AIBU? Babysitters

[YourPinkBeaker]

I'll preface this by saying I don't think IABU.

Why do so many people trot out the 'hire a babysitter' line whenever people complain about parental burnout? Are people really doing this?

My child attends nursery and that feels difficult enough in terms of trusting strangers with my children - and that is with multiple trained professionals and widespread CCTV. Are people really finding strangers on the Internet and letting them into their homes to mind their children?!

I feel like our kids are young for such a short period of time and we can survive without an evening out together for a few years.

We have 0 childcare options outside of nursery, and until my kid is old enough to stay over with family (school aged/when they can consent and ask for sleepovers) my thinking is that we just don't get to go out and socialise together at night. That's the compromise I feel like we have to make. I just can't imagine farming my kid out to someone from a bloody website and given the judgemental takes on this site from people about daycare, I can't believe others are too. The only exception I couldnimagine is if your childminder offered babysitting services - outside of that rare option, are people really doing this?

One of dc’s nursery workers babysat for us from when dc was 18months until age 8. We had no local family support so it was a life saver.

My personal thoughts are very similar to yours tbh, although I know that’s my own personal preference and I completely understand why others wouldn’t have an issue using babysitters. My son is in nursery three days per week because it’s an essential requirement, and I always miss him him over those days. He’s yet to be babysat by anyone (he’s 16m old) as I don’t need or want any evenings out without him and he won’t be having any overnight stays until he’s old enough to tell me that he wants to and/or tell me whether or not he enjoyed it. Each to their own though, I wouldn’t judge anyone regardless of their opinion!

i think you’re assuming everyone who gets a sitter just hires some randomer from ads, mostly it’s just friends teenage kids or teenage neighbours

YANBU to make your own choices about who looks after your children

YABU to judge everyone else who makes different choices. There are a lot of options in between ‘only me and my husband’ and ‘Randoms from the internet’

I don’t feel bad about leaving my children with trusted professionals. I do feel bad if I’m a less present and loving mother becuase I’ve not taken any time for myself to exercise / recharge - especially while DH is travelling for work.

they’re only little for a little while. I know myself well enough to know that I am a better / more engaged parent for that little time if I don’t totally abandon myself on the way.

I wouldn't use soneone from a babysitting sire or agency. I just wouldn't trust them enough.

We do use family to babysit and a couple of the older teenage girls that we know from church.

We’ve used a babysitter since DS was 1. He’s also stayed with family by himself since he was a baby. They came to stay with us when he was a baby and we’d go out, or we’d go stay there and go out, but now he’s older he goes to stay with our parents and SIL for a few days to a week at a time during the school holidays to help us out. He’s with them now for the holidays. I miss him so much but he’s having a ball with his cousins (who are also there) if the photos and video calls I’m getting are anything to go by. I leave him with family I trust. Our babysitter was his key worker at nursery for a time and whilst he no longer goes to that nursery (he’s at preschool now) we still use her as he knows her and we trust her. A lot of the staff at his old nursery did babysitting too. We don’t live near any family (2.5 hours away) and while they definitely do help out with DS, like come to stay or take him for weekends/school holidays, it’s all much harder to arrange, hours of travelling etc. It’s not worth it if DH and I just want a few hours on our own going for a meal or the cinema. So we use the babysitter every now and then too. You have to be comfortable though - I’m not sure I could use a stranger I’ve found on a babysitting website, DBS check regardless. We’re lucky that we found a sitter who, at the time we started using her, was responsible for DS care full time at nursery, knew him as well as anyone except us could, could handle any tantrums he threw at her, was qualified to look after children etc, so we had no issue leaving him with her outside of nursery too! And we’ve kept that relationship up even after he’s moved to preschool.

We've used about 7 or 8 different people to babysit but they're all friends or the teenage daughters of friends.

I wouldn't feel comfortable booking a random person online but if I was recommended a babysitter by a friend then I'd use them.

I was babysat by non family loads as a child. Most of them were babysitting us for years and very quickly became friends and not randoms.

You being confused about a simple thing that people do every day doesn't actually mean anything, other than you need to think s bit harder.

