Why no responses from my post??

[Anonymous]

I posted the following question and thought I would get a ton of quick answers but only recieved one. What am I doing wrong becasue I know there are tons of parents looking at this forum everyday that use babysitters? Perhaps I'm not asking the questions correctly or need to provide more info? If you are reading this I would love to know your thoughts on either my actual question or why I'm not getting responses.

Original question:
"What are parents paying babysitters these days? Hourly? This would be for high school/college student watching 1 infant. How much more if you add a 2-year old?"

Let's try it with more info:
I am a mother of two children, one that is 2 months-old. I am on maternity leave for 4 months and seeking a babysitter to come to the house for 1-2 days a week so that I can get some things done around the house, make doctor appoinments (daughter has some health issues), run some errands, etc. I found a great person who is in college part time and has expereince with children. I really like her and want to hire her but have no idea what a reasonable compensation is and she is leaving it up to me. In the past I've paid babysitters $10-$12 per hour. What do other parents pay their babysitters and is it different for an infant versus a 2-year old?

Thanks for responding!!

[Anonymous]

I have no idea why noone responded. I didn't see it.

...but $10-$12 sounds about right to me.

[Anonymous]

Around here, you sort of need to expect to pay $15/hour for two kids, no matter what the age. It is ridiculous but what can you do...

[Anonymous]

I think no one responded because the range of pay for babysitters is all over the place. I pay our college student babysitter $12/hr - but she's looking after one child. And this is on an occasional basis - when my husband and I go out.

[Anonymous]

I have two teenage babysitters in our neighborhood. One is 16 and gets $8 an hour and one is 14 and gets $7 an hour. We have one child. I like them both and I feel comfortable leaving our (older) DC with them for occassional, weekend outings because I babysat when I was a teenager myself and it was not unusual then. That said, once I came home and my DC was in bed asleep in her clothes, and once the babysitter had kindly emptied our dishwasher, putting all the dirty dishes into the cupboard.

[Anonymous]

We have two under 3 years, and we pay $15/hr for an experienced sitter (in her 20s, works at a daycare by day)

I think we paid $10 or $12 when we just had one child.

[Anonymous]

OP, you should also tell us where in the metro area you live; my observation is that the going amount varies greatly, with the highest wages typically being paid in town and very close to town.

I have an acquaintance in Germantown who pays 60% of what we do for an hourly sitter ($9 vs. $15) for the same number of children.

[Anonymous]

I live in Arlington, with two small kids under 5 and I pay my HS babysitter $10/hr. It's obscene to pay more - sorry just one person's opinion.

BTW, I don't recall seeing your original post.

[Anonymous]

I'm in Chevy Chase and pay $10/hour for a substitute teacher at my 4-year-old's preschool. When I've had her take care of my 10-year-old nephew and 8-year-old niece as well, she charged $15 instead.

[Anonymous]

OP - did you post your question in the appropriate forum?

[Anonymous]

Plus, this stuff seems to come up every other week so maybe people just get tired of posting...

I always do a search before posting - it saves me the trouble and I don't irritate the snarky folks.

[Anonymous]

We live in the Waynewood neighborhood of Alexandria and pay a high schooler $10/hr for 1 2.5 yo.

Another reason why you may not have gotten responses is that this question had been answered many times and some people assume you could look in the archives. I believe this question was asked not too long ago and received many response, so a quick check of the archives might yield some good answers.

[Anonymous]

We pay $15 per hour for an AU student to watch our 1 year old.

[Anonymous]

$10 for one child $12 for 2.

[Anonymous]

We live in Rockville and pay $15 p/h for our experienced sitter to watch out 1 year old.