Yikes! We pay below average for our city. 
We usually pay $10-11 per hour. And we have paid less than that for a daytime sitter when daycare has been closed because there's just no way we can pay more than $100 per day!
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-what-you-should-be-paying-your-baby-sitter-2015-06-16
pineapple / 12053 posts
I'm not surprised by the $14-15 range in cities I've lived in. But I think of babysitter as one time things like for date nights rather than nannies.
eggplant / 11716 posts
I'm kind of shocked that the average in NYC is $15, but I guess that covers all the boroughs. I feel like it would be higher, since in my town the low end is $15 for 1 kid for a "professional babysitter".
But for my very occasional date night sitter, I pay $11 because she's in HS, haha. Since our LO is asleep, I think that's pretty great for HS!
persimmon / 1281 posts
I agree with PP...to me 'babysitter' means date night, not a full day of care. I know it makes me sound old but, holy crap babysitters get paid a lot nowadays!!!! I made like $5 an hour when I baby sat!!!!
cantaloupe / 6669 posts
@birdofafeather: I think that is what this is for, too, but I still find it very hard to pay $50-60 on top of dinner & movie or what have you! Especially if the kids are asleep much of the time!
nectarine / 2272 posts
I live in NYC and I pay my sitter $10 an hour. I was honestly ready to pay more but she's on urbansitter and she sets the price. I'm in an outer borough though, not Manhattan.
pineapple / 12053 posts
@daniellemybelle: Oh, I'm not saying I pay it, just that I'm not surprised! We've always done trades with friends, waited for family to be in town, or do date nights in. We only pay for childcare for work purposes. 
eggplant / 11716 posts
@hotchildinthecity: wow! That's cheap! I have gotten adult babysitter recommendations from friends and every single one charges $15-$20 an hour and one lady asks for $ for her dinner, too (insane).
pomegranate / 3779 posts
I don't think they are making a distinction between a full/part-time babysitter (what I would consider a nanny) and an occasional babysitter (what I would consider a babysitter.)
Our nanny makes $17.33 an hour to watch 2 children (2 different families split the cost) for 40-50 hrs per week, but for an occasional afternoon or evening, we typically pay $10-12 per hour and round up to the nearest half-hour. Per this survey, the average babysitter makes $13.76/hour and I don't know anyone who pays that for occasional babysitting.
squash / 13208 posts
Yep, and this is why we rarely go out - no family around so if we do something we have to pay a babysitter - $15 an hour - however she is 25 and I feel good leaving my kids with her!
eggplant / 11716 posts
@Mamaof2: yeah, we go on a date night about once every 3 months. I wish it were more often though! I also have to use our sitter sometimes for my OB appointments or when I have a night I have to work (like 8th grade graduation next week), since my husband doesn't get home till 7:30-8:00 pm).
It sucks.
cantaloupe / 6669 posts
This is one of the things bumming me out about moving - right now we have free, awesome babysitting from nearby family. 
I'm hoping we can make some friends and do trades!
coconut / 8279 posts
yep, that looks right. we usually pay $15-17/hour depending on day/night, time, etc.
hostess / wonderful watermelon / 39513 posts
Ya, we usually pay 15-20 an hour but I've only paid for a sitter 2 or 3 times.
wonderful cherry / 21504 posts
I'm not surprised by this. But yeah- that's why we have never hired a sitter at home. We have hardly gone in any date nights in two years because nothing really seems worth all that extra money on top of the date. I have Paulo r a sitter for a wedding and she quoted 13-15 an hour- paid her the $15 since C was up the entire time, 15 min nap in 8 hours. She earned it.
Bils bday is coming up and I'm wondering if it's worth trying to get a sitter or just send dh.
watermelon / 14467 posts
@Portboston: I remember making $5 for a date night when I was babysitting! Holy cow!
I view babysitters as a one-time deal for date night or something. I can't afford to pay $50-60 on top of a night out, so we do a lot of day dates when H is in daycare and we can both take off.
eggplant / 11287 posts
$14.50 an hour for our city? Yikes.
