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.

expat - you are right, no one forces a person to move to the UK, but that doesn't mean one has to become a martyr to the situation. A week IS a long time, but some of the reactions on this thread seem to suggest that going on holiday without your child is tantamount to child abuse, which is just rubbish.

The OP also has a mother with a terminal illness, so maybe she just needs a break. She's doing her best in difficult circumstances to do the right thing, maybe she's misjudged it slightly, but the abuse hurled at her is just mean.

In fact, I kind of feel that MN is getting rather mean in general at the moment...

Awful lot of people who are genuinely amazed too Missus84.

and there's your reverse reverse snobbery right there, sgb. gotta be jellous.

i know that, expat, it sounds lush, enjoy yourself.

'expat - you are right, no one forces a person to move to the UK, but that doesn't mean one has to become a martyr to the situation.'

Oh, please, there are plenty of people right on this board who are not expat's who have no help at all with the children.

That's life for a great many people with young children.

It doesn't last forever. They grow up.

It's hardly being a martyr if you don't swan off on long holidays and leave your kid with a minder.

No-one worries that I don't get any quality time with my DH not even when DS is asleep.

theyoungvisiter - I beg to differ, it is perfectly possible to spend no time alone with DP when one or other isn't either working late into the night, carrying out chores or comforting a screaming child. I have whole months like this....

All children sleep, just not always when they are meant to

expat - you are missing the point. I have lived half my adult life as an expat, so am perfectly aware of what this entails. The point that I am making is that it is the OPs choice to enjoy that time if she can find a practical way to do it. Just because you wouldn't/didn't do it, doesn't make it wrong!

At the risk of going into oneupmanship I have a very very ill dad and as I said I have no time away from ds. I think a night or two or three I could understand but 10 days? That is FOREVER to a baby.

I am absolutely not jealous because even if I could do it I wouldnt.

Pmsl at "awful lot of jealousy on this thread". Crap crap crap crappity mccrappyness.

Pixie - this OP doesn't have "Granny" on hand for convenient sleepovers. Does that mean she doesn't get a night away????

Well, in your opinion it's not, but others are weighing in.

I mean, some people don't see anything wrong with leaving children on their own in a flat or hotel room and having dinner, either.

Doesn't mean everyone has to be supportive of that.

Actually you can be practically forced to move to the UK. There are forces bases with 'foreign' personnel on UK soil and if your DH is going you're pretty much forced to.

I'd quite like a week away with no DCs. Doesn't mean i would do it though!

Pixie - this OP doesn't have "Granny" on hand for convenient sleepovers. Does that mean she doesn't get a night away????

Not asked of me I know but imo and ime - yes.

10 days is not forever to a 22 month old - mine stayed with GPs for 3 weeks in the summer and couldn't believe the stay was over when I came to get her.

I left my 8 month old baby son with my parents for a week so that I could focus on DH when his father died (we had to travel). I missed him like mad, walked around clutching his picture, ffs. The only reason I could leave him was knowing that my parents would not only meet his basic needs, but love him. There's no way I could have left him with someone who didn't.

Lol at crappity mccrappness

Did we find out what weegies were?

Jealousy my hairy arse. Plenty of people are in a similarly tough position but would never dream of doing what OP is.

We live in England. My family are in Ireland. Dp's are 100 miles away and useless.

DD is 16 months old and in that time DP and I have been out together once.

I have my occasional nights out and he has his. We all go on holiday together.

Yes we fantasise about heading to Rome or Paris at the of a hat for a romantic weekend like we used to but we know that part of our life is over now we're a family.

We don't bitch and moan and feel entitled to leave dd with a nursery worker so we can go camping for a week.

Some of the posters on MN are just determined to make motherhood out to be this experience that has to be endured with no pleasures of one's own. It doesn't make you a bad mother to want to be a wife as well, you know.

weegies: glaswegians

weegies: glaswegians

God I feel really sorry for this poor little baby. She isn't going to know what's hit her. Little children are a big commitment, and if you can't deal with that then don't bloody well have them. You don't leave a 22 month old on their own for a week with a 'babysitter' to go on holiday. End of.