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Our parents sit for us, my bro always does when he's in town and one of his bffs who lives in town does for us too.

My parents take them about once a month. I would love to hire a date night babysitter so I could stop having to arrange date nights around my parents schedule and not wanting to ask too often, but DH wants to wait until they are a bit older.

Oh and I should add there was one time we hired someone not family. It was an emergency - DS was too sick for daycare, DH had an important meeting at work, and I had a big test I couldn't miss. So I went onto care.com, found someone with lots of great reviews and references, and got a background check. DS loved her and she did an excellent job! But DH didn't get to meet her and still doesn't feel totally comfortable with it. Sigh.

We have a recent college grad who we pay to babysit. She works full time and just needs some extra spending cash. We have her probably 2 Saturday's a month. We also go out on mid-week date nights once a month or so. So 2-3 nights a month total.
I also just asked the young girl who teaches his music class if she would babysit and she said yes.
I still put him to bed though since he goes down by 7pm. I just enjoy it and I know I do it "best" I do plan on letting her do it at some point. Maybe if we have to be somewhere earlier, like a wedding, and I'm forced

@regberadaisy: We usually leave at 7:30 and are home by 10:30/11pm. Perfect amount of time for dinner and a nice walk/dessert. Or just a movie.

So far, we have just had my brother or BIL & his girlfriend come over and sit in the house after DS (almost 9 months) goes to sleep. BIL & his girlfriend gave us baby-sitting coupons for Christmas so we haven't paid them. My brother is easy to please and we just order him Pizza Hut as a thank you. Luckily DS has an early bedtime (between 6:30-7pm) so we can do bedtime ourselves, leave the house around 7:30 for an 8pm dinner, possibly a drink after, and still home around 10.

For a variety of reasons, we haven't been out, for months. Under usual circumstances, my parents take DD once every month or two. They live out of town and usually come to us, unless we plan to do something where they live, in advance.

They're actually watching her this weekend so we can have a day-date, and will be taking her overnight at their place in a few weeks, so we can do a later night out (they turn in early, so a grandparent slumber party makes more sense).

We are, however, looking to go out more often, this summer. A friend of ours shared the phone number of their occasional sitter, so we'll likely give her a call, soon. We'll probably utilize a paid sitter for daytime/early evening dates, and use my folks for late or overnights, as they're pros with bedtime (she cosleeps, and has a specific cuddle routine, lol).