TTMA date nights and babysitters

[waverly]

It's me again the one that always has a hard time finding a babysitter.  I typically use teenagers, but the problem with them is once they become an older teen, their schedule has exploded and they can't.

I have suggested swapping kids with the neighbors, but so far nothing, so I guess it is in their court.  I have 2 other teenager prospects, but it is the same kind of thing.  They are sooo busy, they can't.

We usually have family do it for us, but since family is driving in 5 hours to see us, MIL was super passive aggressive about doing it last time, and my family I have decided sucks.  If my mom comes by herself she will babysit, but that is like 2 times a year. 

So I try through the rec center since two of the park districts have joined up to offer a nature preserve evening for the kids.  It is a good program, but so far in the last 2-3 years, they changed one season to be older kids so we didn't make the cut off, taken the summers off, and cancel for weather (it's supposed to be 6), but really they could keep the kids indoors they don't have to have a fire and a nature walk...  Daycare used to offer parents night out, but people weren't signing up, so that ended and we aren't at the daycare anymore.  Aftercare offers nothing. 

The church we belong to had 1 event in 3 years for pre-Christmas shopping for the parents in early December.  The other church does have a 2 hour Friday night thing, which I can try but that is really only time for a drink or maybe a quick dinner in town which is all the same restaurants we've already been to as 2 hours is not a lot.  But $%#@ what does a lady have to do around here to get someone to watch the kids for 3-4 hours on a Sat once a month?

We tried a long time ago with those sitter websites and it was all people that wanted full time and wouldn't even respond to our e-mails.  Nothing has been on our community neighborhood websites.  I've tried asking friends and texting people, and got bewildered or rude responses (because friends are possessive of their babysitter, or it was a special favor from their childcare or they didn't clue their babysitter in that we would be texting).  

We've also had childcare workers do it, maybe someone from the aftercare would be interested?

Is this a constant struggle for everyone else as well? Do you have date nights and who watches the kids? 

[xctsclrx]

So my H and I love day dates. Occasionally, we will send the kids to daycare and then take a day off from work or half and day and spend the time together. We really enjoy it, and the kids are at daycare.

Baby sitters are hard for us to find and we really only use them for special occasions.

[waverly]

xctsclrx, thanks we will occasionally be home together at the same time on a Friday or serendipitously I am off for working the weekend and he is working from home so just a lunch date basically.

It's just hard to plan since he is on an unpredictable consulting schedule, and it's gotten worse now that he is operating less like a senior manager and more like a managing director because it used to be that Fridays he was always home, and now this year that is not the case.


Really good idea that if I can figure out how to utilize it more....

[k3am]

Our daycare offers Parents Night Out on a monthly basis. So do all of the local play places, kid gyms, etc. The price is comparable to paying for a sitter, but you have the inconvenience of having to haul home a kid after their bedtime.

I've had good luck using care.com, urbansitter, and local nanny agencies. All of them end up being pricey though. I found our old sitters through Nextdoor, and they were okay. On the one occassion that we really, really, really needed a sitter and both girls were busy, their mom watched our kids.

We've recently lucked into DH's brother's best friend from college sitting for us and it is the absolute best.

[waverly]

k3am, we are kind of in a dessert of play places strangely, but I did forget that the jumpy house places offer parents night out. I wish it was more on Sat than Fri since DH has started to fly home Fri night, but maybe I just book it and threaten him to be there.

[mustardseed2007]

I used to work in our Church's nursery and baby sat for people all the time who knew me from there.

[186momx]

Have you checked out the gymnastic gyms? Our gym offers parents night out 1 Saturday a month during the school year. Its from 5-9:30 and they feed the kids pizza, play games, and just burn off energy. We've done it a couple times but DD is dragging the next few days at 9:30 is really late for her to be out.

[waverly]

Thanks I googled a few more and found some other parent nights out. They are all Fri night for some reason, but probably we will try the 2 hour church one and the play area one first since we have been there before.

