Is $20 per hour for an evening babysitter in DC typical?

[Anonymous]

We have a 9 month old. New to the area. Everyone that has responded to my ad has poor grammar and spelling.

[Anonymous]

No. Get on your neighborhood listserv and ask for local babysitters. I live in close in Montgomery County and I pay anywhere from $10/hr for highschoolers to $15/hr for adults.

[Anonymous]

We pay $17 in DC proper.

[Anonymous]

That is what we pay. May sound odd but I wouldn't want to pay any less. So many of these women who babysit need every penny of what they are earning. The flipside is that we don't have babysitters very often because of the expense.

[Anonymous]

OP here: Thanks for the replies. Our home daycare provider has offered to babysit at her home in the evenings. She's charging $10 per hour. I am going to go with this option instead. The few babysitters I did talk to had very bad attitudes. They demanded to know the hours and pay right away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here: Thanks for the replies. Our home daycare provider has offered to babysit at her home in the evenings. She's charging $10 per hour. I am going to go with this option instead. The few babysitters I did talk to had very bad attitudes. They demanded to know the hours and pay right away.

so is your kid going to spend the night? Or are you going to wake up a sleeping baby and take him home? It's worth the extra money to gave him at home imo . Keep looking.

[Anonymous]

We pay between $17-20 and here's how I think of it - if we're out for 4 hours, the difference is $12 which really in the scheme of things isn't a lot. We don't do it every week or I guess I could see how it would add up. If you have a quality person you trust, it's worth the extra. If you're getting people with bad attitudes though, that's not a money thing. No amount of $ is worth an obnoxious person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here: Thanks for the replies. Our home daycare provider has offered to babysit at her home in the evenings. She's charging $10 per hour. I am going to go with this option instead. The few babysitters I did talk to had very bad attitudes. They demanded to know the hours and pay right away.

so is your kid going to spend the night? Or are you going to wake up a sleeping baby and take him home? It's worth the extra money to gave him at home imo . Keep looking.

He actually has a late bedtime!

[Anonymous]

A teacher from our private preschool in the district offers $15/hour.

I don't think it's a bad attitude to want to know pay and hours immediately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A teacher from our private preschool in the district offers $15/hour.

I don't think it's a bad attitude to want to know pay and hours immediately.

+1. I think asking the hours and pay is pretty basic. How can you accept a job if you don't know when it is?

We pay $15-20 for babysitting in DC proper. That's standard in DC. We paid on the low-end ($15) when baby was an infant and all the babysitter had to do was come over and literally sit in the house while the baby slept because the sitter came over after baby was down for the night. Now that baby is older, we pay $20 an hour.

I would not be comfortable letting baby go to the babysitter's house. Is the sitter's house babyproofed? Yikes. Also, you don't know who else is coming and going from the other house. At a minimum I would find out if they kept firearms in the house and if any other children would be over there when my child was.

[Anonymous]

Exactly. Consider allergies, who is coming and going from the home. At $10 an hour she must be watching multiple kids to pay her bills. Cheap gets u cheap and issues so good luck.

[Anonymous]

I pay 22 for a ten month old. I required a Red Cross cpr/first aid certificate as well as only responding to older sitters with college degrees. I did not want some silly kid responsible for my kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A teacher from our private preschool in the district offers $15/hour.

I don't think it's a bad attitude to want to know pay and hours immediately.

+1. I think asking the hours and pay is pretty basic. How can you accept a job if you don't know when it is?

We pay $15-20 for babysitting in DC proper. That's standard in DC. We paid on the low-end ($15) when baby was an infant and all the babysitter had to do was come over and literally sit in the house while the baby slept because the sitter came over after baby was down for the night. Now that baby is older, we pay $20 an hour.

I would not be comfortable letting baby go to the babysitter's house. Is the sitter's house babyproofed? Yikes. Also, you don't know who else is coming and going from the other house. At a minimum I would find out if they kept firearms in the house and if any other children would be over there when my child was.

Op here: Asking is fine but it was their tone when asking. It was so unprofessional. Lots of huffing and puffing. I am from the south and not once have I encountered rudeness like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A teacher from our private preschool in the district offers $15/hour.

I don't think it's a bad attitude to want to know pay and hours immediately.

+1. I think asking the hours and pay is pretty basic. How can you accept a job if you don't know when it is?

We pay $15-20 for babysitting in DC proper. That's standard in DC. We paid on the low-end ($15) when baby was an infant and all the babysitter had to do was come over and literally sit in the house while the baby slept because the sitter came over after baby was down for the night. Now that baby is older, we pay $20 an hour.

I would not be comfortable letting baby go to the babysitter's house. Is the sitter's house babyproofed? Yikes. Also, you don't know who else is coming and going from the other house. At a minimum I would find out if they kept firearms in the house and if any other children would be over there when my child was.

Did you not read my post ? This is his daycare provider. She has a home daycare. She also has children of her own who will be at home while she's babysitting. Her rate is $10 per hour which I think is reasonable considering I am bringing him to her and she is also going to be caring for her 2 year old at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here: Thanks for the replies. Our home daycare provider has offered to babysit at her home in the evenings. She's charging $10 per hour. I am going to go with this option instead. The few babysitters I did talk to had very bad attitudes. They demanded to know the hours and pay right away.

Well it is kind of an important part of the equation. If you need a sitter at 6 and I'm not available until 7 and you want to pay $10 an hour and I require $15 then why spend an hour talking? Am I missing something here?