I babysat lots of families when I was at school and uni. Some found me on gumtree type websites, some referrals. We have several non family babysitters. Found in neighborhood groups, checked references, background check etc. some are referrals. We had a nanny when DC was 11 months to 4 so that person did a lot of babysitting on the side. Found them via another nanny I met at a park. DC also is looked after by DGP regularly and was from very small. The idea a DC needs to consent to be looked after by grandparents is… absurd. You should read Anxious Generation. I’d probably feel different if either of our families had been horrible when we were kids… but both grew up in lovely homes…. Literally can’t imagine not letting them look after DC.

The fact that there are in fact organisations offering this service suggests that many parents/carers use the service. There would be no market otherwise.

It’s not for you but clearly others are happy to use them. Different strokes. I wouldn’t have used them myself, but can understand others doing so.

Exactly this!

Yes, we have used local agency babysitters before and so do our friends. Women who work in nurseries, or as Nannies, fully qualified and DBS checked, but do a bit of extra babysitting work on the side. One brought her own child along once by prior agreement.

Yes, we are really doing that. For an anniversary, birthday, close friend’s birthday meal etc.

farming my kid out to someone from a bloody website

Wow.

You realise that in cases of abuse both sexual and physical at nurserys they've turned cameras off or taken children into areas like the adults toilets where cameras aren't allowed and they close ranks and support each other!
And 90% of child abuse is done by someone known to the child and family
Your child is no safer with staff in nursery than with a DBS checked babysitter in your own home.
Plus with regards to you saying how do this expect a child to settle with someone they don't know? You expected your child to settle for 9 hrs a day 5 days a week with multiple adults they don't know!

Definitely a PFB thread!!!!

I have used paid babysitters from a website. It was fine

I have been married for over 30 years and had exactly the same attitude as OP when my children were young.
I would never let someone I don't know look after my children and i find all the comments that advise people to just get a babysitter very odd

I used to do a lot of babysitting in my school days. It was always for friends' of my parents or neighbors. I would take the very odd referral. I never advertised online as equally I would worry about what situation you could walk into as a babysitter.

I agree it is very hard for people now who do not have friends or family.

I think you're being harsh.

Last time my in laws babysat, they did the following:

• installed his car seat front-facing
• couldn't keep up with him heading towards a big pond (a stranger caught him)
• put him in his high chair to eat dinner with a soiled nappy so that a) he didn't eat his dinner and b) his bum was so sore that he cried every time he tried to sit in the bath

There's something different every time, but the main themes are that his nappy isn't changed enough, his eating is disrupted, or they don't take appropriate safety measures (whilst ironically saying "be careful" all the time). My mum is the same, the only one who's good with him consistently is my dad.

We want him to have good relationships with them, but we choose to be cautious - for example, they aren't responsible for more than one mealtime, or we do nappy changes before.

We ask them to do things differently also, but they are very inventive with getting stuff wrong.

You really must know very few people.
Paying a local student or teen to babysit is as old as the hills.

I was baby sat (in the 60s and 70s).
I baby sat others (in the 80s and 90s)
I paid people to babysit for me when dc were small (90s and 00s)
My dc have babysat for others (2010s and to date).

As did so many other people I knew / know.

I can count on one hand the number of times I left my kids with anyone when they were little. Like you, I just really didn't want to leave them with someone I didn't know.

and I say AGAIN. Not many parents leave their dc with "someone {they} don't know". It's such a ridiculous thing to trot out on these threads every time @BigHeadBertha . So many posters have explained that those of us that use babysitter, or have used babysitters in the past, use people they do know, or have got to know with the aim of having a babysitter for when they need one.

Did you not send them to school then?

100% agree. Its not worth the risk.

An essential requirement... in what sense? Is it not so you can go to work? Which is a choice, and many women choose not to? I'm not judging that decision - I work full time myself - but I find it odd that you you consider it fine for your child to go to nursery but not fine for him to be looked after under other circumstances. Even school is not an 'essential requirement' - people sometimes choose to home school. So let's just appreciate that different people are fine with different things. It is not 'essential' for anyone to look after our children, but it is parental choice if they choose to do so, and does not deserve judgement.

I would also never leave my very young children with a teenager except possibly from around age 5 or 6 and even at that they would need to be a very mature and responsible teenager and it would be for a very short time.

At 16, each of my dc had full Paediatric first aid qualifications from their work as lifeguards. They also have experience of being Young Leaders, and helping out family, and creches, by looking after dc when an adult was there. I suggest many people's family members aren't quite so qualified.

I don't know anyone who was babysat by anyone other than family and I don't know anyone who has used a paid.for babysitter

You must live under a rock