How do you keep sitters from flaking?

[Anonymous]

It’s the money. Offer more. And it does take awhile to build a reliable Rolodex of sitters. I’d rely more on word of mouth (does he go to preschool? I’d ask parents or teachers there) than random people on sites like Care.

[Anonymous]

I pay $20 and tip heavily for one 8 yo so it probably ends up more like $24/hour after tip and I've only had one sitter cancel ever and she has COVID. I think the problem is they don't know you and there are no consequences. I would suggest working harder to network and get referrals.

[Anonymous]

Pay the neighbor's sitter to watch all the kids together.

[Anonymous]

Trade care hours with neighbors

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s the money. Offer more. And it does take awhile to build a reliable Rolodex of sitters. I’d rely more on word of mouth (does he go to preschool? I’d ask parents or teachers there) than random people on sites like Care.

If the money was too low, they would decline upfront. That’s not what’s making them accept and then flake.

[Anonymous]

Find a teen whose parents don’t allow flaking. Don’t hire the daughter of people who don’t rsvp timely for parties or who rsvp yes and then don’t show up. You want people who do what they say they will do, even if something better comes up.

[Anonymous]

It’s not so much the $20 as it is the total amount the sitter will go home with after the trouble of driving, gas, etc. How many hours are you hiring the sitter for? 3 hours? That is why $20 doesn’t work. Tell the sitter you will be gone for 3-4 hours and they will get $25/h with a minimum of $100 even if you come back early. Then they will show up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s NOT the money. Don’t go on care.com or whatever. Good sitters don’t need to advertise. You need to find someone through word of mouth. Look for a local teenager. Adults are flakier for jobs without a regular schedule, stick to teens in your immediate neighborhood. $20 is absolutely fine. My teens are happy to make that in Nova. The DC posters are crazy.

For adults who have to provide for themselves its very much about the money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Offer $25.

+1 This is the obvious answer OP. Everytime I hear people complaining they can't find decent childcare, they're paying less than the market rate for their neighborhood. The fact that you have only 1 kid and your neighbor has 3 is somewhat irrelevant. People need their paycheck.

Even though she needs care for 3 kids and I need care for one?

Yes - you are paying for their time, not for how hard the work is.

[Anonymous]

I pay $30

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not so much the $20 as it is the total amount the sitter will go home with after the trouble of driving, gas, etc. How many hours are you hiring the sitter for? 3 hours? That is why $20 doesn’t work. Tell the sitter you will be gone for 3-4 hours and they will get $25/h with a minimum of $100 even if you come back early. Then they will show up.

This….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s NOT the money. Don’t go on care.com or whatever. Good sitters don’t need to advertise. You need to find someone through word of mouth. Look for a local teenager. Adults are flakier for jobs without a regular schedule, stick to teens in your immediate neighborhood. $20 is absolutely fine. My teens are happy to make that in Nova. The DC posters are crazy.

For adults who have to provide for themselves its very much about the money.

Then they should not accept the job in the first place. That’s not what this is about. It’s about people who accept and then flake.

[Anonymous]

If you are OK with a teen, post on your neighborhood board or ask around. My own 15yo DD really wants to babysit but competition is fierce in our neighborhood it seems and most already have sitters in place. A lot of the families seem to prefer adults to sit- but for preschool age plus a teen should be fine.

[Anonymous]

It isn’t the price, not really. $20/hr for one child is plenty and you’ve lost your mind if you think otherwise. The problem is that adult women don’t really want to babysit and don’t really need to. If they needed money, they’d have an actual part time or fulll time job, not random babysitting gigs.

You need to find a teen, somewhere between 14-16 if the best. They are unlikely to have another job and jobs they can actually get are scarce and don’t pay nearly as well. Most younger teens would be happy with $15/hr for one child. $20 is very generous. Post a request on your neighborhood Fb looking for high school girls available to babysit.

[Anonymous]

I agree that you need to find people you already know or at least have one degree of separation with.

I have never had a sitter flake. I pay $15-20/hr for 3 kids in a medium COLA. The $20/hr would be for their preschool teacher. The $15/hr is for neighborhood teens - we have three teen girls on our street who like to babysit. I agree that you are paying enough.

We have had a similar issue of prospective nannies flaking (and in that case we were offering a LOT more than the prevailing local wage), but they were all random internet strangers from Care.com. They would either flake before the interview or before the scheduled first day. Most of our friends had similar experiences and ended up at daycare, except for one whose friends were moving and already had a great nanny.