Husband and I are going away for a week... how much to pay the babysitter?

[LondonLisa]

My husband and I will be going on our first holiday away from our 22-month-old daughter. We have someone from her nursery staying with her for the 7 days we are away. This will mean the sitter will take our daughter home from nursery (6-ish) and stay all night and bring her to nursery the next day. Repeat. This will also overlap 2 weekends.
Any idea what fair pay would be? I don't want to skimp but I also don't want to be... ostentatious, if that makes sense.
We usually pay this sitter £8/hr if that helps.
Any suggestions are appreciated.

I don't understand if it is a camping trip why you can't take your dd. If your friends didn't know you had a child then it sounds as if you aren't particularly close. If it were me I'd either take dd with me or not go. If it a company award thing then you can usually take the cash in lieu if children aren't allowed to attend and you choose not to go.

Kew, at the last park where we stayed, the majority of the children were the grandchildren of the holiday caravan owners .

DH would smoke ciggies on the deck of one such owner, whilst his grandchildren and our eldest two chased each other - over and over and kicked a football, the paragon of fun in their opinion.

I highly recommend she purchase this caravan.

You can refer to it as your 'bolthole away from the city' just like Kirsty and Phil.

my mother keeps threatening to invest in a big static caravan, i would LOVE it.

Kew my ds is the same. He has caravan envy! He even wrote a story for school all about his caravan holiday (we have never even set foot in one). He wants me to get a campervan too.

I don't enjoy spending time with my children - they are quite dull. However, spending more than a few hours away from them makes me feel like I've had my guts extracted. I guess they feel something similar. Jolly annoying.

I said 'my emphasis' in my post Aitch. Sorry if you feel misquoted.

This is a big 3 bed static Aitch [preen]

My (big snob) sister used to refer to my grandmothers caravan as her "place down in Wales" - seriously

Now she have two spare holiday houses so I guess last laugh is on her!

Slightly removed from the OP - but there has been loads of chatter in the papers recently about literature and research saying that we stop laying down our lives (and our relationships) for our children as they will all become ungrateful, grasping brats who wont thank us anyway. We should lock them in the garden for some creative play with mud whilst cuddling/sh*gging/chatting to DP, and (finance allowing) have the odd night away together....otherwise they grow up thinking they are the centre of the known universe and have a really hard time as an adult when they ralise that this is not necessarily the case.

It is the first time I found academic evidence backing my chosen childrearing style, however I am excited at having found a justification for wanting to spend some (just a little!) time away from them....

And food for thought for those of you poo, poo EVER spending a night away from them...perhaps its more about you than them, no?

A quote from Margot Sunderland's 'What every parent needs to know':

"In the 1960s, research showed that some children who were left with unfamiliar people for several days went into a full-blown bereavement response, which left them reeling from the trauma years later.

One little boy, separated from his mother for just 11 days, stopped eating, cried endlessly, and repeatedly threw himself on the floor in despair.

The researchers observed countless other children who had been left for several days and were in a state of yearning without end. Many would stare, for hours at a time, at the door through which their mother had left. They did not want to play; they just wanted to watch the door."

I appreciate that the OP is not planning to leave her DD with a stranger, but a nursery worker is not a primary carer and her DD is unlikely to be securely attached to said nursery worker as she is likely to be one of several adults looking after her at the nursery rather than sole carer (please correct me if I'm wrong in this assumption OP).

OP, your DD will not understand that you are coming back. She will start grieving for you and she will be very sad.

I don't usually post such strong opinions by the way, but I really really hope you rethink your plans OP.

Yikes. Sorry that you feel misquoted.

I did a Prince Harry apology

I wouldn't do it.

But if I did I would pay £250 per day.

The same researchers (Robertson and Robertson I think) showed that keeping to the same routines and a continuity of care with one caregiver greatly mitigated the effects of disruption. I believe the little boy you refer to was in a residential nursery, in the days before keyworkers etc.

Just trying to remember how old dd was when I left her first.

I think it was when I had my mum look after her on the Saturday day, overnight and I picked her up Sunday afternoon. She would have been nearly 3.

I was used to spending time away from dd as I worked FT since dd was a baby, however this was utterly different. I felt like I had lost my left arm. Every time I heard 'mummy!' I jumped!

So agree with others when they say don't underestimate how strange it feels the first time you leave your DC.

Very good way of putting it. My DS is like my phantom limb - his absence is unsettling and impossible to live with. Whilst his presence is occasionally a damnable nuisance.

no worries, tfm.
i'd have no problem spending a weekend away if it wouldn't mean that the dds wouldn't get a holiday. i hardly think that's me prostrating myself at the altar of parenthood, just being fair and prudent given the pot of cash.

Oh God MP you've hit the nail on the head!

Haven't read the whole thread so this may have been suggested already, but could you perhaps hire a nanny/babysitter to take with you on holiday?

I know a wonderful park, Aitch, in the Eastern Highlands.

It has a leisure centre, too, with pool and spa attached!

Bicnod I think that is harsh and not necessarily true. The OP's dd may be as happy as a sandboy, it is not certain that she will greave.

too far. we're thinking culzean way.

I've seen the video that was taken as part of that research (which was done by John Whathisname which will come back to me soon) and the situation they were observing was very different from the situation of being cared for by one person - who for that week does became the primary carer.

I'm not syaing I agree that this is a good idea but the position that those children in teh 1960's were put in (institutional care whilst their mothers were in hospital) was much more extrme than I htink would be the case here.

TFM - it says in the book that some were left with well-meaning adults and some were placed in residential nurseries. I'm not familiar with the original research but surely the point being made in the book is that the children were missing (to put it mildly) their mothers? I think it's totally reasonable to have time away from your children if that's what you want, but over a week when your child is too young to understand that you are coming back, and has never been left overnight before, cannot be a good thing, no?

Only two hours from Glasgow.

Lurvely.

Place crawling with weegies. Like they all found out about it at once and bought lodges and caravans there.

john bowlby

[relief]

No, that's how it is with us too really. Although for the last few years DH and I have gone off camping by ourselves for a night or two on our wedding anniversary. We take the small tent that only takes 10 minutes to put up. Bloody luxury

GOML - you're right, that was harsh, it's NOT certain that the OP's daughter will grieve and I take that back. But surely the possibility that she might is enough to put you off leaving your LO for that amount of time?