If a friend offers to babysit...........

[SalBySea]

....do you pay them?

I dont mean a regular arrangement, I mean if a friend offers to babysit occasionally so that you and DP can go to the cinema etc.

Is it an offer of a favour or do you pay?

What if you never babysat their kids? (have no prior experience with kids so never took care of my friend's babies)

Potatofactory - I pay £6. But I think £5 is the norm - I was feeling generous when I negotiated.

Thanks very much TheYear OfThe Cat - very useful to know!

Sal, you are hilarious.

Have fun in the real world, Sweetie. It might seem strange to you at first, but you'll get used to it.

The thing you have to remember about those tiny fragile helpless babies you see reposed in prams around the world - they get BIGGER. ANd a great deal more independant and robust. And you as a parent evolve to deal with them - you develop a parenting autopilot, that I believe is intalled in the first 6 months at roughly 3 am, that means you are never truly off duty. I personally can change a nappy IN MY SLEEP. I know I can, because I am a single parent, and a few weeks ago, ds2 pood in the night. And when I got up in the morning, I panicked and thought "Oh no, I left him in that poo!" and rushed to change him - and of course, I hadn't, I'd dozed back to sleep and THEN changed the nappy with my eys mostly shut. I must have done because despite being entirely sober, I don't remember doing it.

So while I wouldn't drink a bottle of wine in charge of a 2 week old baby, I would certainly drink as much as I felt like drinking while I had my 2 year old and five year old upstairs. They aren't strange to me any more, it's not like having a newborn, not every second of their lives are a judgement call, and the chances of them waking up and NEEDING something important, rather than just WaNTING something, are very very low. Looking after older, larger, stronger verbal children is nothing LIKE as hard and dangerous as driving a car or dealing with your own first newborn. It just doesn't compare.

I don't think I managed to explain my concerns very well.

Basically when you are in charge of someone's child you are (probably) in charge of the most precious thing in their life. Yet small people are hideously unpredicatable - they manage to throw themselves out of bed, downstairs, develop temperatures etc with scary regularity.

If I were to babysit for someone who didn't trust me enough to not forbid me to drink to excesss while in charge of their child I question whether they actually trust me enough to supervise the kids.

If (heaven forbid) that child fell down the stairs (and I'm sure all of you who have toddlers know that things like this happen even with the best of supervision) would they accept that I was doing my best or would I forever be blamed.

My whole point about the drinking wasn't that I can't go the whole night without a drink (I can) but is about trust.

COI: babysat 2.5 year old recently and had to explain bruise1 on his head (walked into kitchen table), bruise 2 also on head(sat up in bunk bed too fast) and grazed knee (fell in playpark).

Fortunatly his mother is a very understanding lady....