To ask how much a babysitter costs?

[DeusEx]

Hello

I’m asking this following a few wedding threads where there has been a ruckus among guests who can’t possibly afford a babysitter. It would be really useful for me to know from a planning perspective (I am pregnant) how much babysitters now cost. My info is out of date from when I last babysat for friends of my parents, well over a decade ago?

So: how much is a babysitter per hour / per night? Does the price change with age of child and with number of kids?

Also if you don’t have family nearby and are reliant on strangers, how do you choose a babysitter?

Thanks!

I continued to baby sit for them when I qualified and I honestly felt so stressed one night! They went out and left their 3 children with me all fine and good until the 6 month old baby woke up and had a fever, I got some calpol out which I had permission to give because the child wasn't well when they went out so they'd mentioned that if they woke up and were unwell they could have calpol.

Got them up to give the calpol and noticed a rash, it didn't blanch so I called 999 and couldn't get hold of the parents at all. So I called my mum who was their neighbour to sit with their asleep children, whilst I went to hospital with the baby in the ambulance constantly calling the parents. It was horrendous and it took over an hour of calling before they rang me back. They said I overreacted but their baby had meningitis so I didn't overreact!!

They were fine in the end after a few weeks in hospital and they did apologise to me but I didn't sit again for them

@thisisbull you did a great job well done

£10-12 an hour. £10 isn't much off minimum wage.
Always amazes me how people begrudge paying a babysitter. The person who has literal responsibility for your child's life.

I saw someone advertising on Facebook for a babysitter for the weekend, paying £3 an hour. Ridiculous.

My favourite was paid £5 an hour as a teenager to babysit 2 young children. The same family paid her £10 an hour to walk the dog. 😁

Daughter not favourite!

@LemonSherbetFancies

£10-12 an hour. £10 isn't much off minimum wage. Always amazes me how people begrudge paying a babysitter. The person who has literal responsibility for your child's life.

Tad over dramatic there, and also factually incorrect

23 and over	 21 to 22	     18 to 20 	Under 18	
£8.91	         £8.36	             £6.56	          4.62	

(Rates from Gov.uk, effective from April 2021)

So, if you are employing a 17 year old, it is considerably more than twice the NMW

£12ph and minimum of 3hrs for basic babysitting /children in bed asleep

30Yrs of childcare experience nnnying and maternity nurse

Charge much more for nights as as mn

It's all very well saying ooh you can't put a price on your child but really if you're earning minimum wage or close to it yourself some of the prices quoted on here would mean you couldn't leave the house for 12 years.

@thisisbull you should sell your story to take a break. Especially the bit about the super quick recovery from meningitis with no after effects. They love that kind of thing.

It's all very well saying ooh you can't put a price on your child but really if you're earning minimum wage or close to it yourself some of the prices quoted on here would mean you couldn't leave the house for 12 years.

you just .. take your child with you, exchange favour with a friend?

You don't expect a free or ridiculously cheap service just because it's more convenient for you.

It's beyond me that people resent paying for childcare so much.

I used to get £5 per hour and my cab fare home, when I was babysitting, when I was 15, 30 years ago. The kids were 18 months and about 7. Bloody loved it!

My mum was in a babysitting circle, everyone on the list agrees to do a number of sits for each other per year for free. You just call the next person on the list for the dates you need and if they can do it, great-if not you try the next.

The children of most of them are still local and have kept it going some 30+ years on! I’m sorry we’ve moved away from that point of view But going to do similar with a few people in my village.
Reciprocal arrangements with other adults suits us, as it’s not that regular.

Suziquatros

@thisisbull you should sell your story to take a break. Especially the bit about the super quick recovery from meningitis with no after effects. They love that kind of thing.

Viral meningitis is often mild? My friends kid had it, was a couple of days in hospital then recovering at home

It's beyond me that people resent paying for childcare so much.

I would resent paying Sitters etc £12/h. Because my children sleep like logs, are asleep already when babysitter arrives, and we stay locally so we can be reached very fast and come home in an emergency.

So there's no real childcare skill involved in sitting on my sofa & watching my telly while 2 kids sleep upstairs. I'm literally paying someone to text me if I need to come home, anyone with a pulse and a mobile phone could do it.

We pay ours £8 per hour in East Anglia.

