How much should I charge? advice needed!

homoelmb

I am thinking of watching my best friends baby when he/she is 4 months old. My twins will be 18 months and she would bring her baby here. I would be watching the baby 4 days a week for 8 hours. Thank you so much for your advice!

beckslea

I would call a couple of local daycare centers and see what they would charge. Then maybe charge 50% of that (or maybe a little more, depending on what you think is fair).

somebirdseatseeds

My friend watched my LO from about 4 months - 6 months.  She had a little boy that was about 4 or 5 months older than DD. We paid her $100 a week. Daycares ranged anywhere from $145 per week to $200 per week. We both agreed on $100.

I know you didn?t ask this, but, I wanted to let others know to keep from making the same mistakes. Ours was supposed to be a long term thing but she ended up backing out of it because she got tired of watching DD. We weren?t on any waiting lists or anything when she told us she wouldn?t be watching DD anymore. It was big drama and I cried a lot thinking I was going to have to put DD in some low quality daycare. If we would have known she was going to back out, we would have had LO on a ton of waiting lists to avoid all of the upset. So, if it is going to be a long term thing, tell her just in case something happens, to get on a few waiting lists of daycares that she likes. We were blessed and able to find a really good one a few days after she told us that she wasn?t going to watch LO anymore that had an immediate opening, thank goodness!

jolynn326

Our friend watches DD ~30 hours a week, and we pay her $75 a week. She offered out of the kindness of her heart so she had no opinion on what we paid her.

We live in Denver, and in our part of town, daycare centers for infants are about $300 a week, and in-home childcare is about $150-200/week. If our friend hadn't offered, we'd be with an in-home place, so we offered half and she accepted.

Lovee+2

I watch my friend's DS 3 days a week for 8 hours (he is 5months) she pays me by the day. Some weeks it is 2 days others it is 3 days. She pays $40 a day.