I really need to find a reliable, experienced and ideally qualified babysitter for occasional
evenings for my husband and I to have a night out. One side of our family are 4 hrs drive away and the side that are geographically closer are elderly and quite unwell at present so we can't rely on them unfortunately.
My son is nearly 3 and goes to
nursery part-time. I've asked about staff there doing occasional evening babysitting, but with no success.
We are only moved here 3 years ago and don't know lots and lots of people (because socialising is tricky with few childcare options..,) and while we have a reasonable NCT group, most now have 2 or 3 kids including newborns so babysitting swaps wouldn't be easy to arrange even if others were interested.
He's pretty confident and sociable and not really clingy but he still needs us to stay with him until he's asleep so not sure how that would work with non-family babysitters and also unsure how he and we would feel about a 'stranger', babysitting, even if qualified etc.
And then there's the cost... More expensive if you use someone qualified and through an agency. Not sure it's even worth it or affordable?