Tomorrow I resume babysitting for a family I am friendly with. They have a three month old and a twenty one month old. I had been babysitting the older child for about eight months before the younger puppy was popped. Four hours (give or take), the kid would only be awake for about two and a half of those. They gave me $20 a night, which I thought was marginally cheap, but what do I know?
So now, with munchkin #2, I have the opportunity to up the ante. What would you honestly pay a responcible adult (I’ve worked in preschools with toddlers and infants, I’m 23, ) to watch your kids? I just don’t know what to charge. Frankly, I do it because the older child is adorable, and a blast to play with. It’s like renting a kid, but they pay me. But my time IS valuable…help a Swiddle out.
Minimum wage is probably around $7 an hour. That would be my minimum starting rate, and depending on the amount of trouble involved, I would up it from there.
$20 for an entire evening does seem a little stingy - I know that my brother and sister in law pay me (which they don’t have to do - they just keep giving me gift certificates) at least $40 a night for watching my neice.
We pay about $5/hour, but we are in a buyer’s market (surfeit of young children in our neighborhood, plenty of responsible teenagers). We’ve paid more, up to $7.50-8/hour, for a Rent-A-Grandma type service.
FWIW all babysitters we’ve used have taken courses in first aid/CPR. And the at least one of the $5/hr ones is great. Brings her own “special toys” for the kids to play with, charts what the kids eat, drink, toilet, sleep and when. We are in southwest Ohio for reference.
(And on preview Alice is in Canada, so if you’re not you’ll have to convert the currency she’s quoted)
So perhaps $20 a night is a tad stingy, but not so much as it would seem without doing the conversion. I would say that it’s about right for four hours.
Should it matter that there are two kids so young? When I was a teenager, I charged $5 an hour, $2 an hour more for kids. But I upped the ante if I was watching kids younger than three, and if it was going to be later than midnight (which this won’t.) Since that was ten years ago, I’d assume that the inflation, yada yada yada. Plus, I’m not a teenager, I’m a psych major with a fair amount of medical knowledge. (ie: they’ve left him with me when he had a slight fever and cold). And I’d say they’re upper middle class.
Plus, and this is the most important thing, the kiddies LOVE me. And I’m fond of them. I’m thinking like $35 for the night. But I DO like these people, so I don’t wanna sound like I’m ripping them off. Thoughts?
Heh. I came here tonight to start a thread on what should I expect to pay for non-professional babysitters.
We’re in Dallas, have a 2 year old and will have two more kiddos in Feb. My wife and I don’t expect to get out of the house until June of next year but wanted to get an idea of what to plan for.
