Is it less common to use babysitters now?

[demelza]

Are less and less parents utilizing a babysitter for date night type stuff? I don't have family close by and I don't know many babysitting age teens.  I have had a heck of a time trying to find a sitter.  Covid didn't help of course.  I try to get leads on sitters from other parents and often they can use family or just don't use any type of babysitter by choice or maybe think it is too expensive.  

[VillainV]

We are also having a hard time finding sitters. There just aren’t a lot of teenage girls who want to babysit anymore. Most of the ones we know either have steady jobs that make it hard to be free on a weekend evening, or they have no interest in working at all.

[isabel]

There are a lot of teenage sitters who post on our Nextdoor page looking for work. We’ve never used them because up to this point I really haven’t trusted some random teenager to watch my kids. I’d probably be more ok with it now that they’re older.

We do use a former teacher from our pre-k from time to time. She’s actually coming over tomorrow night so DH and I can go to a concert. Unfortunately, she’s moving to New York next year, so we’ll have to find someone else for these one offs.

We mostly use DH’s mom for babysitting, but sometimes I don’t want to ask and we elect to pay someone instead.

[IndiaInk]

I can't figure it out, but I am in the same boat. I live in a college town and even so, I had a near impossible time finding anyone to watch my kids on Fridays throughout the summer. I had a paid post on Care.com for months with hardly any takers. This hasn't been my experience in the past at all.

From observing my friends' teens, I've concluded that they are either too occupied with sports and other activities to have any free time to work, or they just aren't interested in working.

[moonpie]

We’ve always used daycare workers. But we haven’t used a sitter since covid started. I don’t know any teens that babysit.

[mrsGreeko]

My 15 year old and 12 year old DDs both babysit, but really only for my nieces and our neighbor. Not a lot of families seem to need babysitters or something. Lucky for my girls our neighbor utilizes them a lot. My SIL used to use them quite a bit but then my older niece was diagnosed with T1D and now they don’t use them as much because niece can’t manage it on her own yet and my girls probably can’t manage it on their own either. So now they use my parents and SILs parents mostly.

[expectantsteelerfan]

I feel like we had a REALLY small window where we thought our kids were old enough to trust to a random teenage babysitter before Covid happened and there was nowhere to go, but for that short period, we did use neighbors and people who posted in the local fb group. Now my kids are old enough that I rarely feel the need for a babysitter for the short outdoor activities we do.

[stemmie]

I think another to the vanishing babysitter around here is that many employers that used to hire 16+/18+ preferred are struggling to get enough to staff their public facing service positions and are willing to hire 14+.

I was fortunate that a couple of my friends had kids who babysat when they were in their early-mid teens but it was hard finding sitters before they aged into the position.

[niq]

We live next door to a family with three teenage girls. I've also asked the people who run the child care at my gym. But we definitely go out less than my parents did, it feels like they had something going on in the evening at least every other week.

[sillygoosegirl]

A neighbor teen used to babysit for us before the pandemic. I wouldn't use a babysitter now unless I knew he/she was vaccinated (which most teens still aren't), and with the latest about vaccinated people still carrying COVID, I probably won't use a babysitter again until my kid is vaccinated. I'm also not comfortable eating at a restaurant or doing most of the things we used to hire a babysitter so we could do...

[noodleoo]

We didn’t use babysitters often preCovid due to the high cost and how difficult it is to find one. We used daycare teachers but they are in high demand (so hard to book) and charge $20+ an hour, which is tough on our budget more than once every other month or so. I’ve asked around to try to find other options, but no luck. I desperately want to find one now but it would need to be someone vaccinated. Our neighbors 14 year old would be perfect since my girls already love her but they’ve decided against having her vaccinated because “it hasn’t been tested enough”. 🙄🙄🙄

H and I have gone out for a few lunch dates instead while the kids are at daycare which is nice but not the same as a night out. 😔 With no family nearby I’ve pretty much accepted it isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

[af1212]

We have not used a babysitter all through covid. I think it’s hard to be in a position where you are indoors with children right now. So unless they absolutely need the $$ I can see people not working as babysitters until this is over.

Also I can imagine many parents not allowing their teenagers to babysit right now.

[sent]

A mom in the town mom's group posted her 14 year old son wanted to baby sit. Other moms vouched for him. He comes almost every weekend since I posted my guilty feelings here to babysit my 3 year old monster toddler. He is vaccinated. Now I feel very thankful he's willing to work and watch him!

Last year I put up a request asking for someone to play outside in the mornings with DD, masked at all times. I had several people reply for their kids.

Maybe its geographic? We are HCOL, so those trips to the mall food court and the cute food shops in our down town cost more for teens to be able to hang out?

