What is the youngest age babysitter you would use

[firstpregnancy1]

I know this topic is heavily debated and standards now are vastly different from 10,20,30 years ago.

I have a 7month old and a 2.5 year old.

My husband and I would like to start getting fitter and pre babies we would regularly play tennis in the summer evenings.

My children both go to bed at 7pm and very very rarely wake up once in bed. If the baby did it would be a quick dummy plug in and job done.

We have never used any kind of babysitter before.

I see 'ofsted registered' childminders offering babysitting services but we don't really need a whole evening and would they even be interested in coming for just 1-1.5 hours.

It got me thinking about whether it would be ok to consider a neighbour teenager?

Both kids would be in bed.
We would be gone roughly 60-70 minutes.
We would be about a 2 minute drive from home if they did wake up and sitter called us could come home immediately.
My toddler knows this teen ('not amazingly well) but wouldn't be startled or scared if they woke up as we would tell him that 'x' is coming round tonight . The 7m old wouldn't really know.

In this situation, with these set of circumstances, how old would this teenager need to be in order for you to agree to this.

13?14?15?16?17?18? Not at all unless an ofsted registered professional?

I consider myself quite overprotective and I can't tell if my judgement is normal.

If it's relevant, the teenager is sensible, reliable, has basic common sense and a 4 year old sibling so she's 'good' with children.

We live rurally and 2 minutes in the car down a narrow road that cars notoriously speed along it's safer than walking it sadly. Also reduces the time spent out.

I first started babysitting aged 14, I was capable to look after the child (3.5 at the time) but looking back my heart is in my mouth at the thought of an emergencies happening as I wouldn’t have known what to do

I would say 15/16+ for a child aged 4+
and 17 minimum for a baby or toddler

16 with a baby. Minimum.

Thank you this makes a lot of sense.

Thank you yes would let them know about the monitors being accessible to us although just to clarify they are just in the cots, not the whole house

How old is the child yoh want to use op? It reads like you’re going to do it, is it cost and convenience?

I quite clearly haven't said I would leave them at all. My post even said not at all. People are so quick to judge. I was canvassing for opinions and other perspectives before deciding on my own as evidently the opinions are very different

Whilst this is correct; major emphasis on COULD. It's not a simple case of 'if you leave a child with someone under 16 then you'll be investigated for neglect if something goes wrong'. All of the situational factors would come into play.

You would absolutely be legally responsible shouldnanything go wrong if you have left your very young child with a very young teenager

When mine were younger we used 14 and 16 year old babysitters.

@juliajo you wouldn't. It would massively depend on the many other factors at play.

I guess the biggest nagging worry is something like SIDS - having an adult babysitter is unlikely to stop it happening, but an adult might be better able to process the feeling that they might have been able to do anything. As someone said earlier, it could be very traumatic even for a fully-qualified professional.

I remember the first time I did a sleep-over babysit (because parents were going to be very late back), I felt a bit uneasy - what if something went wrong while I was asleep? However if it was something that wouldn't wake me, it wouldn't have woken the parents if they'd been home and asleep either.

With kids of your ages, they’d have to be an adult with childcare experience for me to leave them. For older kids, say 5 plus, it’d be 16. Would never leave a choked under 16 in charge of young children.

Thanks for all the responses. I posted to gain an idea of other opinions and perspectives and it's served the purpose in that the perspective I hadn't considered was that of the teenager should anything horrific happen such as the example given here re the Norland nanny and SIDS.

I deliberately left out the age of the teenager so that people would post their own thoughts.

As it happens the teenager is our neighbour one up and is coming up 17 , at the end of year 12. I hadn't thought of it as an option but my mum (who lives over an hour away) suggested we ask her to sit for us in this situation when I was mentioning to her that husband and I wanted to get back into tennis. My initial reaction was absolutely no BUT I am aware that I'm more on the overcautious side so wanted to gain a wider view of what most would do. We've never left our 2 year old with anyone other than nursery and my mum for the 2 days I was in hospital giving birth to second child.

This post has also made me think 'what would happen if something happened to us like a car crash en route.' This and the perspective of how it would affect a teen should anything awful happen have solidified to me that I won't be entertaining this idea and tennis can wait!

Thank you everyone for the perspectives

Two things. First I personally wouldn't be happy to leave a child under 12 months with anyone under 16. Not because a 15 year old can't be responsible, of course they can, I just feel it's putting a massive responsibility on a young person.
Second, previous posters have asked about a younger teen being left in charge with a sibling, I think that's a totally different scenario. As a parent you know your children, you know if they would get on alright or if there's potential jealousy, an older sibling will have been watching and learning how adults respond to their baby sibling, and have probably helped a bit with soothing or picking their sibling up. This makes a big difference. If I felt my 13 yr was responsible then I'd have no issues with leaving my hypothetical baby with them. I wouldn't be happy doing that with any other teen. My nieces are both very responsible, both used to younger siblings, but I wouldn't have asked them to babysit a child under a year old.

For the ages of your kids, I would say 16 for a teen that I just knew as a neighbour.

For a family member or someone else you know well and would trust not to panic if anything happened, I'd go to 14, if its just a short time and you are near.

I would not leave a baby with someone under 16 for more than two hours - too likely the baby will wake and cry and the teen will get upset/frustrated if they can't calm baby.

@Trimalata yes my 15 year old son and his friends were told at a safeguarding briefing to not put themselves in that position. I am in Ireland and it is not uncommon for this to be mentioned in mentoring young coaches etc.

My sister is 15 and I wouldn't feel confident leaving her with my 7 month old. However if I was only out for an hour, 2 minutes down the road with access to a monitor then I might consider it. In usual circumstances though I wouldn't leave my baby with someone under 18 until she was maybe 4 ish (I suppose when she is able to communicate her needs better). I've only ever left her with her grandparents - not even with my 28 year old brother because he would have no clue what to do!

A sensible 15 year old if you were genuinely that close.

My DD would have been capable at 14. It depends on the teen. I had a 70's childhood, so girls were looking after younger children from 13.

Thanks for the update @firstpregnancy1 and context. I think it's because your youngest is so young I'd also be cautious

17/18
I remember babysitting aged 13 and I was totally not prepared for anything that might happen. It's just too young to be responsible for young children in their own.

For me at that age, it would need to be an adult.