How much do you pay your babysitter?

[Maize]

I have been asked to babysit and I have no idea what to charge (they have asked for me a figure!).

I am 25, recent experience with children but no childcare qualifications but I start a PGCE in September though, full CRB, child first aid/resus qualifications. I work as a HCA in a hospital and earn £7 an hour basic but thought this is prob too much to ask for?

depends what you will be doing for them.

if the children are in bed and you are watching TV, then i think £6 an hour is about right

if you have to put the children to bed etc. or look after a young baby then £8/hour (maybe reduce it down after first couple of hours than £8/hour after midnight) but might be getting complicated...

and where are you based?

sitters.co.uk work out about £6/hour but there is also a booking fee and quarterly membership, so that is where i got £6.50/hr from. But considering they have asked you, i think you can reasonably ask for £7.

I think it is evening babysitting so more low key.

I am based in E.Yorks.

Honestly, I pay my babysitter £20 for an evenings work, make sure I have a pizza in the freezer and as much ice cream as she can eat. She is 20 and just finishing her childcare qualification. I do know her stepmum though, which might make a difference. I once needed (ok, wanted) to go out at short notice and the only person available was a worker at dd's old nursery. She text back that she charged £8 an hour. As a single parent, that is too much for me to pay, considering it is tax free and my dc are already asleep when she gets here.
Imo, if you want this to be a regular thing you should try and keep the cost down. I am grateful to have an affordable babysitter at my disposal, if I had to regularly find £8 an hour my social life would go from pretty lame to non existant.

that is true justallover. dd2's favourite carer from her old nursery charged £8.50/hr and was the only person dd2 was happy to be left with outside my family. Because it was so expensive we only used her when we were really desperate. If she was cheaper we'd have used her all the time.

Its someone from work which is why I am finding it so hard to give a figure.

When I have sat in the past I have agreed a figure for the night, which has between £20-30 depending on the hours.

I'm in London and I charge £7ph. I usually end up putting the kids to bed, reading stories etc. If they were already asleep when I arrived I'd probably drop it to £6ph but that's yet to happen. I've been told that I undercharge.

Justallovertheplace - why is it tax free?

because it is paid in cash. i doubt the babysitter declares it do you? and anyway if she is a student she probably is operating within the tax free allowance anyway.

Some babysitters declare their earnings - when I was SE I used to. In France it goes onto my tax return (am I too honest for my own good?)

I would say around £6 an hour if it's children in bed watching TV. The more reasonably priced you are (for your area) the more chance you have of getting a repeat booking. Assuming it's 4 hours you're in the £20-30 region then.

I live in London and I charge £8 per hour. I've found that the parents I've contacted have been happy with this.

My DD gets £% per hour, she is only 15 though.

£5 doh

I pay £5 an hour to our childminder, or £4 an hour to a teenager.

A lady round here who does SN babysitting and has experience with autistic children charges £7 p/h, fair enough IMO if she can deal with DS1. Still, it's out of my reach financially, but it's nice to know there's an option.

hello as a qualified nurse with a wide range of experience i charge £12-£15 an hr but do mostly babysit out in little villages which are often 30mins-1hr from home so slightly higher rates to reflect this and also many of the children I babysit are very young babies (sometimes singles or twins) or children who have additional medical needs or just parents who have the luxury of being able to afford to pay for that additional piece of mind of no matter what happens I could deal with the situtaion effectively.

I dont do a huge amount of babysitting tends to do more overnight nanny or night nanny work.

I pay the nursery girls who help me £6 an hour, TBH my mum helps with the money as she knew I was worn out and needed more help. But I'm in the house at the same time, I catch up on stuff at the weekends while they keep the dc's amused and I will happily do a nappy if dd poo's. The staff all have first aid skills and some level of childcare qualification.

I haven't used them for evenings yet but I would pay them a bit more if I did.

Meglet, why do you change your dds nappies if they are there?

The girls at my son's nursery have agreed a fixed rate of £5.50/hr, which rises to £6.50 after midnight. But, we usually give our regular sitter a bit more than this, as this way we know she will make herself available for us. We generally get DS into pyjamas, but she does stories and settles him. She has on occasion brought him home from nursery, fed him, bathed him and got him to bed when we've both had to work late, and I reckon £5.50 isn't enough for asking her to do all that.

amidaiwish because I am too nice! And TBH they do it most of the week so I feel it's only fair to do a poo-y nappy. Its just nice having another person in the house taking the pressure off TBH.

mad!

I live in Leeds and say £7/hr negotiable - I'm a nanny though with almost 3yrs exp, equiv to a NVQ 2, first aid, CRB, police cert, all that palaver... I'm genuinely willing to negotiate and at the moment tbh (depending how far away etc) would probably happily work for £5/hr cause I'm DESPERATE for money but theres NO babysitting around here... I tend to start with £7 simply because quite a few parents have been willing to pay it!