[SusanBAnthony]

I think a lot of parents don't trust a teenager to watch their younger kids. And then you only have a few years before the kids can just stay by themselves.

I babysat an infant at age 12 in the mid 90's. I don't think that is as common. Probably for good reason lololol.

We've never had a problem finding teenagers that want to babysit but we also don't live in an upper class neighborhood. So a decent number of kids want/need to work. I get the sense that would not be the case in some coworkers higher end neighborhoods.

Another factor might be the cost. Teenagers (rightly) expect to make a comparable salary to what they could get at Target or wherever.... 15$ an hour. That adds up FAST. I was paid under minimum wage when I babysat as a teen. It was worth it because cash+ downtime while the kids slept + I could set my schedule. But maybe that calculation has changed for teens?

[al dente]

My kid is almost 3.5yr old and I have had such a hard time finding babysitters since she was born. I haven't even bothered since covid because theres no where to go anyways.

When I do try and get one people are so flakey and don't show up, or cancel last minute, or just stop responding to messages. It's really frustrating.

We've done day dates while she's in preschool, but it's def not the same. My mom visits every 18mo-2yrs and that's when we get our date nights in.

[cherry1111]

We’ve only used family so far and we’re 8.5 years into parenthood. We have plenty of family nearby and babysitters are expensive. Once you add $20/hr onto dinner and whatever else we’re doing it becomes a pricey evening out.

I’m glad babysitters are getting paid better. I remember getting a crisp $20 bill for 7-8 hours of babysitting. Yeah that was 25+ years ago but it does seem like rates have gone way up.

[yellow23]

We’ve only used a babysitter twice in 11 years, when grandparents visit (a few times a year) they usually watch our kids for a few hours so we can go out. We’ve only used a babysitter for one kid and it was $18/hr, for 3 kids it would be at least $25/hr if we want someone cpr certified and with experience. Now that our kids are all old enough to talk and we don’t have to worry as much about choking and stuff we’ve been considering trying to find a teenager. We weren’t comfortable using a teenager when we had a baby or toddler in the house.

At $25 or more an hour plus tip, we just haven’t wanted to spend that much money for a night out. We typically just stick the kids in the basement with a movie of their own, then order takeout and watch our own movie to have a date night at home.

[redheadbaker]

We've used a non-relative baby sitter once in DS' life. My mom legit got offended, LOL. She lives close enough to watch DS if we need to go somewhere. My aunt lives even closer, and she has two teen daughters who've watched DS for a short time (when H and I went to a movie).

[cricketwife]

If you search my history, I have multiple complaining posts about how hard it is to get a sitter and that was pre-Covid. For us, I think it was a combination of a string of bad luck, and also a catch-22 kind of cycle. At $20/hr, we could rarely afford to go out. And since we rarely went out, we couldn’t get a regular sitter. We haven’t had a sitter in over 2 years. I’ve already started wondering how long until I can leave my 5 and 7 yo home alone. 😂

[mbcdefg]

I live close enough to my mom and sister where they can usually watch DD if we go out. We’ve also paid a friend of my sister’s to watch her (they’re in their 30s) and she/we have other friends who’ve offered to help if we need it.

I actually talked to a family friend today who has two teen girls who are really nice, and offhand I asked her if they’d sit. They live in a different town and can’t drive yet, so we’d likely have to drive them home or bring DD to their house. And the cost of a sitter isn’t cheap - all of which is fair, of course, but it’s a lot for us to arrange and sometimes it doesn’t feel worth it.

We don’t have many friends we hang out with - our closest friends have three kids of their own so they either come to our house or we meet at a park/beach and the four of them run around while we just sit and chat.

[aprilsails]

We just booked a girl to watch DS (recommended by a local coworker) for Friday we we can take DD to a water park. This is our first babysitter in this community, since I was pregnant and on maternity leave before COVID and then there has been nothing to do for a year and a half.

At our last place we had a regular sitter who lived across the street and watched DD every other week so we could play frisbee in the summer and fall, and one weekend night a month on average for date night.

I doubt we will ever get up to those numbers of nights away again.

[tacom]

We live 1700 miles away from my kids’ grandparents, so we’ve always relied on paid sitters.

Finding a sitter is always a PITA but I haven’t necessarily found it more difficult during covid. Demand for private care is up in my area, but the pool of applicants has also widened as some people have moved out of roles in more public facing positions.

