Who typically pays for occasional sitter when family visiting?
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Anonymous
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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. |
Anonymous
| Well...you have 3 kids and they have 1. Maybe they don't think it's fair that they pay half the babysitting cost when they only have 25% of the kids. Plus, you should cut them some slack because they're new parents. |
Anonymous
| I say just cover the bill; surely they'll reciprocate when you visit them. |
Anonymous
| You have 3x as many kids as they do. $15/hour to watch FOUR kids? One person?! That's a steal, and that person better be stealth. |
Anonymous
2 sitters $30 total per hour. |
Anonymous
OP here. No. We are not having one sitter, but TWO for these dates. We pay our sitter $22/hour for our kids. Her sister asked for $15/hour for care of two month old. |
Anonymous
+1 Just pay for both sitters. |
Anonymous
Yes, I think that they should pay for the sitter. Maybe the dads can stay home with all four kids while you and your sister go out alone if she doesn't want to pay for the babysitting. I do think that four events kid free over a week is a lot. |
Anonymous
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Why should hosting sister have to pay for both sitters? Esp when hosting sister is covering the groceries and the outings?
The rate is 15.00 for the 2 month old's sitter. Option is pay for the sitter or don't go out. It's on sister with 2 month old to decide. |
Anonymous
Can you people read? They're not paying half, they're paying for a sitter for their own kid, who asked for $15/hour. OP pays her own sitter separately. You may have to pay, OP, but I don't think you're being unreasonable. Did you explain that this sitter is specifically for their baby? |
Anonymous
| There are 4 kids. Make you SIL pay 1/4 what the night costs. |
Anonymous
Yes we can read, but OP didn't explain the cost differential in sitters in her first post. So OP is paying $7.33/hr for each of her 3 kids, and the ILs are paying 15$/hr for their 1 infant. I can see why that may not seem fair to them. |
Anonymous
| Unless your sister is coming from NYC or SF, she has no idea that the rate for sitters here is 2x whatever she pays. $10/hour in DC would be a steal. |
Anonymous
OP here, yes, explained that the second sitter would be for their baby. My sitter can perfectly handle our three, and with older two having 8pm bedtime, and baby STTN from 9pm, I even suggested that if they wanted, can have her cover only if needed. I 100% know she could handle it if needed since she has experience with multiples. With one sitter, the hourly rate asked for the 4 would be $28/hour, per my sitter's preference. We would have definitely only asked for $7/hour in that case. They being new parents though, understandably want another set of hands. |
Anonymous
dp: I sort of see thst, but it’s not like either sitter would show up for $7/hr for one kid. |