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?

I'm also pretty shocked that people think it is acceptable to pay an adult less than the minimum wage.

People do it to earn extra money, not as a favour.

I do odd babysitting at £10ph. Whether it is 'hard work' or not, you are responsible for someone's child/children and you should be paid accordingly.

Don't most people just ask a sensible teenage child of a friend or relative to babysit? I used to babysit when I was 15/16 and it was a tenner plus taxi home (plus money for a taleaway). Up to 20 plus the extras for an after midnight finish.

Yes the cold especially in the winter!! Peoples heating goes off and it not nice sitting them watching boring endless repeats at 1am. I turn up with loads of jumpers. It is reasonable money and I am completely happy with what I earn.However it is very unsocial hours and I would much rather be at home or out myself. As I said up thread I turn down loads of work so all those people on here who think it is money for peanuts come and join us! I'l wave to you as we drive home at 1pm :)

am !!

Teatowel I babysat as a favour for a friend and she had their heating set to go off at 9pm as they would usually light a fire. Except they didnt light a fire, I didnt know how to and by the time they rolled in at 1pm I was chilled to my bones, literally shivering, it was fecking November. She did vaguely mention that she should have shown me where the heating controls were and that was it, no apology or anything. I never babysat for her again!

Which of course baby sitting does as well, but the baby sitters on this thread are talking as though these things are onerous duties.

Not onerous duties but not always sitting on the couch eating biscuits doing sod all which is what some are saying. But even if you are you should still get minimum wage for unsociable hours and a responsible job.

Oh and I charged extra after midnight or on special days like NYE ::gasp::

::pedant alert:: 1am I'm guessing, not pm, that would be a LONG babysit!!

Rightly or wrongly I see it as a teenagers job - I did it as a teen myself and have only ever had local late teen girls, nieces of friends or neighbours girls to babysit, on the rare occasions my parents can't, so the minimum wage issue, doing it after gruelling shift, adult resentment, all new to me.

Dh a keen sportsman so always gets back by midnight even if I'm not and our house kept very warm. For me I hated sitting on people's couches until 3am freezing. As an adult I have resisted all overtures to join babysitting circles to me it's a teenage girls game I would rather pay sitters myself than go back to doing that.

Professional babysitters are professional childcarers in some capacity. Sitters, for example, takes on only those who work as teachers, nursery staff, nannies or childminders in the day.

Parents in my area prefer that reassurance. They want to know that their babysitter is trained and qualified to deal with all aspects of childcare. Should their child be ill or need first aid, they want someone there who can do this.

As a babysitter, I've entertained the kids, fed them, bathed them and put them to bed. I've dealt with sleepless children, teething babies, allergic reactions, power cuts, illness, parents arriving late - you name it!

I've done all that without having to ask parents to come home. Texting them to let them know, of course, but they can rely on me to deal with it all until their return.

I do have a day job: I'm a registered childminder working 11 or 12 hour days. Yes, I do expect to be adequately paid for my babysitting when I could be at home on my own sofa, with my own family, putting my own child to bed. Fortunately, the parents I work for appreciate me and don't begrudge paying me for what I do.

I'm interested if any of the people who think you can only get a "responsible enough" person to babysit their dc, by paying NMW, ever leave their dc with volunteers?
Every day across the country, people look after other people's dc in scout groups, guides, BB/GB, youth groups, church groups, St Johns, sports team, etc, etc, and yet those adults don't get paid.
Just seems like a nonsense argument to me.
My 17 yr old has been sitting for a couple of years now. She's first aid qualified, experienced, done lots of Young Leader training, reliable, great with kids, but there's no way she'd expect more than £20 for an evening sitting doing her homework, or watching tv in someone else's house.

When our dc were little, if we had to pay some professional wage to someone to sit, then it would just mean we wouldn't ever have been able to afford to go out.
Because our neighbour's teen was affordable, it meant she go an evening's work off us every 6 weeeks or so that she wouldn't otherwise have got, and we got to actually go out with each other occasionally. If you had to find £40 to give the sitter, then the job wouldn't exist so no-one would be earning anything.

Exactly back. I would prefer to pay a sensible caring 17 year old £25 to sit in my lovely warm house for 4 hours and study / watch tv than a professional. I did stacks of babysitting at that age and managed to deal with everything that arose.

Plus my pre teen girls love the glamour of a real live teenager in the house!

No-one is saying that it is terrible to hire a 16 year old for pocket money, just that it isn't unreasonable for an adult to charge minimum wage and it isn't always tea and biscuits and TV. Equally just because someone volunteers at a job for free doesn't mean it is unreasonable to charge what you think you are worth for a job. You can get someone to walk your dog for free or you can pay a teen for pocket money or you can get someone from an agency. Ditto looking after your house when you are away. If you value having an experienced adult then you probably are willing to pay more. If you don't think that is necessary and have an abundance of local cheap teens then do that.

Would you work happily for less than that rate?

Yes and I did when I was younger. Babysitting is not really arduous is it? Have none of you ever done it?!

Would you work happily for less than that rate?

Yes and I have done. Have none of you ever babysat? It isn't exactly arduous. I loved it as a teenager as I could watch whatever I liked on tv and eat cake.

Absolute Hairy. If people have the money and want to pay an agency rate, or want to believe they get a better service by dint of paying more, I have no issue with that. Free market and all that. It's the people who are trying to suggest that anyone who makes a different choice from them somehow cares less about their children that gives me the rage.

