maternity pay

[Capricorn]

Hi,

I am new to this site, very interesting I must say.

Question: Has anyone here got any views on Babysitters. I am considering taking on board a babysitter for those occasional much needed evenings out.

I haven't got a clue as to what should be paid to a sitter and really what the legal standing is! Does anyone here have a sitter already, how much do you pay and what age group is your sitter? Indeed I have a childminder for during the mornings for taking my children to school as I start work fairly early-that costs quite a bit-but I wouldn't use her for evenings as she has her own family and I prefer my children to be at home in comfort.

Please let me have your views, THANK YOU

Hello and welcome Capricorn!

If you go into 'other subjects', there is a discussion on babysitters which covers the subject well.

I pay my babysitter £4 (just risen from £3.50) an hour, it goes up slightly after midnight, but I can't stay awake that long so I don't know how much! She is a qualified NNEB aged 30. Previously I had a younger girl who had taken the St John Ambulance 'Babysitters' certificate (helps with the piece of mind!) It really depends on where you live, how old the children/babies are, whether you mind a young girl whose mother lives by that you know or whether you want a fully qualified person, or someone regular who gets to know the children well etc. Lots of ideas on the mentioned board.

Good luck.

Hi Capricorn, I have a qualified Nanny (who works for someone else) who has babysat for us since she was doing work experience at College. I pay £5 an hour when the children are awake and £4 when they are asleep. Hope that helps.

I can't wait until I'm retired to set up my own babysitting service, cash in hand for watching someone else's TV and eating their biscuits,can't be bad!

Rhiannon I'm being done then. I use a nanny from the nursery my son is in. She charges £5 an hour. Its nice to have someone my son knows and someone whose qualified, but it gets too expensive if we want to go to London for the evening (aprox 5 hours in total!).

We live in London and pay £5 to some, £6 to others depending on who we can get - my old nanny charges £7 - needless to say we don't use her - though as she points out she does have a car so we don't have to drive her home/pay cabs. Most are aged early twenties/30 and work as nannies for my daughter's friends, so at least she knows them if she wakes up. We also pay per hour or part of, ie if you're 15 mins into next hour you're still up for £5 or £6 so it's worth clarifying this when you talk through the rates. Some also charge more after midnight, some as I say have their own transport, which helps. Don't know if any of them have anything other than basic first aid training any nanny would have but I always leave our Doctor's emergency number (neurotic mum) and my mobile.

Have a great time and good luck

I am due to have a meeting with my manager to discuss my maternity leave and pay. I work for a small company, is it unusual to get anything more than the 90% of salary for 6 weeks, followed by £60.20 for the next 12 weeks?
Has anyone negotiated more than that from their employers?
Is additional maternity leave always totally unpaid?

My maternity leave was exactly that and no more. I took the full Leave entitlement, 90% for first 6 weeks then SMP for 12 weeks, the remainder of the ML entitlement was unpaid, then I tagged on my holiday to the end so I actually started receiving salary just before I started back at the office. This suited my boss as then he knew he had me full time with no holidays and I could knuckle down (his words would you believe, his personal view was that Maternity Leave is the same as Annual Leave). I commenced my ML as late as I could so that I would have longer with my baby after the birth.

That's it Ali - unless your employer provides more leave voluntarily. You can always negotiate about your return though - proposing to work from home for some of the week, or go part time for an initial period. Remind them that it will be worth it for them to retain you - recruitment costs are high and increasing levels of returners from maternity leave is a big issue for Human Resources departments. Take the approach of saying that you want the situation to work for the company and your family, and if you are both flexible, you could work out an interesting deal that helps you out and keeps you with them.

Ali72. YOu could try asking if your comapny would allow you to work from home sometimes,once you return to work.

Either as a temporary measure to ease the way back to work and to help your baby settle with their new carer.

Or you could be brave and ask if you could make the odd day working from home a more permanent benefit of your employemnt.

Might not be appropriate in your line of business and you could encounter some jealousy from you childless workmates, but worth considering?

In my company some people do this for parental reasons, though jealousy from others sometimes rears its ugly head.