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We're very lucky that we don't need to..... we have my parents and in laws here to babysit when needed. But if we didn't I'd probably get a sitter at least once a month.

So far we've used a sitter only a few times, but we're both beyond ready to get out more. We're looking into starting a swap with some friends of ours that would guarantee at least one date night a month.

We talked about getting a sitter once a week on Tuesday nights once our work softball league starts up. We'll see, but we like the idea of having our softball game and then picking up dinner. Yeah it'll be expensive, but so is our sanity and it's too hot in the summer to bring the baby and trade off, so she'll have to stay home. Otherwise we'll have MIL watch her and go out to dinner, but that's unreasonable during the week b/c she doesn't live that close.

I'd probably only want to pay a 12 year old like $6/hour, though. $10/hour is what some adults make

so far we rely on family or take LO everywhere with us. she is only 9 months and at this age I dont feel comfortable leaving her with a teenager

LO is only 5 months old so we have just had family do it for free since I am too nervous to leave her with someone other than that yet. However, tomorrow she will be watched by my cousin who is 18 and I am paying her $20 for about 3 hours. My cousin will be watching other kids at the time too, so will be making a good chunk of money from them too. My LO will be sleeping the entire time. It gets expensive and since she is family I feel ok paying her just $20. If it were someone not in my family I would pay a lot more, but we wouldn't even be able to afford to go out then lol!

Maybe once a month for a date night? I haven't found any non family sitters yet.

We paid $15 an hour.

I'd be lucky that we have a lot of family near by who would be happy to take care of our LO relatively often, so we probably won't get up paying for a babysitter very often.

@Thehistoryofus: @Mrs. Lemon-Lime: Your relatives would charge you gas money? They should pay you to get to hang with your kids. How sad!

@Thehistoryofus: Oh ok, I see!

We do it every 2 weeks on saturday evenings.

We are apparently luckier than I'd realized
My parents just moved to our state, and they live about 40 minutes away, but are willing to drive to see LO almost any time. They've proposed taking LO overnight once a week on Friday or Saturday, but I don't know that I want to give him up THAT often, but even having the offer is nice. So basically if we wanted a date night every week we could. My mom is also pretty much always willing to drive down and watch LO if he's sick or something like that.
My sister lives about 35-45 minutes away as well, and before my parents moved here she'd babysit about twice a month, usually once at our place (so we can go out, usually at night), and once at her place (I'd drop off LO and go run errands or something, usually in the morning or afternoon).
We also have friends that we occasionally swap with, and another set of good friends with no kids yet who do a lot of babysitting for the little kids in our group- we don't often ask them to watch LO for us, but they've said they'd be happy to do it more often.
There's never been a question of payment with any of our family or close friends, but everyone is pretty financially secure and we all try to do other types of favors for each other anyhow. WE also live in a big city where a 45 minute drive is nothing so out of the ordinary- it's my average commute to work.

Haven't left her with anyone other than my mom yet. I doubt we'll be getting a babysitter anytime in the near future. I have separation anxiety if I'm away from her

We have no friends and family nearby that could watch LO so we'll probably do this as often as humanly possible.

We are lucky and have free family nearby in spades, but just wanted to add that you can totally get away with paying her less. That is a really high rate for a 12 y/o!