How much do you pay your babysitters?

[taraprather]

I am a stay at home mom but when me and my husband have our night out, we pay the babysitter(which comes to our home) $5.00 an hour for our 2 children.
I am actually babysitting an 11 month old baby right now. I never met her mother before and she seen my ad yesterday wrote me and ask if I could watch her daughter this evening. I agreed at $35.00 flat rate, she just dropped her baby off with some emergency contacts and left!!!!! I couldn't believe it. I've never even met this lady or this beautiful baby before. I've had her for about 2 hours and she is such a good baby, hasn't cried once!

 

[CraftyMouse]

DD14 charges $5 per hour for the first child and $1 per hour for each additional child. Usually if it is a big family and one of the children is old enough to help out she doesn't charge for that child. For example, one family that she often sits for has 4 kids. The eldest is 10 and can pretty much take care of herself, she just needs supervision. She also helps out when needed with the other 3 (all 5 and under) so DD doesn't charge for her. That family pays her $7 per hour.

 

[It's A Happy Day]

Thank god I have family nearby We don't pay for babysitting as MIL & FIL are 1 mile down the road with my sister and brother being about 10 minutes away in 2nd place to watch the kiddos - but I do go out of the way to make sure they get nice gifts for holidays, birthdays, and sometimes for nothing other than being great grandmas/pas, aunts, and uncles.

We are really lucky....I can't imagine paying a kid $10 an hour to sit on my couch, eat my junk food, gabbing to their friends (I know I'm generalizing in that description, its meant to be funny not taken seriously)

 

[orljustin]

$5 an hour for 2 (8 and 4) in Missouri.

 

[mla2177]

I just discovered how much the going rate is also, and thought, I should do that part time!!!!!!!! I paid my babysitter $10 an hour! I think I got 2.50 an hour when I babysat as a teen.

 

[MUFFYCAT]

My DD gets $10-15 an hour for a family of three.

 

[maleficent1959]

We pay our sitter $6 an hour for two kids, 3 and 6. We make an effort to go out after they've had dinner, an hour or so before bed. If it is earlier we will buy dinner for the three of them. We have an extensive video library and an open pantry that she is welcome to utilize and does. I can see paying her more if it's during the day when she's engaging them, but I can't see $10 an hour while our kids are sleeping and she's enjoying our entertainment system. That's not meant to be snarky BTW.

 

[hpygrll]

We don't have to pay often as my in-laws live in town....but when we have paid I've had the owner of our daycare sit - I have two boys - 4 and 3 - I pay her $50 plus use of the van and money for dinner.....

Jenny

 

[dustysky]

My DD is a college Freshmen, and babysits occasionally for 3 kids who live near campus...7, 6 and 18 months, and they pay her $12/hr. I'm not sure what she gets for babysitting for her 8th grade English teacher's son (2), but they feed her, she spends the night, and she does her laundry there.

DD told me about this website, to calculate what to pay a babysitter:

http://www.sittercity.com/index.php?pid=rate_calculator

According to that website, $12/hr is pretty much on target for the 3 kids in that area.

That is a great web site and makes me feel so much better, I thought I was cheap but the calculations I ended up with do not meet the insane/gready $10.00 figure I keep seeing here.
As I thought, when I punched in a sitter with who was 14-16 it cames up $4.75 and a sitter who is 17-21 it is only $6.75.
Now I do understand that each family is different, I only have one child who needs a sitter she is 6, no diapers, etc.

*addition*= those figures I posted were for a sitter with 2-4 YEARS experiance. With 0-1 it went down a great deal.

 

[aprilgail2]

That is a great web site and makes me feel so much better, I thought I was cheap but the calculations I ended up with do not meet the insane/gready $10.00 figure I keep seeing here.
As I thought, when I punched in a sitter with who was 14-16 it cames up $4.75 and a sitter who is 17-21 it is only $6.75.
Now I do understand that each family is different, I only have one child who needs a sitter she is 6, no diapers, etc.

*addition*= those figures I posted were for a sitter with 2-4 YEARS experiance. With 0-1 it went down a great deal.

The rate for my area for one kid (7) and a babysitter 17-21 ( I would never let a 14-16 year old babysit my daughter, to young for me!) is 10.75 an hour, a bit more than I actually pay.

 

[disneymama73]

$10/hour for 3 kids ages 2, 5 and 7.

 

[Jules76126]

Personally 10 dollars and hour is the norm nowadays. I never really babysat because it wasn't my thing but if I did it was about $8 to $10 per hour. If anyone paid me less than that I probably would have refused to babysit for them again.

 

[lulugirl]

$10 an hour is average in my neighborhood.