Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You shouldn't tell people that you don't have custody. I doubt people will hire you if they know that.

She has custody, just not 100% of the time.

I doubt people would hire you if you had to pass a reading test.

Seriously. OMG.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At $15-$20/he, I expect you to engage with my child-- not your 8yr old son. If I'm paying you, I expect my child's needs come first.

If I have an 8 yr old kid that needs after school care, I expect my kids homework to be completed by the time I get home. I expect that if the homework requires a trip to the craft store, that you'll take care of it. I expect my child to be fed a snack after school.

If you're babysitting and my kid is asleep, I don't care if you do your own stuff.

You say this like Op is going to be standing there deciding which kid to feed. It is quite possible to feed 2 kids, help with 2 assignments and take 2 kids to the store.

That's fine. My point is that if I'm paying, I expect my child's needs to come first. As a parent it might be difficult to constantly put another child ahead of your own kids needs. Obviously not for something life threatening but let's say both boys have a project due and they are in different classes but the same grade. The assignments are not the same. If I'm paying, I expect you to go to the store, gather the materials, and perhaps even get started. I don't expect you to run your own errands (picking up your child's project materials) on my time. Of course if both sets of materials can be purchased at the same store, that's one thing. But going to multiple stores for multiple children (that aren't mine) wouldn't fly with me.

Anonymous wrote:At $15-$20/he, I expect you to engage with my child-- not your 8yr old son. If I'm paying you, I expect my child's needs come first.

If I have an 8 yr old kid that needs after school care, I expect my kids homework to be completed by the time I get home. I expect that if the homework requires a trip to the craft store, that you'll take care of it. I expect my child to be fed a snack after school.

If you're babysitting and my kid is asleep, I don't care if you do your own stuff.

You say this like Op is going to be standing there deciding which kid to feed. It is quite possible to feed 2 kids, help with 2 assignments and take 2 kids to the store.

I think you should advertise on Care.com/Facebook groups.

People are always looking for sitters esp if they have a non-traditional care situation. I knew a daycare teacher who also was a night sitter because the parents worked night shifts. The kids slept at her house. It was a good gig.

At $15-$20/he, I expect you to engage with my child-- not your 8yr old son. If I'm paying you, I expect my child's needs come first.

If I have an 8 yr old kid that needs after school care, I expect my kids homework to be completed by the time I get home. I expect that if the homework requires a trip to the craft store, that you'll take care of it. I expect my child to be fed a snack after school.

If you're babysitting and my kid is asleep, I don't care if you do your own stuff.

Anonymous wrote:You shouldn't tell people that you don't have custody. I doubt people will hire you if they know that.

She didn't say that she doesn't have custody. She said that on some nights she doesn't have (physical) custody, and perhaps she could babysit on those nights. It is very normal in situations with divorced parents for the child to spend some nights with one parent, and some with the other.

Anonymous wrote:You shouldn't tell people that you don't have custody. I doubt people will hire you if they know that.

She has custody, just not 100% of the time.

I doubt people would hire you if you had to pass a reading test.

You shouldn't tell people that you don't have custody. I doubt people will hire you if they know that.

I am a single parent with an older child and I have done this in the past but I stuck to weekend daytime hours only or did Friday evenings close to home and I would bring my child with me.

On weekends, families needed to bring their child to my house and if they needed me for more than 2 hours, they needed to be ok with me taking their child to run errands, etc.

I am in a close in neighborhood in VA and I charged $10 an hour a few years ago and at that time my child was early elementary age. If I did it now, I would charge $12.

I ended up having a a roster of regular families but after a while I just got tired of doing it and stopped.

I'm another single parent. I found arranging after school childcare for my kid to be quite challenging. His school had a afterschool program, but there was a waiting list, and when he did get it was a lot of structure for a kid who needed some down time after school. We're past that age, but when we were in it, I would have been happy to have a babysitter who brought her own child and took both boys to the park for a couple hours, or let them veg out at home. I think my son would have enjoyed the playmate.

I might target the after school market.

What is your custody agreement? How are your qualifications?

I think you could find work if you have joint custody. You could also be a back up care for snow days. You could also offer after care but you need to be competitive. There are tae kwon do, daycares, SACC that all offer care for ~$100 per week and that is for 5 days per week.

If you're interested in getting babysitting jobs I think setting up a care.com account is probably the best way to go, although I think there is an associated fee. As a toddler mom we get all our sitters word of mouth from other families, so once you get one or two clients they may pass on your info to others (assuming you are reliable, etc).

That said, there's no way that I'd be okay with a sitter bringing along their older child for a number of reasons and if you do find families okay with this you should expect to offer a significant discount from the standard 15-20/hr rate. Also, while I'm fine with sitters watching tv/reading/playing on an iPad after our kid goes to bed, I would be somewhat turned off by a sitter bringing a laptop over (with the implied expectation of focusing more on their own priorities than the child) so you might want to consider something more discreet.

Anonymous wrote:Haha OP no one is gonna hire someone who has older kid, wants to do her own stuff and be paid more than $20 lol

I never said I wanted to be paid more than $20. And I said I would expect to do my own stuff only if I was babysitting at night (which I would do alone). That's what our babysitters always did - we would come home to find them reading or surfing FB or whatever.

Haha OP no one is gonna hire someone who has older kid, wants to do her own stuff and be paid more than $20 lol

Another thread on here gave me this idea. I am a single parent and work p/t and could definitely use some extra money to put toward savings, but I also don't have a lot of time on my hands. I figure I could babysit in the evenings on nights I don't have custody of DS, and after the kids I'm babysitting are in bed, I could get on my laptop and take care of personal tasks until the parents come home.

I also thought of babysitting during daytime hours while I'm also watching DS (age 8) after school or on weekends, and just take him along with me (he plays great with toddlers, as well as older kids). But at $15-20/hour, I don't think those gigs would be worth my while if I can't take care of my own stuff at the same time, which I would only get to do while the kids I'm paid to watch are sleeping.

Does this sound like a good idea? If so, how would you go about finding families to babysit for? Get listed on one of those online services? fwiw, I live in DC and wouldn't want to travel outside the city for this.