Cost of baby sitting

[Niloufes]

Our baby sister recently told us that she is putting her costs up to minimum wage per hour, £7.20 an hour. Am i being unreasonable to think this is too much? She comes round when our 3 year old daughter is asleep and waits until we get home. Only once has she woken up and needed a drink and so the sitter is just sitting watching tv the rest of the time. Is this a normal amount to pay? we paid £6 before. aibu?

Also we are never more than 3 miles away. In the vanishing unlikely event our nt perfectly healthy swotty 9 or 7 year old had an emergency we ask our reliable teen babysitter to ring us we would be home in minutes. If they were unwell before we were due to go out we wouldn't go.

This thread making me feel guilty for not having a fully medically trained 40 year old ninja type babysitter poised on edge of sofa ready to leap up and deal with various dire unspecified emergencies.

Ha! I'm in the daily mail! that cracks me up.

Is she getting cash in hand? Then if it's tax free money I think it is acceptable to be slightly under the minimum wage.

Must be nc time. Quoted in the daily mail - the shame....

To haggle with someone who is trying to get MINIMUM wage is pretty low. Minimum wage is minimum wage, it is the law and applies to everyone and that includes you. It doesn't matter what that person does. They are WORKING. They are not at your house by choice.

My issue is I see this as a cash in hand supplement pocket money type task for older teens rather than a "proper" job done by a qualified adult with all that entails.

I did stacks of babysitting myself as a teenager (mother local primary school teacher), almost ran an agency as if I couldn't do it my sister or pal would. Thats how I view it rather than a "proper" job requiring health and safety rules, minimum wage, tax payments done by adults.

Adding another to this... I did child mind for the couple I knew who I did GCSE child development study for but in school holidays and I left school 6 months early (private tuition) - they owned a record shop and husband was often away in USA so the mother needed childcare. I did pretty much a full or half days childcare up to 3 x a week, got I think £15 per hour then but I was then 16. I also prepared simple food for them. It was lucky I lived a few doors away...

When I passed exams and started work in an office at 17 I stopped the childminding as just too much even though the mum wanted me to do babysitting from time to time too (gave that up after a while too), my other families all local also still wanted me to babysit (I guess when you're a trusted babysitter it helps, didn't have emergencies but did have a child cut their hand badly once, just rang parents - it had happened whilst the kids were mucking around!). But at 17-18 I gradually wound it down did it occasionally then stopped.

You reminded me the other week at my flat we had a power cut (I was home) lasted from lunchtime to 1am next day! Anyway neighbour's next door decided to go out for dinner because of power cut had called a babysitter (their childminder) to babysit and apparently left her in dark with no internet, light, heat, TV etc...! We were all in same boat! Luckily people in next street who I know had their power on so I borrowed hot water bottles and flasks (brought my own too) and gave her a hot water bottle, flask, candles and a good book! She was grateful but I was a bit as how goes out and leaves their adult babysitter (the CM who also has 2 DC and a DH of her own) in the dark with no heat etc?! Not good.

KERALA that's really interesting I did that too!

Had 2 trusted friends who I could always count on to back up if I couldn't do it...

On one occasion I got back from where I was out (family dinner) and me and friend had some of the family Pimms!

At one point I was babysitting Friday and Saturday nights every week in rotation for certain couples... I Think once they knew me and trusted me word got round never had to advertise. Helped also when I did GCSE childcare as some of the mum's mentioned it to me...

I am still surprised nothing happened though, never any dramas... Apart form the cut hand of a child. The most shocking of one, was when older teen DD of couple whose 2 boys I babysat was out at a party, came back and confided drunkenly to me she'd had a miscarriage but not told her mum (told me not to tell her mum) I was 15 at the time! I was a bit . This was in late 1980s when black Lycra miniskirts, same black mini dresses were in fashion and I recall her in a black mini dress with red lipstick looking very glam but very drunk!

Ha yes I have many tales to tell from my babysitting days! None involve the kids - they were all fine - it was the parents...very grand, uptight couple smoking pot before the Harvest supper, a Dad running down stairs stark naked as hadn't realised I had arrived my particular highlights!

Not to mention the screaming rows when recently separated dad realises I am there to babysit whilst deserted wife goes out on date with gorgeous man..Totally served him right reason they had split was his awful behaviour. His face on seeing his replacement was priceless.