Oh, and yes, i used to do a lot of sitting when i was a teen / young adult - think i used to get about a fiver for the night and was very happy with that

Can people please stop saying that their 16 year old babysitter is happy with £20 for 4hrs work....of course they are minimum wage for them is £3.87 an hour. Theyr are getting OVER minimum wage

For what its worth i think that you either pay what someone asks, or find someone cheaper (or dont go out )

Oh and someone upthread sajd if they dont pay tax its ok to oay them a little less. Loads of part time workers dont pay tax , they still are entitled to minimum wage

As a nanny of 30 years, I wouldn't babysit for less than £12 an hour (with a 3 hour minimum and a 50% cancellation fee if less than 24 hours is given) I work a 60+ hour week, I get paid fairly well, I don't need to babysit, I generally sit for people who I know well and know will not take the piss and realise that babysitting is not always easy money.

Babysitting is boring. You sit in someone else's home watching the clock until they get home, Half the time late. A lot of the time you are shown where the tea/coffee is but nothing else, 8pm-12 is quite a long time without a biccy or piece of chocolate!

I have had children who

• have had nightmares and needed calming down by a relative stranger.

• had various coughs and colds that kept them up most of the night, which saw me running up and down stairs to get them water and trying to resettle them (generally not told that the children have been poorly for a week until they get home and I tell them they have been really unsettled 'oh yes, they've had it for ages, that's why we needed a night off!'

• had loads of children who push their luck, 'mum says I'm allowed to read/play on my computer game/watch tv, until 8/9/10/11/they get home' and have tantrums or just ignore me when I say no she didn't say that!

• flooded his en-suite bathroom, when the parents said 'he never wakes, we've closed the gate to his bedroom, here's the monitor, it only activates if he makes a sound' only they had turned the sound down, I heard water running but thought it was the neighbour as I didn't hear a sound (and no flashing lights) from the monitor, took me over an hour to mop it all up while he cried about the strange lady in his room, wouldn't let me comfort him.

• have vomited copiously or wet (or worse) the bed, which involved bathing them, stripping the bed, hunting for a change of bedding in a house you don't know, trying to calm an upset child who doesn't really know you.

• lots of thunder storms and black outs which have terrified the children (thankfully most of those happened with my charges and so they were happy to be comforted by me) but the ones that weren't in my work house, trailing terrified children around a pitch black house trying to find candles/matches/torches. Phones wouldn't work as they had to have mains power so couldn't call the parents!

• had a small electrical fire that could have been much worse if I hadn't have needed the bathroom and seen the smoke in the parents room (over loaded sockets) as I passed.

• had a seizure, had to tend to him, get him into recovery and then think about how to go downstairs for a phone to call the parents without leaving him.

• had to take 3 year old twins to hospital (in an ambulance) when one had a dangerously high fever and I couldn't get hold of the parents, the twins both spent 8 days in hospital with swine flu.

Obviously these are things that are rare and there have been hundreds of nights when I've watched tv, drank their nice wine, eating their nice snacks, curled and napped on their sofa while the children didn't stir but I'm still there in case something out of the ordinary happens. Otherwise they'd just leave them home alone! They pay me what I'm worth because they know that I can deal with almost any situation IF it arises and you never know when it might!

It's irrelevant that you were happy to do it as a teenager.

Minimum wage has gone up considerably since then and teenagers have never been entitled to as much as adults! £5 an hour for a 16 year old is above minimum wage for them.

I don't understand why you expect an adult (so 25+) to be happy to give up their evening to work for the less than the minimum wage!

Professional babysitters are professional childcarers in some capacity. Sitters, for example, takes on only those who work as teachers, nursery staff, nannies or childminders in the day.

Parents in my area prefer that reassurance. They want to know that their babysitter is trained and qualified to deal with all aspects of childcare. Should their child be ill or need first aid, they want someone there who can do this.

Alternatively it may just be that if they employ a stranger they will want someone who has effectively been vetted by a school, nursery etc. Few parents have qualifications in first aid, childcare or whatever other great skills you claim babysitters need to why does someone who sits on the sofa while your child is asleep need them? Even in a so called "crisis" they just need to have basic common sense.

8pm-12 is quite a long time without a biccy or piece of chocolate!

Well there's nothing stopping you taking one with you is there? I don't get given chocolate at work either - who does?

There are mint imperials in the till drawer at my work

:Pedant reply: Yes it was 1am, had it been 1pm that friendship would have very over!

I've never hired a babysitter but did look into it on a website once and they all asked for min wage so that's what I'd expect to pay/be paid if I did it.

I only babysat once aged 14 for three boys. The mum stayed out from about 6pm until the early hours of the next morning so I was expected to put her kids to bed. It was horrendous. The eldest was running riot, invited half the street into the house at one stage and was robbing wine from the fridge (I think he was 11ish). I had a wretched time and had to sleep there when I just wanted to go home... I got paid £20 . Wasn't worth the aggro, never did it again.

allegretto Mon 23-May-16 10:23:45
8pm-12 is quite a long time without a biccy or piece of chocolate!

Well there's nothing stopping you taking one with you is there? I don't get given chocolate at work either - who does?*

I do! I have all meals, drinks and snacks in my contract!

Also, allegretto. Some families leave out very generous spreads, biscuits, chocolate, sandwiches, cake, some even get in a pizza/ready meal for me to heat up in case I haven't had tea, tell me to help myself to anything in the cupboard or fridge (and say please don't xyz as they are my favourites/were a present). Other families say there's the kettle, mugs, tea bags and coffee are in that cupboard, milk in the fridge but don't offer any snacks/food of any kind, these are usually the families who give you a £20 nite and ask for the 25p change.

If it's a new family, you don't know what you are going to get so don't go prepared as thankfully these families are few and far between.