Private Baby Sitting

I'm with Gamma - I'm appalled at what a teen thinks they should get for babysitting. No wonder these kids feel entitled and want to start their careers at the top of the pay scale.

Have her check SitterCity for the going rate in your area.
I don't think ANYONE works for $2.50 an hour anymore - rates have gone up by quite a bit.

$2.50 an hour? That's slave labor, and a parent won't get anyone for anywhere near that. I'm shocked that you were able to pay that, say, 10 years ago, even if it worked out to $5 for 2 kids or $7.50 for 3 kids. Around here the minimum is $8 an hour for one child and not much work. For more kids, more interaction (like making dinners and tutoring), if there is pet care involved too, if one or more children are special needs, or if she is staying overnight, it's a lot more. Your daughter is older, is CPR certified, and she deserves to be paid for that. If she goes at 7 PM and the kid goes to bed at 8 and your daughter is watching TV until midnight, I think $8 an hour is possible. But anything more than that, the rate goes up. I find that most everyone here is using 14 year olds, because after that the kids want more money and they have other options. An 18 year old who drives and who can stay out late or stay overnight is a premium catch for any parent, and she should not sell herself short.

My neighbor uses a pet sitter, a veterinary student who stays overnight and feeds the dog/cat, lets the dog out into the fenced yard, and maybe takes a quick walk. Then she studies and basically keeps the animal company. She gets $40 a night and she's asleep for most of it. And that's reasonable.

Doesn't it make more sense for your daughter to survey her friends and other parents in your area?

At 18, she deserves a decent rate. a minimum rate of at LAEAST $10 for multiple children is reasonable rate,, because at 18 she is much more responsible than younger teens. Heck, for multiple kids, I'd even say$15 and hour. There is so much to babysitting; you have to feed them, play with them, make sure they are safe and healthy, put them to bed, do the bath routine sometimes, resolve conflicts, etc. You aren't sitting around doing nothing.

Just to forewarn you, there is a mom obj here who will tell you she pays 5 bucks for a babysitter because they don't do anything. Please don't listen to her. Babysitters are worth their slt in gold, and your daughter is worth more than $5 an hour.

Good luck.

A lot of it depends on your area. I know this really gets to some people on the site here but around here the lowest rate is about $10/hour. I babysat as a teen and I never got $2.50 an hour. Those days are long gone.

My daughter is soon to be 21 and has been babysitting for years. She has a few families she babysits for in the neighborhood regularly, even though she is in college and living on her own and she will get anywhere from $80-$125 for 1 night. Granted.... she is good, CPR trained, helps children with homework and tutors if needed, interacts with the children as well. During the holidays, she takes gingerbread houses to build and decorate (with the parent's permission ahead of time). Last week she sat about 4.5 hours during the day for 3 children and got $12/hour.

She never sets a rate, never has and never will. She enjoys babysitting. This season it will be a little less frequent because she got a retail job for extra money and is doing well with that too!

In the past, when we hired a sitter, we guaranteed $40 for the night (if we cancelled, someone was sick, or came back really early, etc) because the sitter did save that night for us. Typically our weekly date nights were $80-$100 a night. It was worth it to have someone we loved and trusted and someone our daughter loved as well.

Best wishes!! Our daughter has some special friendships with families of children she has watched since the children were in diapers and they are now in school !

We pay $10 an hour for our kids. We also pay for the amount of time booked, whether we stay out that long or not. So if we say 8 hours and are gone 6.5, they get $80 for 6.5 hours of work.

I shouldn't say they, because we really use one sitter. She's been with us for 5 years now and we love her. So we treat her well.

They have changed. I recently paid a reliable college student $10 an hour to watch my child. She might start there as a baseline and adjust for multiple kids.

In my neighborhood, the going rate for babysitters is $8-10/hour. I would expect your daughter to ask for $10/hour, because she's more mature.

When it comes to questions like this I can honestly say I get ticked off. I know, babysitting costs different amounts depending on where you live and the neighborhoods but still, they are not professionally trained women who have child development training.

When I was babysitting I got paid a couple of dollars per hour too. It's shocking how much people will pay a teen to do the same thing. I think minimum wage is the maximum per hour a babysitter should get regardless of how many kids there are.

I suggest she consider that women with a degree in child development do not make $12 per hour. They're lucky if they work at a child care center for 4 years and make $9 per hour.

People who do not work in child care or use child care have no idea how insulting it is to professionals who work 40 hours per week and have between 4 infants, 6 toddlers, 8 two year olds, 12 three year olds, 15 four years olds, or 20 kindergarten and up school age kids by themselves for the whole day.

They aren't watching one or two kids in someone's home, they're responsible for a whole class and often there are 2 teachers in the classroom so there are double that number of kids. And they make minimum wage or a little better.

So I find it really really nuts when women say they can't get a babysitter for less than $12 or $15 per hour for someone to come to their house.

We have a young lady in our studio that took a babysitting class where she got CPR and First Aid as part of the training. She demanded $20 per hour for one child. Guess how many jobs she got...zero.

If your daughter wants to make some money that is consistent and wants to work with kids tell her to put her applications in at every child care facility in town and put down she can only work after school hours and she will likely find herself working 15-20 hours per week at minimum wage or a little better once she's been there a few months.