[k3am]

waverly, if YH can't make it on Friday night, so what? It sounds like you should just book a Friday PNO, send the kids, and go on a date. Either with YH somewhere romantic, or by yourself to do whatever it is that you need to... that would be a massage or mani/pedi for me. Maybe even just cruising through Target at a leisurely pace. Potentially a girls night, but that usually feels like more effort than it's worth lately.

[librarychica]

I second (third?) parents night out. We have used the one at the local kids gym. They seem to be friday night around here too. We are also big fans of the day dates.

I tend to hire college students as sitters, though. I have had good luck finding local students whose main money making gig is babysitting and the extra reliability attention to detail is worth the extra couple of dollars per hour.

[186momx]

Also check with old daycare teachers, sport staff, or school staff. The staff might not want to but I've found a lot of them who have teenage/college kids who may be interested. I've also had luck with a couple of my semi-retired neighbors watching DD. It also helps that they just need to hang out while she is in bed since she has an early bedtime. One of those feed her and they come over and I will say after the movie is over its bedtime which works pretty good. These are the same neighbors we trade off and on with dog letting out.

[waverly]

Jan 23, 2019 17:50:32 GMT -5 k3am said:

waverly, if YH can't make it on Friday night, so what? It sounds like you should just book a Friday PNO, send the kids, and go on a date. Either with YH somewhere romantic, or by yourself to do whatever it is that you need to... that would be a massage or mani/pedi for me. Maybe even just cruising through Target at a leisurely pace. Potentially a girls night, but that usually feels like more effort than it's worth lately.

Was thinking about this. Not to even to do anything just to be free of kids. Take myself to the bar and get a burger!

[sdlaura]

We use preschool teachers/daycare providers. They’re in their 20s and happy to take my $20 an hour. We have a set every other Friday night date night with our primary babysitter.

She picks the older kids up from school and takes them to dinner at a fast casual place while DH picks up the toddler. We have a drink at home with the toddler and then when she gets back we leave. That way we don’t have to all rush in the door after work and have it be chaotic while we take off.

I love the set schedule because we can schedule with other couples or make reservations in advance. Sometimes we’ll just go to the neighborhood sushi place and then kill some time till the kids are in bed, but it’s nice to check in with each other on a regular basis.

[campermom]

Our gym offers parents night out twice a month, but we don’t really take advantage of it. If I need sitters I get them from the gym childcare. Or I have a neighbor, but she is harder to get now that she is in college.

Sadly I don’t get sitters for many date nights, I get them for morning runs lol.

[honeydew1894]

We definitely make use of the ones our local Y offers as well as the tae kwon do studio DS attends. My parents will help us also, but I don't like to ask them too often. Our next door neighbor is 12 and she watches them for like 2 hours if we just want to get out for a bit.

[honeydew1894]

Jan 23, 2019 22:42:31 GMT -5 sdlaura said:

We use preschool teachers/daycare providers. They’re in their 20s and happy to take my $20 an hour. We have a set every other Friday night date night with our primary babysitter.

She picks the older kids up from school and takes them to dinner at a fast casual place while DH picks up the toddler. We have a drink at home with the toddler and then when she gets back we leave. That way we don’t have to all rush in the door after work and have it be chaotic while we take off.

I love the set schedule because we can schedule with other couples or make reservations in advance. Sometimes we’ll just go to the neighborhood sushi place and then kill some time till the kids are in bed, but it’s nice to check in with each other on a regular basis.

This sounds amazing. I wish we could do this! Maybe I should work on that...

[librarychica]

Jan 23, 2019 19:55:17 GMT -5 waverly said:

Jan 23, 2019 17:50:32 GMT -5 k3am said:

waverly, if YH can't make it on Friday night, so what? It sounds like you should just book a Friday PNO, send the kids, and go on a date. Either with YH somewhere romantic, or by yourself to do whatever it is that you need to... that would be a massage or mani/pedi for me. Maybe even just cruising through Target at a leisurely pace. Potentially a girls night, but that usually feels like more effort than it's worth lately.

