Best way to find a babysitter??

[Belgianchocolates]

We've had au pairs up til now and so had ready made babysitters, however I am now going on mat leave and during this time we wont have an au pair. We've got no family living close by nor do we know anyone with teenage children. Any suggestions about what is the best way to go about finding a good babysitter for the occasional night that me and DH might want to go out?

Gumtree, nannyjob or contacting your local college or teacher training establishment? They might be better in that they'll be able to provide refs and stuff.

I sometimes think gumtree is a bit of a stab in the dark. There's also a thread on here of people looking for babysitting work..

Here you are, Nannies looking for work.

Hope that helps.

Where are you based?

I'm in the B'ham area (Walsall). It would have helped if I'd mentioned this I suppose

A while back we started our own Mumsnet List of Babysitters who post on this board - see Babysitters List - have also bumped it, so should be on first page now.

As a babysitter, I find that parents find me by searching on Google - or they see my car driving around the local area (see my profile for a picture of my car!).

Consider what sort of babysitter you want... do you want a teenager? I'm certainly not in my teens anymore, and parents who ask me to babysit seem to like the fact that I am older, often a similar age to themselves.

If you live in a village... then advertise locally - in the newsagents, post office etc. If you attend a church, then ask around there... perhaps advertise in the newsletter/magazine.

There are various websites which can help:
www.findasitter.co.uk
www.available2work.com
www.missmolly.co.uk
just to name a few.

FindaSitter is showing 20 babysitters within 10 miles of Walsall.
Childcare.co.uk is showing just 1.
Miss Molly lists 16 babysitters within 10 miles.

As with anyone who cares for your children, conduct an interview. Get them to visit you and meet your children - during the day at the weekend for example. See how they interact with your children, look through their written references, training certificates etc. Ask for phone number of a parent/couple of parents you can call to verify the persons suitability.

Thanks nannynick for the suggestions. I had a look at the list, but no one in the B'ham area. I'll also have a look at those websites.
SimpleAsABC also thanks for the link, but again no one in B'ham, and suggestions. I'll try them.
It just seems much easier to find babysitters where I came from. There were babysitting services linked to I suppose the equivalent of health care insurance or maybe surestart and so it is quite easy to find someone.

Where did you come from?

Childrens and Families Information Service (run by local councils) should according to law, provide information about all forms of childcare now... however they often don't seem to know about babysitters. Some other countries I expect have better systems in place for this kind of thing.

I'm from Belgium and as a teenager I like a lot of my friends babysat for one of those services (Reddy Teddy it was called). It was a service ran by my parents' 'mutuality' i.e. a type of health insurance and provided a link between families and babysitters + insurance for both + a garantueed minimum pay and education for the babysitters (e.g. first aid) and of course reassurance for the parents that the babysitter was reliable. Registering with the service itself was free for both parties.

Come to think of it. Babysitting is such a popular means to earn a bit of extra money for teenagers, that I'd never even heard of adults babysitting until I came to this country.

www.netmums.co.uk has a childcare section and I get work from there.

I am in east midlands and advertise on gumtree, nannyjob and netmums.

worth checking the babysitters link on here also.

Sounds like a great concept. Have you thought about starting something like that in your local area? You could get local SureStart children's centres involved (as a venue for training, meetings, and to publicise the concept to families). Also link with the Red Cross perhaps (they run Babysitting courses for teenagers in some parts of the country), who could also provide First Aid training to parents.
Not sure about insurance side of things, I don't a policy that covers parents who employ a babysitter exist. However, specialist insurers such as Morton Michel could be worth chatting with, as they may be able to arrange specialist insurance to meet your requirements.
What happened about taxation in Belgium? By formalising it to the extent of guaranteeing pay rates, did that then trigger employment and tax law?

Like many nannies on here I expect, I started out babysitting as a teenager. So teenagers babysitting was certainly something that was popular in the UK some 15-20 years ago. However I'm not sure how common it is now... in some communities it is likely to still occur, but as more and more people are not that involved with their local community (at least it seems that way to me) they loose those contact with families local to them who have teenagers.
When I was a teenager, I worked for the money... my parents had got divorced when I was 13, so to buy things I wanted (music, computer equipment) I had to earn that money myself, not rely on my mum. So I took the usual paper-round job, didn't like it much and opportunity to babysit the children next-door, came a knocking (actually, the family wanted to ask my older sister to babysit... but she didn't want to do it... so I said I would).

We didn't need to pay tax because we wouldn't have earned enough to qualify for it. I'm not sure about the employment law side of things, although I know we had to be at least 16, because in Belgium employing some one under 16 would be classed as child labour and that's regulated by very very strict rules and regulations, so strict in fact that you hardly get anyone under 16 working, not even on paper rounds

Sitters.co.uk They are a national company, reliable & well run.

I use sitters.co.uk and agree that they are very reliable and well run, I would really recomend them. You tell them who your preferred babysitters are and they will try to send them, they have found me sitters at very short notice and rates for central london are reasonable.

hi belgianchocolates, i'm a childminder in the b'ham area, and i offer a babysitting service, my email is [email protected] if your interested in finding out more.

www.babysitclub.co.uk/

Another recommendation for Sitters. They are overwhelmingly professional and reliable and I have been impressed with all the sitters we have had from there.

another recommendation for sitters. I can't praise them enough.

Yep [sitters.co.uk] gets another thumbs up from me.

AREA COVERED: WARWICK & LEAMINGTON SPA

TIMES AVAILABLE: WEEKDAYS, EVENINGS OR WEEKENDS

CHILDS HOME OR YOURS: CHILDS HOME

EXPERIENCE: BABYSITTING FOR CHILDREN FROM 3 UP TILL 12

CRB: YES

DRIVER: YES

RATES: £10/HOUR

CONTACT DETAILS: [email protected]