[-erin-]

Who babysits for you? If it's not family, how did you find this person? How much do you pay?


So far we've just used family, my sister, DH's sister (who just got her license so we will be able to use her more often if we want! not to drive Juliet, but so we don't have to pick her up and bring her home - about 30 mins away), and my mom. We haven't paid my sister and my mom, we did pay DH's sister the one time she baby sat since it was from like 1-11 and she's 16 and desperate for money I think I paid $60 for that night? She also spent the night so we didn't bring her home til the next day.

I wanted to start up a trade off with our neighbors, where we alternate going out and watching each other's kids... but I dunno. I thought it would work out better as Juliet got older - and the past couple weeks have been bite-free at daycare! - but maybe I'll give it a little more time...

[MrsLMB]

We couldnt go out if we had to pay for a babysitter. We use my MIL and I am sure if we asked, she would pay us to let her babysit.

[sarahp]

We've paid for a babysitter and she was way expensive and have not found another one who charges a reasonable rate.

Lately we've just been doing babysitter swaps with friends in our area. We're lucky in that we now have 3 couples in our complex who are really good friends - two we've known a long time, the others are our neighbours who have a boy Zoe's age. So we can swap babysitting duties with them (although we don't often enough!), and we have another friend who lives nearby who we'll be swapping babysitting duties with so we can go to DHs Christmas party on the weekend.

[survey77777]

I've only left him with my mom and sister. He is still really attached to me for bedtime so I know they're ok with just hanging out with him and being mellow until I get back if needed.

[speechteach42]

Only my mom and she works for free!

[lunarmagic]

We've been giving our babysitter $10/hour. Which is a lot, we could have given her less and she probably would have been just fine with that, but... Kate is not a kid who is asleep in a crib after 7pm while the babysitter does nothing, lol. We can't afford it often, but she's been so great with Kate. And really we don't have anyone else for evenings.

[momoftwins]

I had an awesome babysitter the summer after Mason was born, but she ditched me and left for college! I paid her $7 an hour. I have her on the perfect babysitter pedestal and can't find anybody else that I love as much as her! She was the kind of babysitter that loved my kids and my kids absolutely loved her! She never had them parked in front of the TV either. They'd always be playing some silly game she made up or coloring. I loved that!

I think it depends on the age of the babysitter, as far as how much to pay them. If they are 13ish, they can't get a "real" job, so I'd pay them probably $5 an hour. Once they are 16ish though, they have other fun things they could be doing, so I have to pay them more (bribery basically!). And I figure if they could be making minimum wage at some job, I've gotta compete with that. I would never go above $8 though. Babysitters are cheap here!

[BeckyM]

It's usually MIL, or my Mom is she's up visiting. When Harry Potter came out over the summer, DH & I left work early and watched it while he was at daycare. Thankfully Mark is great about being in bed right around 7, so alot of times he isn't even awake when we leave him with MIL if we run out in the evening.

[gingerrae]

We just have family watch them. We don't know anyone who is not family that we would ask.

[icarryyourheart]

Oh erin.... off topic but...... Colton's back to biting.... I have the bruises to prove it! For some reason, he only bites me. LOL. I'm hoping it passes again, like it did last time. These babies are so weird!

As far as sitters, we have one! A longtime friend of my mom's, who used to babysit me. She is amazing. But, she is 68 and her hubby is 75 and I don't like to leave her with both kids on her own, or for a long time. So she'll do things for me during the day, like doc appointments or stuff like that. We have no one to sit at night, though I'm hoping to find someone, so we can attempt to have some kind of social life again...

[Linzie]

My mom will watch Xander a few weekends here and there. She travels a lot with her job and is gone mostly all week so I like to give her time to relax. She insists I leave him there more often, and I would, but she already gets so much crap from my stepdad I feel bad for leaving him there too long!

[Brookem]

Our family doesn't help at all.

We found ours on Babysitters, Nannies, Child Care and Senior Home Care - Care.com and pay her $6 an hour. Violet gets so excited when she arrives that she SCREAMS! I am so happy to have found her! We use her about 10 hours a week, while I am at work. We live in a college town