Babysitters

lovely1m

lovely1m

Active member
I have never hired a babysitter before, but one of my dh's friend's dd who is 14 started a baby sitting business and wants to be able to babysit our son. He's 2.5 and she would be watching him in her house with her parents there most likely. I thought it would be ok for going to a movie, but not much more than that. How much would you all pay her? I have no clue what is a good amount as I haven't babysat since I was like 16. lol TIA!
 
I pay $7-8/hour unless they are in college then I go up to $9 because they usually drive themselves to my house. Ask other mom's in your area what the going rate is. I usually ask the sitter but they always answer with "whatever you want to pay me..." I don't like that answer because I don't want to seem cheap or like I'm willing to overpay. But they always seem thankful for anything I give them! And I want to add that I have 3 kids which is a bit more work than one. Although I had a sitter tell me that she charges $9 per hour no matter how many kids. I need to go in with some friends the next time I hire her! :)
 
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My 14 year old niece babysits, too, but her parents made her take an infant cpr class and they had a babysitting class at the local Y, teaching first aid, questions to ask the parents, etc...

I would only leave my kids with a 14 year old if they showed that kind of responsibility.
I have paid her $20 if we go to a movie, $30 if we throw in dinner, too. She knows we don't milk her time, I'm a worrier. (obviously)
 
For a 14 yo at her house and only one kid, I'd do $6/hr. I pay my girls $8 (or one kid) but they drive to my place and they're older.
 
for a movie only Id say 20 dollars would be a fair price. If she is starting her own babysitting busines she will likely have a rate she will charge though Id think.
 
$5 per hour, per kid, plus $5 for gas is what we pay. Sometimes we get together with anothe couple & share a sitter, so the sitter makes $20 an hour for watching 4 kids. Sometimes I need someone to watch DS2 while I go to the dentist, so she makes $5 for watching one.
 
I think I'm in the minority - but I would not pay much for a sitter where I had to run my kid over to her house back and forth. The value in getting a sitter to me is that when I get home my kids are put to bed! Even better if the sitter can drive herself to my house and back.....

Anyway - I wouldn't pay much for this particular situation - maybe $4 an hour.
 
It depends on your area too... I'm pretty lucky and have lots of very very responsible girls to choose in our church--and we pay them $2-3/child/hour... and they should be asleep when we get back and hubby can stay home while I take the sitter back.
 
I'm with the minority... There is NO WAY I'd pay a 14 year old $30 for 2-3 hours out! I wouldn't be able to afford to go on a date if I was expected to charge that much. And if its at her parents house, can you be certain that SHE is doing ALL the babysitting, and not her parents? I would be miffed if I ever found out I'd paid my sitter $30 and her parents did the job for her.

I babysit for 3 kids and I charge $5 per hour. Not each. For all of them. I'm doing it more as a favor for a friend though (long story). I know thats cheap, but its all she can afford so I do it. She sends all the food for the day though. And her kids are angels. :). But if I had a 14 year old babysit my 1.5 year old, thats all I'd be willing to pay. $5/hour is plenty I think.
 
OMG $9 to 10 bucks an hour and sometimes per kid!?!?! :blink: No wonder I've never ever had a baby sitter in the 11 years I've had kids!!!!

Of course that means DH and I rarely go out...maybe that's why we have so many kids :p :D :D
 
It would be at her house because we actually live in a small town outside the main town, so I would spend too much in gas driving her back and forth. I was thinking $5/hour, too. We don't live in an expensive area so that sounds good to me. I remember getting paid $20 for all day or all night (like 5pm to 2am) when I was a babysitter. lol
 
Trust me, I wish they were cheaper here. I'm usually hiring someone who is 16 though because I get nervous if they are too young. 14 would make me edgy the entire night! Although lately I'm about to tell them they are only watching my 2 boys. My 9 year old can take care of herself! LOL!
 
We pay $5 a kid for 2 reasons, one most of them are driving a half hour to get to us and two most of them are not willing to take on 4-6 kids, even if we ask them to bring a friend (They split the money, we don't pay extra). Having found a couple of girls who are willing to come all the way out here & watch a group of kids from time to time, we pay them well when it is only 1-2 kids in gratitude. Plus we're generally short notice people & the knowledge that they will paid well encourages them to set aside other plans to come sit for us.

If I lived in a subdivision or neighborhood with teens less than 10 minutes away I'd probably only pay $5-6 an hour for both boys and no gas money. But as things are we just set aside $30 as part of the cost of going out. We don't go out all that much.
 
we asked this same question of our neighbors just a few months ago (for the one and only time ds had a babysitter... he's 3½). we couldn't get a straight answer out of any of them. :confused: :D it seems to depend on how many kids you have, which babysitter you have (age, experience, etc) and other factors. a few told us they'd pay around $8/hr. :blink: um, this girl lives on our cul-de-sac and we were actually going to be at HER house attending a "block party" of sorts (it was indoors due to the fact that it was winter at the time, lol). she only had to watch DS for a couple hours and then put him to bed.

she was soooo nice, a bit shy and when we got home she was on the couch watching star trek on the lowest possible volume while reading a book. she seems very responsible and others had spoken of her highly... so not the type to like bring her boyfriend over anything crazy like that when we weren't looking. :p anyway... we ended up having the awkward 'how much do you charge per hour' convo when we got home late that night. she sort of stumbled over her words and said, "um, i was thinking like... $2/hr? :unsure:" well, i think there are plenty of people who would've taken advantage of this and just agreed to it. dh wasn't hearing it though. :p he said, 'noooo, that's too low. i mean, we want you to actually come back! :D" so i think he ended up giving her like $5/hr. I remember making that much when i was babysitting back in my teens. so it really didn't seem too unreasonable to us, but i guess some people would think that's too much. :confused:

there was no gas money involved or anything like that. we can literally see her house from our front porch. so she just walked down here. dh did end up driving her home since it was raining by then, although she said she didn't mind walking. just seemed cruel to make her do that.
 
My Babysitter is the neighbor girl she just turned 16 but she has been babysitting for us for a year now. We give her $12 an hour and that is for all 5 of my kids. I about had a heart attack when we moved to Washington because we used to only pay $5 an hour in Utah! Crazy! It costs a fortune whenever we go out. We are usually gone on average about 5 hours. Driving time, Dinner and a movie is the usual or a mariners game ;) I wouldn't worry too much if there is just the one child to a 14 year old I am sure she can handle it.
 
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