Who typically pays for occasional sitter when family visiting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You expect your relatives to pay for YOUR babysitter? How would you feel if your SIL said, "Your part of the bill will be $92.50." I bet you wouldn't like it, OP.

Your kid, your bill.

Did you even read the freaking thread? No, you didn't. You're really showing your ass.

[Anonymous]

You want people with one baby to spend 10-15 hours away from their baby? If they are out of town, these rates might be high for another part of the country. Just eat at home.

[Anonymous]

Did you plan these dinners and adults outings OP? If you planned them, and they did not, you pay. They are most likely reluctant to leave their 2 month old with a sitter anyway. I wouldn't have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did you plan these dinners and adults outings OP? If you planned them, and they did not, you pay. They are most likely reluctant to leave their 2 month old with a sitter anyway. I wouldn't have.

Jesus. Can NOBODY read? The ILs WANT to go out adults only. The ILs REQUESTED the second sitter when the regular sitter was willing to watch all four kids. The need to pay a second person $15/hour is BECAUSE OF THE ILS CHOICES.

[Anonymous]

Is you sister fully on board with the plan to leave kids with sitters for so much time while you are together? I could see my sister coming up with a plan like this for my visit, and (perhaps unknowingly) pressuring me into it, when it’s never something I would have chosen without the pressure. Dropping $300 (or even $50) on a sitter is a big deal for us, and something we only do a couple times a year whereas for my sister, it’s just part of their normally budgeted childcare expenses. Especially with a two month old, which is easily portable and not even daycare aged, it seems likely that the notion to leave kids with a sitter and go do adult things unimpeded is likely driven by your needs and desires rather than theirs. Unless they suggested dropping the kids for an all day music festival or something, I’d guess that they’ve been trying to be accommodating to your wants for the visit but the $200+ price tag has just pushed them over the line of what they feel they can do.

[Anonymous]

OP here. They'll be here for 8 days. Dinners were our idea but they also want to go out to an activity during the day, so adding that. I can understand that some may think going out for 3 evenings on a one week trip is a lot, but we don't see them regularly and have plans to go out with the kids somewhere for much of the time here as well.
So how were all the outings their idea?! Since kids are all sleeping by 9pm, why not have a nice hanging out at home?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have three kids -3.5, just turned 2 and 5 months. Bil and sil are visiting in a couple weeks with their 2 month old. We plan on going out for a couple dinners, plus one daytime event, without the kids. We have a fantastic occasional care sitter who's been with us for almost two years. Her older sister covers when she's not available, and both have come over several times when we've had friends/family with kids visit while adults went out.
We all agreed it would be better to have both over for the 3 dates we'll be going out, with two infants being a little more work. Every single time we've had family or friends with kids visit previously, they have paid for the extra sitter(sister) when we've gone out. When I mentioned to sil and bil that the rate would be $15/hour and I foresee us needing 15-20 hours of coverage for the 3 dates we'll be going out, they first seemed surprised that we were expecting them to pay, then asked if the sister would accept a lower rate. I refuse to ask the sister that, as the rate is the rate and if she wasn't helping us, she could be covering for another family at her regular hourly rate. This is all through our regular group text btw.

I understand that they're new parents, so this is uncharted territory for them, but am a little annoyed. Should I just suck it up and pay for the difference- they're saying $10/hour would be more reasonable. Yes, from a lower COL area.

By the way, they are staying with us for a week and we told them to send us a grocery list of what they wanted, and plan on covering our outings. Just adding this to say that we're not trying to be cheap hosts or something.

Maybe they don’t want to leave the baby and are putting up this charade to back out of it

[Anonymous]

If I’m hosting, I would expect to be paying for the babysitter. Maybe they’ll pick up the tab for one or two of the dinners out.