Hellobee Boards

@Boogs: I totally agree with you. I babysat in middle school so like 12/13! And young babies too! Granted they just slept; but I would never trust someone that young myself in case of an emergency lol!

My sitters for date night are all in the 23-26 range.
I also just met a young waitress at a cafe I frequent and after chatting agreed it might be good for her to do occasional daytime sitting for me as needed. She's probably 23 as well.

My regular date-night sitters are in their mid 20's to early 30's. They're primarily actors who do nannying/babysitting around whatever shows they're currently in, preschool teachers, and med students. My experience with high school and college-age sitters was that they required a lot more direction/prep work on my end, and weren't great about things like cleaning up after themselves/the kids. And older sitters tended to be career nannies who (rightfully) expected to be paid more and wanted the bonuses that often came with their full time jobs (an allowance to order takeout, an Uber home no mater what time it is, etc.).

Like others, I babysat CRAZY young. Like 11 years old. It was totally a different time.

Most of ours are in their mid-20s. I have used one that was 14 in a pinch (and we weren't going to be gone long or too far), but having to drive to pick-up/drop-off was a pain! I'd consider using 14+ again in certain scenarios, but would prefer one who lives on/around our block so that we wouldn't have to provide transportation.

Also, since we will soon have 3, using someone younger would definitely be dependent on whether the youngest 1-2 kids would be in bed before they arrived, etc.

The two we use most frequently (which is hardly ever!) are early 40s. I would be comfortable with college age, but I just don't know any!

I started babysitting at like 12 and babysat all through high school.

I know our main babysitter for myself and my sisters was in high school. And there were 3 of us to watch.

We don't have a babysitter. I'd be fine with someone younger for shorter time periods, not having to do meals or bedtime. But I think it more has to do with maturity than age.

We've only used one, who was a 29 nurse. We have a neighbor girl coming to babysit in a few weeks, she's 16 and comes highly recommended. But I'll probably pt the baby down before we leave anyway. I would trust her while they were awake too but bedtime is hard.

When they were younger I wanted older babysitters (20 +)

Now at 5 and 8 we have a neighbor watch them - she is 13 and took the Red Cross Babysitting class, and she gave us a resume which I thought was kinda awesome!

The kids love her!

We were desperate last month and used a babysitter for the first time. She was 12. I was really hesitant but she was great. She just watched our 3 year old from 7-10pm and our DD goes to bed around 730/8. Now that we have a newborn I wouldn't let her babysit him but I'd continue to use her for a mother's helper with DD.

I left DS 1 with two 12-13 year olds when he was 8 months or so. I was nervous about it but they had tons of experience and he's a really easy baby.

Since having DS 2 we've usually left them with other moms or college students. There is one highschooler who occasionally sits at our house after they are in bed so can go to church meetings. I think once DS 2 is older (1.5-2) I'll be more comfortable with younger sitters again.

Either our 13 year old neighbor or a mom friend.