Sitter swap

[ScaryFairy28]

Would people use a service where they could trade baby sitting with other parents. All would be disclosure and reference checked etc and there would be a charge to register?

By babysitting I assume you mean looking after the children in their home, generally at night. Personally I would not want to trade babysitting. In my area I can get a babysitter for the evening for about £35-£50 (depending on age). The free babysitting that I would get would obviously be fantastic but it would mean that I would have to go and babysit someone elses children in return. This would mean going out at night, possibly after a full days work, staying out late, looking after unknown children and leaving my own young children at home with dh who would no doubt grumble. In my opinion all this hassle is not worth the money saved!

It should be noted that I am a childminder so perhaps my opinion is biased.

I wouldn't use it. Some of the parents at DS's school are setting up a babysitting circle and I'm not going to take part. Never know if DS will be home in time so can't rely on him to be home in time for me to go and look after someone else's DC.

Sorry, meant 'Never know if DH will be home in time', not DS!!

I would love it! In fact I was just looking on this site for the first time in 4 years to see if it was something people were doing! I am a stay at home mum with 2 children. My DH gets home from work at 4pm but we have no family or friends who are willing to babysit regularly. I thought it would be great to find someone who would come to our house one week and I would go to theirs one week. It's too expensive otherwise. A babysitting circle sounds awesome!~!

Suze I am looking into it as a business idea along with other childcare options. It would be like a babysitting circle but with the security that people would be police checked. Where in the country are you?

I would be interested in this, I live near Nottingham/Derby. We do use a babysitter (very) occasionally but cant do it often due to cost. For me personally it would be worth 'giving up' an eve of my time to babysit for someone else in order to receive an evening of free babysitting to allow myself and hubby to go out.