Going rate for teenage babysitter in the suburbs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Vienna - evidently the girls at Madison High School earn anywhere from $8-$12/hour.

Wow, since we pay $15 to our Madison High babysitter, no wonder she's always free for us!

[Anonymous]

im a baby sitter how much should i charge

[Anonymous]

Bethesda and we pay $12 for younger teens 14-15 and $15 for 16 -18yo. We have 3 kids though.

[Anonymous]

We pay $15/hour for college age sitters (they set the rates) in upper MoCo. These are also the same people who work at DC's after school/summer camp program so we know they have experience with kids plus DC loves spending time with them. Rates vary so much. When I was in HS back in the '80s in a smaller town I made anywhere from $5-12/hour baby sitting kids. I just let people pay me whatever they wanted. They all paid me well and some really over paid me, I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We pay our sitter $10 an hour to come over while our son is sleeping already (weekend nights). If he's awake, $15 an hour.

Is this common? To pay a different rate when kids are sleeping versus awake? Just curious because we have yet to have a babysitter and just want to know what people do now days.

This is not common in the 2 Alexandria neighborhoods that we have lived with kids. We paid $10 for 1 and now pay $15 for 2. We use high school girls from a private school where we know the families. I don't think paying a different rate if the kids are asleep is right. I understand it's less work when they are asleep, but it's their time to be there whether or not the kids are asleep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:we have a couple girls we've used from our neighborhood - I recently reluctantly paid $10/hour. I think that is the going rate in my hood. Highway robbery IMHO.

What rate do you think is reasonable to keep your children safe and happy?

[Anonymous]

DD is 13 and relatively new at babysitting - she makes 5-6$/hour for one kid.

[Anonymous]

My oldest 3 DDs (14, 13, 11), all American Red Cross certified, work in pairs, and let parents pay what they find appropriate. They get anywhere from $5-$10/hr, depending on the family's ability to pay. They count as one babysitter, not two. I am more comfortable with this arrangement.

We are by Manassas, and they work within our homeschooling community, so most families are not of significant means. Neither are we, but we paid $10/hr before our oldest was old enough to babysit, and used babysitters very rarely. We wanted the babysitter to want to babysit for us

[Anonymous]

We paid our 15 year old sitter $12 a hour this past Saturday night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vienna - evidently the girls at Madison High School earn anywhere from $8-$12/hour.

Wow, since we pay $15 to our Madison High babysitter, no wonder she's always free for us!

We have a Madison High sophomore who sits regularly for us, and we paid $12 an hour recently.