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We have date night every other week and LO's either former or current day care teacher babysits. We don't have family nearby and view it as an investment in our marriage (because it's not cheap!). We have a close friend who will hang out after she's in bed.

Our former babysitter (before she moved away) was LOs part time nanny that we found on care.com. She was fantastic and I miss her.

I would love to find a sitter, but my son has his routines and doesn't like to deviate. It takes him awhile to trust new people and I don't think I'd be able to find anyone that would be willing to lay down with my son to go to sleep at 7:30, frankly.

Between my mom's frequent long term visits, and DH's parents now living ten minutes away, we usually have grandparents watch the LOs. We do have a regular babysitter though that is a student at the local secondary school. DH's sister is a teacher there and it is a very well regarded school, well known for just how good the kids are, so she compiled a list of the most responsible students she knows who would be interested in babysitting and we went from there. She usually babysits in the afternoon, after school, but we have used her for an evening before and were very happy. It was a bit daunting, leaving my girls with a 16 yr old for the first time, but it was fine!

My goal is to get out of the house with DH more this year! I wish we had more friends in this area to watch DD for date nights! Both my mom and inlaws live in town so we usually leave her with one of them, and it's always been at our house until midnight-ish since she didn't slept through the night until she was 15 months old.

I did find a sweet nanny on care.com last year to watch her during the day a few hours a week when my mom couldn't make it. I WFH so I was comfortable with the stranger aspect only because I was around. I think if I had good referrals from friends and family I'd be more okay with a stranger - but DD is slow to warm up to some people so maybe I'd have them come over a bit early.

So far at 3 months in, only family and friends have watched DD. But I would have zero concerns about hiring a babysitter so long as they came with references from people that I know and trust.

I had tons of high school aged babysitters as a kid when I grew up and I was one of those babysitters for other kids all throughout middle school and high school. I know that they can be completely reliable!

We have a few sitters we use for date nights. We moved two months before DS was born, so the first thing I did when I got here was research for babysitters. I ended up getting recommendations from military spouses I had just met or from people my DH worked with.
If I had any family nearby, I would use them too.

I am a high school teacher and have reconnected with a couple of former students who are now going to University close by to us. They are super reliable and don't charge the earth. They do daytime or evening sitting, but if we want to go out overnight we get my mother in law. I'm in Australia and my parents are in Canada but both retired and usually come to stay for 2-3 months every year - this year we're planning a 4 or 5 night trip away from our son while they are here - SO EXCITED! Come on January!!!

We have a set of friends that's just starting out in life, and they don't have kids (or cable). We DVR their favorite shows and in exchange they hang out at our house while our kid sleeps.

We have a couple of friends we exchange date nights for.

i couldn't vote because we get to go on date nights when our parents visit, so every few months - my mom visits the most.

However, we also use babysitters for the occasional date night, especially if it is for a special occasion. But our babysitters are not people who we only hired for irregular outings - they are our former nannies! So we know them quite well and they developed a good relationship with LO when they cared for him every day for several months. We have two - one that nannied for 4 months and the other for 3 months.

We have only had family. Before it was just my ILs and well, they're fickle when it comes to bedtime. They offered once or twice but then fell through. Their the type that that means they don't want to do it. We've gone a few times since dd2 and it's because bil and his gf watch them. But we feel like it's hard to coordinate schedules. We're going to start paying someone. Either one of their daycare teachers or a daughter of his cousin who works at another day care. It's been 3.5 years and we've only had a handful of date nights. I'm over it. My cheap a$$ is paying for one so we can go on one whenever we want to and on our time!

LO is almost 2 and we have only used our parents and my SIL (Who has 2 girls close in age to ours). Oh and my aunt... Anyway what i was going to see if the need arose, I would go down a few avenues... We have a few neighbors that we're friendly with that have older HS/college age girls I could ask, but I would probably go to one of her daycare teachers first. They know each other already and I'm familiar with them and would have no problem hiring them to watch her in my home.

Another option that I have done with my SIL is trade off... I watch her girls one night and another night she watches mine.

Generally, LO stays with family (mostly my mom, sometimes my dad, on very rare occasions when he's sleeping with my brother). On the few other times I've needed care, I've either hired one of my employees (I run a business that mostly employees high school/college-aged kids with an interest in children), or left him with a family friend who has 3 children older than my LO who he adores. If I didn't have so many options, I'd feel comfortable with a babysitter who was referred to us by a friend or family member.

We haven't used them often, but I found my sitters through moms I work with. In both cases, they were the daughters of teachers I work with. I had them come over while I was home (sort of mother's helper) before leaving them with DS.