though that is important too).

This also reminds me of a thread asking if it was a duty of parents to build a support network and although i wouldn't go that far i do think it worth cultivating a network if you can.

My youngest just started school and i am going out of my way to get to know the other parents by mentioning on the class WhatsApp if we are going somewhere and being sure to accept similar invitations from others when i can, suggesting we help each other out and offering favours etc.
I already have a strong network for dd1 who i know i can call on if I am running late or have a clashing commitment involving dd2, and they ask the same of me. We also swap holiday cover. I did the same when they were babies and its those people who are my babysitting circle now. It does make life run more smoothly when you don't have local family though i think i sm lucky that lots of people near me are in the same boat. I used to have a great arrangement with my neighbours but their parents moved closer and now i don't feel i have as much to offer so i don't ask either.

So much fear of 'strangers' around this thread!