Cost for Overnight Sitter

Updated on January 02, 2013
L.K. asks from Lafayette, CA
7 answers

How much do you charge for a sitter to spend the night with your kids? How do you figure out the hours? Like 12 hours = x amount? Please help! It's for 3 kids and her normal rate is $15/hour.

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M.J.

answers from Sacramento on

We paid our daughter's daycare provider $125 for overnight care from around 4 pm to 10 am the next day. While it seems like you shouldn't have to pay much for overnight, keep in mind that the person is on call. Our son was around seven at the time and fully potty trained, but he got confused and didn't make it to the bathroom in time. So, she ended up cleaning carpets in the middle of the night. She deserved every bit of that $125.

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L.K.

answers from Kansas City on

How old are the kids? How many days/nights?

My 18 year old just watched a 15 year old and was paid very well. I can't remember how much exactly, but the woman figured that even during the night, my daughter was 'on call' so to speak.

Not to be overly dramatic, but my husband and I always looked at something like that as it was the life our children and we paid well! Of course our kids are now 22 and 18, but I remember years ago being chastised for 'over paying' sitters.

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S.J.

answers from St. Louis on

We left our little guy with an overnight sitter from about 4 pm to about noon the next day and paid her about $150. My husband thought that was a bit much for one child, but I reminded him that our little one probably woke at least once in the night (which he did after asking the sitter) and that she is on call the entire evening and probably didn't sleep much herself as she knows she is worried about another little human in her home. We value her, so we pay her well.

A good way to figure it, in my opinion, would be to calculate her hourly rate (say $15 per hour for your three kids) for the hours he is normally awake and then half that for each hour of sleep. Good luck!

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E.M.

answers from Phoenix on

I am paying my niece $175.00 for an overnight from 5:00pm one day to 4:00pm the next day. We usually pay her $10 per hour for our two and then round up a bit. I posted this amount in a question a while back asking about this as part of a gift to my husband and most people seemed to think it was way too much, but given the responses below I think it is pretty standard.
I was figuring 23 hours would be $230, cut us a bit of a break for some "down" time while she is sleeping, $175 seems fair.

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A.T.

answers from New York on

It really depends on your view of your babysitter and how you value her, but......overnight, usually becomes a flat rate, as the sitter is not really sitting or interacting with the children. This also depends on the age of the children. She is basically putting them to bed, and although on call, she has time to herself and eventually sleeping herself. An overnight for elder care is 150.00.
If your sitter is over at regular hours, you pay her the hourly. Once the night hours come in to play, it turns into a flat rate. Example: 6pm - 10pm or childs bedtime, hrly rate 4 hrs x amount agreed on. 10pm - 8AM or whatever time in the morning, 100.00 dollars, depending on the age or relationship you have with babysitter.

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C.S.

answers from Miami on

My son's preschool teacher told me she charges $125 for one child and $165 for two or more - assuming they are potty trained. An overnight sitter is VERY expensive. Do you have a friend you could ask with the promise to take her children overnight?

That is what we do, my friend's three who are potty trained for my two - one of which is still in diapers.

M.D.

answers from Washington DC on

We were going to pay our morning sitter extra to stay at our house overnight while I was in the hospital back in October. We pay her for her mornings already, a flat rate of $100 per week whether we use her or not (and trust me, she gets off a lot but it's totally worth it to pay her). So we were going to pay her an extra $150 to get the kids off the bus and last her until her normal pay kicked in at 615am. We have 3 kids, but they are pretty self-sufficient. They are also all active, but we had other people picking them up and dropping them off from their activities that night.

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