She’s an infant school teacher who we’ve been using since she was a student. She doesn’t charge any more for daytime sitting.

£10/hr. We used babysitters occasionally from 6 months old.

Always a small number we know well - one local lady who worked at a nursery and had references, another local nanny again good references, and currently one of the staff at the nursery the kids are at.

We don't have anyone else to look after our kids and we're not prepared to never go out together.

I always find the mn view on this weird - many of our friends use the sitters site or bubble app and think we're weird for only using babysitters we've checked out. For me part of that is that I wouldn't want my kids to wake up and be scared of a stranger

I've never used a babysitter. Don't know anyone who has other than on Mumsnet to be honest. Even if they were DBS checked there's no way I'm having someone I don't know alone in my home with my kids.

@misspattylacosta

It's all very well saying ooh you can't put a price on your child but really if you're earning minimum wage or close to it yourself some of the prices quoted on here would mean you couldn't leave the house for 12 years.

you just .. take your child with you, exchange favour with a friend?

You don't expect a free or ridiculously cheap service just because it's more convenient for you.

It's beyond me that people resent paying for childcare so much.

Sitting on the sofa while a child is asleep upstairs is NOT childcare. That’s why people resent paying so much.

Of course it's childcare.

You pay someone for their time, and to be responsible for your own children. Do you also resent paying your childminder/nursery for the times your kid is having a nap?

It's completely the wrong way to look at it.

You'll be happier if you picture it as swings and roundabouts. YOU (could) earn cash when you were babysitting, you pay for a babysitter, your children will earn cash when they are old enough to babysit.

I wish we could stop considering childcare as such a menial, non skilled and low paid job.

We always used babysitters...local teenagers mainly. Otherwise we'd never have gone out. Paid about a fiver an hour 20 years ago. My dd did babysitting 10 years ago and got tenner an hour in London.

We pay £12/hour and a taxi home

But none of the babysitters we use would be able/prepared to do overnights

We don’t have any family willing or able to do any babysitting either, so we can’t go away overnight

@misspattylacosta

Of course it's childcare.

You pay someone for their time, and to be responsible for your own children. Do you also resent paying your childminder/nursery for the times your kid is having a nap?

It's completely the wrong way to look at it.

You'll be happier if you picture it as swings and roundabouts. YOU (could) earn cash when you were babysitting, you pay for a babysitter, your children will earn cash when they are old enough to babysit.

I wish we could stop considering childcare as such a menial, non skilled and low paid job.

It’s not really childcare is it though. You’re paying for the security of having someone there who could look after your child if and when they woke up. Otherwise it is just sitting on the sofa for hours.

When my child is at nursery I’m glad for the staff to have a chance for a sit down when she’s napping because they’ve done about 6 hours of active play / feed / bum changed while she’s been there. Totally different to “looking after” her while she’s asleep

I used to be in a great babysitting circle. We reckoned to have about 16 members - enough that it was unusual for nobody to be available, but any more and admin would have got harder. The system was that you put in your request to the secretary for that month, who would put out the request to the members. If more than one person offered, the person with the lowest number of tokens got the sit, to keep the tokens moving and reasonably balanced. Everyone in it was introduced by one of the existing members, so you felt you could trust people. Having a mix of ages of kids had some advantages - otherwise you have problems on the night of the PTA event. Also, if lots have the same age kids, you can end up with several leaving at once, so a spread helps keep it going into the future.

I used to get lots of studying done when I was sitting; littlies were usually asleep, younger ones reading in bed, and older ones just needing reminding of bedtime. Sometimes I would deliberately not ask for the wifi password, which removed another distraction.

We’re considering using the sitters.com website for our DC so we can go on date nights. They seem to charge £10 an hour which seems fair to me, we’re in Yorkshire. They’re all DBS checked and most are former nannies/childminders or primary school teachers.

I only babysat once in my teens and there’s no way I’d ever have done it again. I got £20 for the night, I turned up at about 6pm and the Mum didn’t come home till 5am so I had to sleep over. Her kids were absolutely horrible too, the worst behaved children I’ve ever met. It wasn’t worth the measly £20 really, I’d rather have had a paper round .

I don’t think I could trust any old person, I like the fact the ones on the sitters website are DBS checked.