How many babysitters do you have?

We had a 14-15 year old who I didn't like. When we had another child and she made some off the cuff comment about not liking working with kids I was more than happy to get rid of her. We started her at $6/hour but ended up paying $8/hour. Completely overpaid considering our daughter would see her and run upstairs to go to bed regardless of the hour. Even at 5pm. Even at 3pm (first nap she'd had in a year).

We got a different one. A much better one. She has 3 years experience working with children with special needs and CPR training. She's 25 and has her own car so we don't have to worry about driving her home when she's done either. We pay her $12/hour to watch two children (second is under 1 years old). Expensive for a night out, but well worth it.

We actually own a sitter/nanny placement service so we have access to hundreds of sitters that we interviewed / background & reference checked. They are all in college and we pay them a set fee depending on how many of our children they are watching. We have three (ages 5, 7, 9) and pay $11/hour if they are watching all of them. In our area, families normally pay $10/hr for 1-2 children, $11/hr for 3-4, and $12/hr for 5-6. The ages of the children do not normally affect the rates.

Over the course of the year we normally use a sitter once or twice a month. If we feel that a sitter went above and beyond with engaging the children we generally tip them really well. And speaking from experience, you will almost always get the great sitters back whenever you want them if you pay them more than they were expecting.

We have also used part-time and full-time nannies; however, you get into household employee taxes with them which skews the hourly rate a little bit.

Look for a sitter/nanny placement agency in your area to see what the local rates are. You can search for an agency at the International Nanny Association website. Links below: