To not know how to have a social life due to lack of babysitting!

[seriouslylong]

So I really feel like it's a nightmare to get a babysitter! I have some friends that can help if necessary but I don't really like to ask too often.

My daughters dad isn't involved so I don't have the fortnight childcare that a lot of my single parent friends have!

Are there any single parent babysitting swap type of groups?

I'm thinking surely there must be other single parents out there like me that really need childcare!

Although at the same time I'm not sure how I feel about leaving my dd with someone I don't know too well! She is 11 years old so it's maybe not as bad as leaving a baby with someone you havnt known for years.

I'm thinking there must be some kind of babysitting website that could check the other parents before allowing them to sign up?

Any ideas?

Have a look on childcare.co.uk website; there are babysitters on there as well as childminders who will do babysitting. It probably costs a bit extra but they’ll be DBS Checked.
Do you know any of your child’s friends parents well enough to arrange “sleepover swaps”, that’s another option

There is a babysitting app called Bubble. Have a look at that.

Sitters.co.uk

Not helpful but why can't your friends come round? My best friend has a 10 year old, I go round to hers and have a few sensible glasses of wine all the time rather than going out.

Neighbours’ older children. Mine were pretty much self supporting from 13-18 via babysitting.

Do you have a local Facebook group - you could ask for recommendations. Round here you'd get lots of Mums recommending their teens.
Friends with older kids?

You don’t need a babysitter. You need a 6th former to come round and be in the house with her. My ds did this loads-she helped with homework as well!

Or you could talk to her friends’ mums about a sleepover circle. That works well.

I use Sitters.co.uk and it is excellent. Obviously you have to pay. I have never had any free childcare help sadly so I suck up the costs but it does make night’s out expensive and a bit infrequent.

Maybe start inviting her friends for sleepovers & they will be reciprocated?

Staff at my local nursery do babysitting. Also, people training in childcare at the local college often want the experience.

Thank you for the suggestions, my dd has just started secondary school so we don't know the new friends too well yet.

Out of interest how much would you expect to pay say a 6th former for babysitting? I'm pretty sure I saw older teenagers advertising for babysitting on my local forum for like £10 per hour.

I would have though you could get a professional babysitter for £10 per hour?

PolPot - I do often have friends over with their children and I also go to theirs which we all enjoy.

But I just feel like at this rate I'm going to be single for ever

Etino - as I live in london most people don't know their neighbors so unfortunately I don't have any neighbors with older children for babysitting and none of my friends have older children

At 11 you need a 6th former and pay them about £6-7 an hour. Ask on a local FB group or if the school has a FB ask on there if any 6th formers are looking for babysitting. You def shouldn’t be not going out due to lack of babysitting with an 11 year old

Otherwise sitters.co.uk is not £10 an hour and their sitters are excellent

I pay a 16 year old £6 an hour for my dc same age.

Believe- see that's what I was thinking older teens should be about £6 per hour! I will check maybe on a local Facebook page surely there must be some round here happy to help

Was going to say try local nurseries, staff are checked and often want to earn extra money.

At 11 your DD would be a dream to look after

I did a lot of babysitting when at college studying to be a nursery nurse. Back then there used to be a advertisement board in our room and parents would put requests on their!

I'm in the same boat OP but slightly different as one of my dc has disabilities including autism and is considered more medically fragile too so I can't just hire a baby-sitter. But before that when I tried I found local neighbourhood groups were good, but I also contacted after school clubs and asked about teens that worked/volunteered for them. Often they love kids and want to go into teaching or nursery nursing. One other thing I did was contact my local sixth form. They can have job bulletin boards but also one teacher made a couple recommendations.

I also asked for references. I think an 11 year old daughter would be a great job for a local sixth former.

I would encourage you to get some time to yourself. I wish it was possible for me and I think people who are lone parents (no ex to take kids and usually either widowed or no other parent involved) can so often never get a break and it's so important. Good luck!

We used my first dd’s nursery worker as our babysitter. She still charged £8 an hour, which for 4 hours was £32. Not cheap. Even when we made a real effort it was no more than once a month, usually once every 2 months. All the weeks in saving up helped make it possible. We have no family around to help so it’s quite a luxury (haven’t been out alone in well over a year!).

You need a responsible local teenager. I babysat loads when I was 13-18. Your DD is old enough to not really need too much supervision, so an older teenager would be perfect. Ask for recommendations though, friend's children or someone your friends use.

I also found a great teenager who was doing an NVQ in early years studies or something like that and used to help in my daughter's school - she was fab and while I'm glad she's taken herself off to uni I miss her!

Seriously www.sitters.co.uk are all DBS checked, referenced, reviewed etc and less than £8 an hour!

My teens will say £5 an hour, when they are asked.

At 11 though, it isn't any bother to have a friend round for the evening and to sleep, if their parents wanted to go out presuming your dd isn't a pain in the rear .

@seriouslylong
I live in London too
Regardless of whether you sort out babysitting for your dd, make it a priority to build a support network. Who could you call if you got locked out? Take a parcel in for you? Who would let you if you had a burst pipe etc.