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Parenting

06th Nov 2022

How much should I be paying my babysitter?

Laura Cunningham

A good babysitter is worth their weight in gold, but what is the going rate these days?

If you’ve managed to find a reliable person with their head screwed on, who you trust to take good care of your child, can we please also have their number?

That aside, how much should we be paying these angels? We asked the HerFamily community how much they fork out for a night out, and here’s what you said.

The overwhelmingly popular response was €10 per hour. Sound about right?

There was a handful of €5 – €8 an hour answers too, complete with explanations about babies being asleep the whole time or the sitters being a relative.

When it comes to how pay is calculated, it’s an even 50/50 split between a straight hourly rate, and an agreed nightly fee.

“I give her €50. If I was paying her by the hour I wouldn’t be able to afford to go out.”

And some of you capped your hourly rate at a maximum amount.

“I give her a tenner an hour, but no more than €50 if that makes sense.”

“It’s about €10 an hour but I usually just round it off and give her €50.”

In my day *takes puff of pipe*, I got a tenner for the whole night, including sleeping over and I was only delighted with myself.

Kids these days, wha’?