Saturday night sitter

[Anonymous]

It is the weekly commitment that is stopping people.

You want the best and most relaxing day of the week, but you might do better finding an activity/drop-off place that will take both kids for 2-3 hours another day and using that time with your husband. Bonus is you would have an empty house as an option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s because you’re offering a flat rate. With that, nothing would stop you from refining at 4am.

That makes sense, so $50-$100 an hour may yield more results? I doubt we would ever be out until 10. The activity wraps at 8:30 and is 20 min away. That’s why I was offering a flat (longer) rate.

[Anonymous]

There aren’t any high school girls in your neighborhood? Find a nerdy one - they’re always happy to work on a Saturday night.

[Anonymous]

I’d commit for $200 every Saturday, if interested, my email:
[e-mail] I have great references.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There aren’t any high school girls in your neighborhood? Find a nerdy one - they’re always happy to work on a Saturday night.

Not for $150 for the whole night. Even nerds have Saturday night activities free.

[Anonymous]

OP you need a bench of sitters not just one. Get 4-5 people and rotate. No one wants EVERY Saturday night. Even if you find someone they’ll likely quit after a few weeks.

[Anonymous]

Get two kids who will do every other week

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am looking for a consistent Saturday night sitter with the hours 5-10. We have two kids aged 4 and 6. Both can dress themselves and go to bed easily at 7:30. After that, the sitter can watch tv, be on the phone, or whatever.

We have placed ads in our neighborhood listserv and Facebook page and aren’t getting bites. We advertised it as $150/ per Saturday night but we’d like someone to commit to be there weekly. There may be a Saturday here and there we don’t need them and we said we would pay regardless since we are wanting them to hold the date.

We got one person with interest but they never returned my text.

What’s the deal? Too low of a rate? No one wants just Saturday’s? We live in NoVA if that matters.

You actually believe that you can get someone to guarantee you that they will be available every Saturday night for $150.00! Try $500 week, guaranteed, and you will find someone.

As noted up thread, Saturday night dates do not cure marital problems.

[Anonymous]

Find a way to make it a week night instead of a weekend. I bet you can easily find someone willing to commit to "every Tuesday night"--but no one will want to commit to every Saturday night.

[Anonymous]

I'm a nanny and do a regular sunday night for a family. I don't think i'd commit to every Saturday unless the pay was extraordinary. it means I can never get out of town for the weekend, accept a more lucrative weekend job, etc. See if you have more luck w/ a different day of the week or finding 2-3 people.

[Anonymous]

OP, the best you can do is collect a group of sitters so that you have backups. But $150 won't do it.

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone for the advice. It looks like upping the price to $400 a night base for once a month with a rotation of 4 or more people may work. I’ll repost tomorrow morning on our listserv.

I was hoping for consistency for the kids but they probably wouldn’t even care. Not sure why I made it harder on myself. Hopefully that price point draws people in!

[Anonymous]

Nobody wants to commit to every single weekend

[Anonymous]

I don’t think you need to go up to $400 a night for once a month! But yes, having a handful of people will be much much easier than finding someone to set aside every Saturday night. I was the dorky HS girl who never had weekend plans and used to babysit regularly on Friday nights, but I started to scale back when I turned 16 and could drive! Switched to every other Friday!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get two kids who will do every other week

I would try for this. Good babysitters have lives. And a third person for back up since people will have conflicts. I would not believe anyone who said they were going to commit to every Saturday night indefinitely- that’s by far the most important night for travel and socializing.