My 21yo babysits regularly for about half a dozen different fams and gets between 8-10 ph. We live in Hertfordshire... She's been babysitting since she was 15! Why would you pay less than minimum for someone caring for your child no matter how little they were doing .. you have the pleasure of going out with the security of someone taking care of your lo. Pay up!

Paying a lot and getting a good babysitter are not mutually exclusive!

I'm a mum, a sensible, responsible adult, am first aid trained and DBS due to job; and in perfectly happy to babysit once the kids are in bed for £5 an hour. I'm not losing any time as I take work (laptop) with me. No taxi either as I drive.

Seriously? £10 ph for unqualified teen to relax on my sofa watch tv or study? Literally nothing to do bar be there and ring us if a problem? I don't think of myself as tight but that seems a lot. Totally different to daytime childcare that's proper effort.

I got quoted in the DM!

Ha yes I have many tales to tell from my babysitting days! None involve the kids

Lol, that's sooo true. Throughout my teens used to be the goto babysitter for a group of lecturers and I could write a book with the things that went on. Arguments, drink, drugs, awful kids, the dads hitting on me, etc. I may have been discreet but I was secretly judging them . I liked the bad behaviour as I think it made them pay me more.

Pretty sure the mothers who begrudge having to pay babysitters are the same ones who piously talk about how nothing in the world is harder or more important than caring for children - when they're the ones doing it. But when it comes to paying someone else to do it, suddenly all it involves is sitting on the couch, watching tv. Sorry, folks, you're paying someone to give up their evening to care for your kids and give you peace of mind. If your child woke up sick and needed help, and the babysitter did nothing because according to you, you were only paying her to watch tv, I'm sure you'd have something to say about it.

Yeah, I cant help thinking that if you came home after being called to say your child was ill and they were still lying in bed, covered in sick, you would not be happy. But after all, you said that you were expecting nothing more than a phone call.

Wow some strange vitriol on this thread! I don't "begrudge" I just think £6 ph is fair enough for an older teen to keep an eye on sensible older children while they are in bed. Plus if they were the slightest bit ill either DH or I would bail in the first place. If they vommed they would ring us up and we would be home in minutes. Most of our socialising now going to dinners with local friends who live within 5 min walk of our house (sad).

Exactly Daily Mail - remember one house was utterly utterly disgustingly filthy even to my teenage self. Not one clean surface covered in washing up - yet was the grandest house in the village and the parents were ridiculously posh.

Pretty sure the mothers who begrudge having to pay babysitters are the same ones who piously talk about how nothing in the world is harder or more important than caring for children

I think it would be the other way around. i.e. the "pious" mothers who think nothing in the world is harder than caring for children would be the ones who think babysitting is requires skill and high pay.

Yeah, I cant help thinking that if you came home after being called to say your child was ill and they were still lying in bed, covered in sick, you would not be happy. But after all, you said that you were expecting nothing more than a phone call.

I wouldn't expect a babysitter to clean up sick. I would be home in ten minutes in the very unlikely event that happened.

You sound a bit mean, OP.

Exactly Mary. I think even a £20 ph babysitter would call the parents if a child vomited.

I would expect to be called, but if the child had been left exactly where they were with no care or cleaning up attempted by the babysitter on the basis that they are just paid to be there and call you, are you really saying that it wouldnt bother you?

So, if we should pay proportionate to our dc's worth, how can anyone justify paying a tenner an hour? Is that all your dcs mean to you? It should be similar to the payment a premier league footballer would get per hour, at the very least.

Can't envisage that made up scenario mine are old enough to go the bathroom on their own, and I would never leave them with a weird cold hearted babysitter who wouldn't shift from her place on the sofa and shout upstairs "tough luck your parents are only paying me £6 ph sort yourself out". I would expect them to go upstairs, make sympathetic noises and ring us up.

The only time one of my dc was sick for babysitters, they were sitting for me for free. Not quite sure where this leaves those people who reckon the quality goes up the more you pay

Oddly, as normal, caring people, they cleaned him up and put the sheets in the bath so the could tuck him up in clean sheets.

I didn't "expect" them to - obviously if i had any inkling he was going to be sick i wouldn't have left him with them, but I would do exactly the same if I were sitting and a child were ill. We're all parents - you know stuff happens sometimes and you just get on with it.

When I sit for others - or, indeed my teen dd sits now, I don't have to "give up my evening" - I get on and do whatever I'd be doing at home - maybe working, maybe wTching tv, maybe surfing the net. It's hardly arduous in most cases, its just sitting in someone else's house instead of your own.