Finding a babysitter, I'm losing it

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Forum -> Working Women

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amother

Sun, May 05 2024, 9:24 pm

I cannot even keep count any more of how many babysitters have turned me down because of the hours I need. I work in a hospital setting and work 3 days a week of 12 hour shifts each of those days. But my DH can do drop-off and pick up at 8:30 and 5:30. No babysitter wants to take me on for only 3 days a week. I don't want to send more than the days I work because I want to be home with my baby. And their math doesn't even make sense. For example, one told me I need to send 4 days a week for 6 hours minimum each day. That's 24 hours a week. But if send from 8:30-5:30 for 3 days a week that comes out to 27 hours a week. So why is that a problem? Can someone clue me in to why babysitters have these day requirements? And what I'm supposed to do if I can't find a sitter?

amother

Latte

Sun, May 05 2024, 9:27 pm

My friend with that schedule got an au pair.

amother

Midnight

Sun, May 05 2024, 9:31 pm

Where are you located and what age is your baby? Maybe I’d consider it

amother

Sun, May 05 2024, 9:41 pm

Thanks for both your responses. I don’t want someone living in my home and I don’t have the budget for a private sitter.

amother

Lime

Sun, May 05 2024, 9:52 pm

Can you pay for the four days but only send for three ? Besides , isn’t it possible you might sometimes want a couple of hours on your day off for an appointment or whatever ?? Might be worth it !

amother

Steelblue

Sun, May 05 2024, 10:00 pm

I used to babysit fulltime hours
In order to balance not taking too many children vs being able to make a living wage and also keeping my returning client happy, I needed to not accept just 3 day a week babies.
I would make a detailed calculation of how many ft slots I had, or pt. Depending on my own children's schedule.
But I also counted on filling up every hour with paying kids

Possibly if you were to send 4 days a week 6 hours, she would find another baby to send the other 3 hours and she can make the full amount for each day

The best recommendation I can give is to see if you can find someone who wants to send just 1 full day, the day that you are not sending.

amother

Jean

Sun, May 05 2024, 10:07 pm

So even though 24 hours is the same whether you send for 8 hours 3x a week or 6 hours 3x a week they are reserving a slot for your baby so the day you don’t send she has an empty slot (unless there’s someone who only wants to send 1 day a week) and the other days she’s stuck working an extra 2 hours just for your baby.
But I definitely hear the frustrating situation. Where k live a lot of people hire a (nonjewish) nanny that they share with another baby or two so it comes out to the same price as a Jewish babysitter, your baby gets a nice amount of attention with only 2-3 kids in the group, and you can have the other person host. Would that work for you? We also work it out that we either both have the same schedule or if the babysitter let’s say is willing to work for $16 an hour for 2 babies and $24 for 3 so as long as two people are sending for any given hour the third one can kind of come and go at their own schedule. You would need to just pay the full price $16 for the extra hour or two that no one else is sending but that might be worth it for you.

mha3484

Sun, May 05 2024, 10:08 pm

I would look for a nanny share if it was me.

amother

DarkYellow

Sun, May 05 2024, 10:22 pm

You need to look at it from the perspective of the babysitter. I can think of lots of reasons why your schedule wouldn’t work for them.

Like someone else said, you can pay for the day you’re not using and just not send that day. I have done that. It’s a very normal thing to do.