Au Pair Babysitting - does it have to be after the kids are asleep?????

[Hotpants]

My au pair is supposed to do 2 evenings babysitting a week, which I rarley take up. Tonight my husband & I went out, for once. I asked AP to babysit from 6pm. The kids go to bed at 7pm, so there was one hour of 'awake time' to do (toothbrushing & bedtimes) to do before they were in bed. My AP seemed surprised that this was not included in her weekly hours. Can I ask what other people do when using their 'au pair babysitting evenings' - do you only go out after the children are in bed so that their babysitting duties are essentially being in while they are asleep (being there in case of emergency or if they get up etc)??? Or do you sometimes leave before they are in bed (we were going to the theatre so had no choice) which means they then have childcare responsibilities & it's not just a case of being in the house while they sleep?
She is a very good au pair, we get on well, she works hard during the week and there is normally a bit of give and take so I must say I was surprised at her reaction. I would be very interested to hear what other people do or think about this...

Our au pair doesn;t finish anyway until 7.30pm so baby sitting is a continuation of her duties. Ideally she helps with bathtime and I put to bed but sometimes I work late not getting home until 7.30pm in which case she is used to doing bath on her own. babysitting is therefore just an extension of that IYSWIM. I'm surprised your au pair was surprised!! It's perfectly reasonable to go out at 6pm provided she knows what to do, the children are comfortable with her and vice versa.

I always got the children at least bathed and ready for bed but normally I did get them all into bed.

One night, I was running late and my lovely au pair told me to get myself ready and she would bath the children and get them ready. It did only happen once though as I felt that her babysitting duty was to listen out for the children rather than extra hours.

I babysit once evry couple of weeks and my charges are 8 and 12, no way they'd be in bed by the time my bosses leave! But, they try get A (8yo) to bed first and normally do, then go out. But I'll usually just be in my room and J will be downstairs watching TV as it's usually a weekend so he can stay up a bit later (10ish), if his parents aren't home I go down about ten past ten and he's already taken himself up to bed! So I'm just here to listen out really, and my boss gives me so much slack that I wouldn't say no or be surprised! I'm more surprised when they leave for the week and remember to leave my money on the side

Our AP has 2 babysits a week in her job description but in reality we use 1 every 6 weeks or so (normally parent's evening/school play events). We get the children into pjs and washed ready for bed but they are never in their rooms nowadays as we normally have to leave at 7pmish and they don't go to bed til 8. We generally get them to put a dvd on and have au pair watch with them until bedtime.
I think if we were to go out twice a week then we would probably not leave them awake with AP every time though.

As mine are a bit older, they have later bedtimes, so it would be impractical to get them off to sleep beforehand if we were off to the theatre or whatever. But all my APs have been fine about finishing off the bedtime routine and reading the kids a story. I have to say that we don't go out a lot though, and we also give our APs loads of paid holidays, so they are usually pretty willing to do things like this in return.

Mine babysits up to 3 times a week but in reality it's rarely more than twice. I would say that the children are generally in bed but if I am away for work and DH is in charge she will do the whole bedtime thing and similar if we go to the theatre or if I go and meet DH in town after work.

We seem to be the same as most of the OPs. Children are usually in bed before we go out (which is probably about once every 3 weeks) but occasionally AP has got them ready for bed and she's been more than happy to do so.