If other parents aren’t giving good leads, can you reach out to neighbors with teens? We found a vaccinated young teen neighbor with no paid experience but a good head on her shoulders and an interest in my kids. She was willing to complete cpr and babysitting training (we paid) and now she is one of our go to options (for the toddler, not yet ready for a newborn). We also have a couple of older neighbors with grandkids of their own who have offered to sit. Care.com has been hit or miss, as has a local Facebook group that connects sitters with parents. We’ve found really really great candidates (one who still sits for us occasionally and has become a close friend to our family) and I’ve also been ghosted for shifts and have had to cancel my own work shifts as a result. Just from my own experience, I’d recommend a multi step interview process (embedding mandatory questions in an ad, multiple references, virtual interview, then scheduled training/trial runs) and offering a little higher hourly rate plus 3 hour minimum to find the type of candidate you’ll want to work with. It’s expensive to live far from family!

[tacom]

Also, everyone saying there’s nowhere to go because of covid -

My favorite thing is hiring a sitter every once in a while and planning an (outdoor, covid safe) outing for the sitter and my toddler. Then we get the house to ourselves (with the baby, but he’s relatively easy). We stayed home, ate an adult dinner on the couch, streamed a free movie on a trial paramount+ subscription, and watched our house STAY CLEAN. And we got to sleep that night because we weren’t trying to cram in our date after bedtime when we are both exhausted.

So worth it.

[minzy]

I think this is where Girl Scouts has come in handy for me... we have a few high schoolers I have known through GS for a few years who I would/have felt comfortable using. We used our teenage next door neighbor on Friday (she’s been vaccinated).

[AdaraMarie]

I have never used one because it is so expensive. I have used my mom occasionally or favors from neighbors in an emergency. Generally though I just either take them with me or plan around when they were at their dad's or at school/daycare. I started leaving them for short amounts of time at age 8 and I probably won't need a real sitter anymore due to their ages.

[sent]

Aug 1, 2021 15:50:21 GMT -5 @hiphopanonymous said:

Aug 1, 2021 15:35:14 GMT -5 sent said:

A mom in the town mom's group posted her 14 year old son wanted to baby sit. Other moms vouched for him. He comes almost every weekend since I posted my guilty feelings here to babysit my 3 year old monster toddler.

That's awesome that you found someone!

I guess he's technically more of a mother's helper than a true babysitter since one of us is always home when he comes over. But it's been so helpful to have someone else take on DS's endless energy for a few hours. 

[ellipses84]

We rarely use a babysitter and we have no family around to help on a regular basis. The kids have been in daycare / school since 4 months old. In the past 10 years, we’ve hired babysitters for 1x/yr company holiday party twice (other years we swapped kids with friends so they could attend theirs) and after I had majorly surgery (mainly to help with school pickup because I couldn’t drive)… those are the only times I can think of. A friend sometimes helps with school drop-off from her house since she’s taking her kids anyways, and refuses to accept pay.

It’s so expensive for a sitter and date night, so we haven’t prioritized it, but I’m sure our relationship would be better if we did. We’ve been creative, going on date nights when we visit family/ they visit us/ we vacation with friends / family. We’ve gone on day dates while they are at school. I have a lot of working mom guilt about taking that time away from the kids on weekends, but with them getting older, me WFH, I’m definitely ready and have only been delaying due to Covid. DH has a flexible work schedule so it I want an evenin out with friends, he can be home with the kids. A lot of our friends use sitters more regularly.

Between the neighborhood moms group and babysitter / nanny fb pages for our area, I’m not lacking recs. We almost never use one twice though because it’s so infrequent and they move away! I only know of 1 teen wanting to babysit, but until recently I don’t know if I would have trusted a teen (for babies toddlers) even though I babysat at age 13.

[beerlover]

We go out a fair amount (probably 3-4 times a month), likely because most of our friends have older kids who they can leave at home, so they can make fun plans more frequently. Our parents are semi local (his are 25 min away and mine are 45) and usually willing to watch DS, but we also use local teenagers so that we're not asking our parents all the time. My H is the high school principal so its easy for him to get in contact with interested sitters. We've also used the teenage daughters of my daycare provider and one of her employees. We pay $10 an hour and that's actually high for this area of rural central PA. We definitely couldn't swing going out as much if it was closer to $20 an hour!

[formerlyak]

When my older DS was younger, I was a single parent and couldn’t really afford to go out much let alone a babysitter. I planned my dates for one of the 8 nights a month DS spent at his dad’s. My friends who needed sitters generally hired the teachers from preschool.

Now, we are lucky, because older DS is 15 and can watch his younger brother if DH and I want to go out. So no need. But the friends I know who do need sitters either hire teachers from after care or a teen from our neighborhood. The kids who are heavily involved in school activities have trouble with traditional jobs because the schedule isn’t as flexible as they need, so they babysit or tutor. DS is a math tutor and they base times off what works for both him and the client.

[steamboat185]

Precovid we had issues finding a sitter plus it always felt like work to get everything set up for a sitter plus we have dogs. We now use parents night out at the gym the girls take gymnastics. It’s once a month, set hours, fun activities, and several other kids there all masked.