When I was babysitting, it was $2 an hour, per kid. $5 if it was only one.
wonderful pear / 26210 posts
I am not surprised either...I tend to have an internal conflict about the cost of childcare...I want to pay as little as possible for the care of my most precious asset.
We have my parents in town, so if we want to go out, we use them. I am pretty sure I couldn't convince a baby sitter to lay down with my son to get him to fall asleep and he'd have to be pretty trusting of the person to accept it.
pear / 1593 posts
@looch: lol! That is perfect wording for the internal conflict of childcare!
coconut / 8472 posts
This sounds right to me, but we pay former daycare teachers so I figure they should get more since they're way more qualified than a random high school kid. We pay approximately $15/hour and I usually leave $20 before we go if we're going to be gone during dinner time.
It's usually an additional $75 on top of whatever we do. So generally we reserve it for stuff we *really* want to do or special occasions.
GOLD / wonderful olive / 19030 posts
whoa! This makes me glad that our parents are so willing to babysit! I've only had a babysitter one time in almost 3 years that wasn't family but it was our daycare lady's daughter (watched at the in home daycare) and she only charged me $6 and hour and she thought it was so much. I can't really complain.
kiwi / 541 posts
I'm like most of you I consider a nanny different than a sitter. I also look at what they are doing. So if they only have to do play time then I pay less. If they have to do dinner time, bath time and meal time I think more.
grapefruit / 4355 posts
I'm not surprised by this. The link says the average for my metro area is a little over $13. Well I got paid $10-12 an hour to babysit when I was in middle school and high school and I didn't live in a big metro area like we do now.
cantaloupe / 6669 posts
@looch: Yeeeeeeah. It sucks but that sums it up!
For daytime care, the issue has always been making sure that it is worth it for me to even work. I work so we can meet financial goals. We can't meet those goals if we put 2/3 of my income toward childcare. I might as well stay home because while I do enjoy my work, I would prefer to SAH and I work to earn money, plain and simple.
Thankfully until this point we have had pretty affordable, high quality care for LO because we have had help from family, and I have a flexible job that allows us to use a small church-based program which follows a preschool schedule. It is less expensive than a large traditional daycare center that stays open all the time and we love it there.
blogger / pineapple / 12381 posts
I pay above market for my area. Totally worth it to get a teacher from my kids' school!
GOLD / wonderful apricot / 22646 posts
Looks right for our area. Most ppl I know pay more than average at 15-20/hour!
cantaloupe / 6923 posts
Cool, thanks for that! I need to pass this on to some cheapos I know!
grapefruit / 4819 posts
Wow, those prices are crazy! We have a high school girl babysit once per week after school for a couple of hours and I pay her £5 per hour (about $7), which is the normal price according to my SIL, who is a teacher at our local secondary school.
honeydew / 7463 posts
@hotchildinthecity: @Anagram: @plantains: NYC also - we pay the "nanny" who is here 2 full days $15/hr and the Saturday night sitter $20/hr with a 3 hour minimum. I'll admit I went in guns blazing for the night time sitter because I was desperate to have a young girl who lives just down the street and was "exclusive" to us. She's a recent college grad who works full time and just needs some extra cash. But since then I've asked other moms in my circle of friends and they also pay $20 just to lock their sitters down plus any travel costs (usually an extra $10-20 for cab fare).
I asked my nanny if she would do sat nights and she said "yeah for time-and-a-half and car service home" and she's really sweet and not very demanding usually. I wanted to call her out on the time-and-a-half thing since she's only working 18 hours a week for me, but I didn't want to cause a rift between us so I paid it once out of desperation and never again. So that's like $23/hr plus a $50+/- car home. It was a very expensive night and that's why I got a girl down the street for $20/hr. It's still way less!
wonderful grape / 20453 posts
This says $13-ish an hour, but the list I got from my MOPs group says the girls usually accept about $8/hour. I don't expect much except for E to have fun while I'm gone.
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