Babysitting Costs

Wow, I see the amounts are all over the place. We have a SAHM that watches our 9 month old son in our home. She brings her little girl with her, and we pay her $5/hour, with a $25 minimum. We set the minimum, because we often only need someone for a couple of hours, and it's really not going to be worth her while to drive over to our house for $10 or $15.

I have heard $10/hour to be the going rate, for the most part. It's expensive, I know! We are luck because Grandma takes him for free. ;-)

I don't think teens babysit like they used to.

We live in the Chanhassen area and we pay $10/hour for 2 kids that go to bed at 7pm. I know that sounds like a lot, but that is what the going rate is and if you don't pay it then kiss getting a sitter goodbye! We live in an area with tons of little kids and not very many teens that sit.

My 13 year old would love it if she got paid $10.00 an hour! That is extremely high! She usually charges $3-$4 per hour for one child, $5-$6 for 2 children. When my two oldest were younger, I paid around $5 per hour. My neighbor who employs my daughter quite often has 2 kids (6 and 9) and she pays $5-$6 per hour. So -- I'd look around and shop for some middle schoolers (ages 12-15) and I'm sure they'd be happy with $3-$4 per hour for one kid. Good luck!

$10 an hour is actually very reasonable. I paid my babysitter $10/hour for one potty-trained 4 year-old. For two potty-trained kids, the rate is $12/hour. I have friends who pay their sitter to watch an infant and a toddler $14/hour. Just remember that when we were in high school, a lot of things were less expensive :)

I usually pay teenagers $5-7/hour, I live in Roseville and have three children (though rarely are all three home for a sitter). I haven't ever had an adult sitter so I am not sure what the difference is in pay. Does you sitter babysit for anyone else? She might have different rates in other places.

I am in Roseville also. I pay adult babysitters $9-10/hour and teenagers $5-6/hour for one child.

Expect to pay for experience. If you're hiring an adult with plenty of experience with kids, especially someone who is not a friend or relative, be prepared to pay a competitive salary. And by competitive, I mean comprabable to what the nanny/temp daycare services would charge.

You will have more leeway with a teenager..but not much. Most if not all teens have a wealth of work experience under their belts, and are accoustomed to a real hourly salary. With that said, there will probably be few who will be happy with a flat $5 like kids from the old days.

Just remember, teens today have to pay for everything from cell phones, car and the car's upkeep, school books and supplies, college savings and more. While alot of that stuff was considered a luxury a while back, today, these things are necessessity for many young people and they'll probably be less inclined to do a babysitting job for anything less than minimum wage.

For both adults and teens these days, daycare is full of serious responsibilities and liabilities that most would feel need to be properly and fairly compensated.

The only babysitters I know that will happily accept 10 to 20 dollars for a whole night are very young sitters (as young as 11 to about before driving age at 15) just starting out. They have less bargaining chips and are more likely to settle on a small salary. But once again, there are more risks for you in this scenario, even with so many kids today going through "Babysitting Training" programs through their local community ed programs or Girl Scouts.