Was thinking about this. Not to even to do anything just to be free of kids. Take myself to the bar and get a burger!

I did this one night. A steakhouse/bar near us kept advertising this super amazing happy hour and I wanted to try their burgers so badly but we just couldn’t get it together. H was like “just go!” so I slipped out while he finished bedtime and had a glass of wine, a delicious burger and read my kindle in the bar. It was seriously relaxing. You should do it.

[2chatter]

Call local high schools and ask about kids in their education programs, churches and ask
about kids looking for jobs to fund missions/camps, post at a local community college —- and then after you have ONE kid, work their network. We have had great luck with them introducing us to friends. My cousin in River Forest has some of the same complaints, so I think it may be a local challenge, too.

[waverly]

2chatter , maybe about it being a local challenge. The culture here that high schoolers don't really work anymore. Parents wants school to be "their job." Academics especially AP and extra curriculars are highly pushed instead.

Which makes me wonder because those first awful job experiences I thought were really helpful.  For example, working in fast food/ restaurant taught us to never work with food again.  

We did have a teenager network and her friends when we first moved here, but she graduated high school and went on to get a few DUI's so that dropped off completely.

[xctsclrx]

waverly, I never had one of those first awful jobs. I did babysit though. I think I missed out on some great life lessons and work experience not having them. I will be encouraging my children to work those types of jobs in high school because I do feel as if I missed a level of maturing that I had to catch up on later.

[waverly]

Jan 24, 2019 8:15:56 GMT -5 librarychica said:

Jan 23, 2019 19:55:17 GMT -5 waverly said:

Was thinking about this. Not to even to do anything just to be free of kids. Take myself to the bar and get a burger!

I did this one night. A steakhouse/bar near us kept advertising this super amazing happy hour and I wanted to try their burgers so badly but we just couldn’t get it together. H was like “just go!” so I slipped out while he finished bedtime and had a glass of wine, a delicious burger and read my kindle in the bar. It was seriously relaxing. You should do it.

I've done this a couple of times when we were fighting and I was like see you and left him with the kids which since he is gone all week, he should be with them anyway. 

I had such a good time, and I told him we should fight more often ha ha.  But probably planning it is the healthier way to do so.

[mellym]

We don't have parents night out around here. We usually have our parents babysit but it's not ideal because we never feel like we can stay out late since they have to drive home (20 min and 45 min). We only ask them for work events/parties and we need to do better about date nights now that DD3 is 1. I've used a daycare teacher occasionally but some of them have said no because they're already working FT. The struggle is real to find people that want to babysit.

[CrazyLucky]

I don't remember how old your kids are. We have three babysitters that we use regularly. One is a local high school girl. One is a woman from the kids' daycare, and the third is a kindergarten teacher's assistant. The teacher's assistant is my favorite because she has the background and education. I know the kids won't just watch a screen when she's here. TAs in NC get paid really poorly, so it's a win-win. Do you have any teacher assistant connections at school?

[waverly]

I mean I do have leads and I can hunt down more. It's just tiring I guess to just be always on the look out rather than having someone reliably able to do it.

I do like babysitters because in our house and we can get more than 3 hours. But it's a race to the atm and the clock and driving them home. So I do like the drop off places too, so I am going to look into both more.

I don't want the kids to grow up faster, but being the primary parent for so many years every night while DH travels it does get tiring, and part of me is looking forward to the age when I can leave them home for 2-3 hours.

Kids are 8 and 6, so it will be a while for leaving them home for that long.

[sdlaura]

waverly, I Venmo our babysitters and I think it’s worth finding someone older so they can drive themselves home.

Also I think it’s worth paying a couple dollars an hour above market rate and rounding up so that they’ll take your job over others. If I had a full time nanny I’d be more price sensitive, but for date nights it doesn’t make a huge difference to me, but I think it does to them.