What Do You Pay for Babysitting?

My inhome daycare lady was paid a flat rate weekly regardless if she or I was on vacation. Child care providers desearve some perks too.

we pay a flat rate for 8-5 M-F every week for our nanny. The only time she would got get full pay is if she calls sick or takes vacation. If my daughter has a dr appt or i stay home with her or whatever, we still pay the nanny (why should she get shorted because of something that I am doing) and i would NEVER ask her to make up that time. We pay her an hourly rate for anything after 5PM or anything on the weekends (which is extremely rare). I would not make up hours at my job if the company closed one day...this is her job and should be treated as such.

I share my nanny and I pay for her 3 days a week, one of them a floating day on the weekend. If I take vacation, I still pay her, although since she's willing to clean, I'll often have her come and do those things I can never get to, like cleaning the cabinets. It's also good to have someone just come and water the plants, bring in the mail, make sure everything's OK. She's never been sick in 3 years, but once she needed a surgery, and we gave her 2 paid weeks since we get paid sick leave at our jobs. She doesn't take vacations, so we always give her 2 weeks extra pay as a bonus before the holidays. I would never make her "make up" a day I cancelled. If she cancelled, I would expect her to make it up, but she's never done that. Most reliable nanny in the world.

My sitter works three hours each morning, Monday through Friday. I pay $100 per week in cash. I pay every Friday. If I know in advance that I don't need my sitter one day he's usually great about switching hours to make up the hours at another time for me. On the one or two occasions that he knew in advance that he couldn't make it one day, I would return the favor and switch his hours for him that week. So basically each and every week he works 15 hours for $100. When someone in our family is sick and I have to cancel him at the last minute I still pay him the usual weekly amount and on those weeks he just works fewer hours. He counts on the steady income and it isn't his choice when I have to cancel him at the last minute. He doesn't get vacation or sick benefits like you do at a "normal" job, so this is the least I can do to make it fair for him.

We just started with a nanny. I think $10-12 per hour is a reasonable rate for 2 small kids, but it does depend where you live. Our agreement is she gets paid when she works. If she can't work or I don't need her, I don't pay her, but she is allowed to take time whenever she needs it. She's great about giving me enough notice to find a replacement. I pay her weekly for whatever hours she's worked that week.

If you are hiring someone full time you would pay them a weekly rate. If their full time you usually set up an agreement of how many hours and how many days a week you will need them. As far as pay I would say it would start at $12.00 and then go from there. This person should get paid the same amt every week. If you decide to let her leave early or you take a day off for one reason or another she would still be paid the full amt. Any time you take off she should still be paid as she to depends on a certain income and it's not fair to her to loose money. However if she takes a day off she would not be paid unless of course she gets sick or vac days. That's how daycare/nannies work. I was in the business for 17 yrs.

If I read this right, then you pay her even if she didn't work? Do you have some kind of contract with her/did she provide other people who could take over if she is out? I would think if it's a casual thing then you shouldn't even be paying her for time off but if you have some sort of document (for your taxes or whatever) then that should be included. It's nice to have sick days if you treat this as a regular job,however if she's a drop in and doesn't have vacation time or sick time established then I think you are being nice in giving her money up front. It's all about what you agreed upon. And as they told us in contracts class, always have a signature if that's how you are doing it.

Wow, lots of nannies out there not getting sick days and vacay! Like every job, I think they should get a few perks. We do a nanny share. She gets $15 an hour for 2 kids. She also gets 3 sick days and 2 weeks paid vacay. EVERYBODY needs a vacation--imagine dealing with two toddlers 50hrs. a week:) She also gets all major holidays off--I think about 6 days. If we don't need her on her regular day she still gets paid. She also does not make up hours missed. (If you could not come into work for some reason, would you want your boss making you come in on you day off? That's not really fair.)

With our nanny it works like this: if I cancel her day, I pay her. She was willing to work and it's not her fault if one of my kids is sick or I'm going out of town. However, we have cats, so typically if we're out of town, I still pay her but have her come over and feed the cats, water the plants, and bring in the mail. No I don't make her make up the work if I cancel her day either.

If she cancels, that's a different story. We don't have an agreement where I pay sick days...and I have to find alternate care if she cancels. So no I don't pay if she calls in sick or wants a day off.

For the record, I used to nanny share with another mom...I adored our nanny. She was with me for 2 days, with the other mom for 2 days, then we did 1 day together with both of our kids. I had the policy that I paid for days that I cancelled (like I explained above)...the other mom felt that the nanny should make up the time by babysitting on the weekend or other time if her day was cancelled (regardless of who cancelled). The nanny was frankly pretty insulted by the other mom's policy and when she moved back to Poland, she worked the whole last week with just me, and also brought me a lovely new nanny if I promised not to share her with that other mom! Just a perspective from the nanny side of things. :)