high school babysitter

kelly422

I know this depends on the area of the country, but for a low cost of living area, how much per hour would you pay a high schooler to watch your 4-month-old?  We'd like to have someone available for a couple hours once in awhile when we want a date night. 

northtamarack

This is one of the main reasons why we don't have a babysitter -  I have no idea what to pay!  I am guessing that the $2 I made in high school is no longer the going rate! :-) 

RachieTK

I live in a NYC suburb and the going rate is $15 for a HS sitter.

LoCarb

Low cost for an infant I would think $8-10/hr

jf198400

We live in a MCOL area and pay a college age sitter $10-12 for 2 kids. For a high schooler with only 1 kid in LCOL I would go $8/hr. At any other PT job they'd probably get minimum wage and taxes taken out, so I think $8 is fair.

jc&cat

we pay $10/hr for my 16 year old neighbor to watch the kids. When I say "watch" i mean we put them to bed and she sits on the couch with the monitor while we go out. Not a bad gig.

court115

I'm also in a MCOL and I pay our occasional babysitter $10/hour. She asked for $9 but I didn't feel like getting change when it came time to pay here so I just rounded it up to an even $10.

BeachBum73

Our babysitter is 14 and only charges $5/hr (we're in the Chicago suburbs).  Our college-age babysitter charges $10/hour.

Leap08

We live in a pretty LCOL area and we pay our high school sitter about $7 an hour for two kids. I asked her when she first started sitting and she said, "Oh whatever you think is reasonable." I think we actually pay her more than other people she sits for. I'd honestly just ask what the sitter expects.

preggersin2011

Both times i've paid for a sitter i paid 10 bucks an hour plus rounded up since it was a saturday night. I've only done a sitter when I couldn't make leaving LO at a friend's house, basically knowing i wouldn't be home to close to midnight. I know when I was in high school I got paid 7/hr which was ten years ago.

litzo27

Add my vote to the $8 per hour for high schooler.

iverske9

7-8 bucks an hour

groovygrl

$8 for a sleeping baby for sure.
We have paid $10 for our neighbor but she is watching 2 four yr olds which is a lot more work than a baby or sleeping baby.

dliz87

I live in NJ. The going rate is $12 an hour, always rounding up.

dizzycooks

I pay our 7th grade friend's kid $5/hour and her parents insist it's too much.  She's always happy with it and DD is usually sleeping half the time she's here.