Community› The Bump Message Boards› Stay at Home Moms
Stay at Home Moms
New Discussion

Baby-sitting Co-op

celinamurphycelinamurphy
in Stay at Home Moms

My girlfriends and I are thinking about starting a baby-stting co-op. Sharing baby-sitting time between a group of 10 Moms. I trust them all, our kids have been friends since 4 months old and they are all over 3 now. Anyone ever do this? Any tips or guidelines I should think of? The Moms asked me to set up a calendar and site to get us started. 

I thought Id run it by you girls first. I thought we would start simple with a few guidelines - whoever needs the sitting you have to go to their house. If its at night it has to be between the hours of 5-9pm unless you are able to come without the kids. Im working out the kinks and I thought you ladies might have some good ideas. 

Celina 

Report Reply to Post

Re: Baby-sitting Co-op

  • ayramayram member

    A friend of mine had a large co-op with a church group using tokens.  Everyone was given x number of tokens to start with.  Each token represented one hour of childcare for one child.  Everyone filled out a rough schedule of when they were able to babysit.  When you need a sitter, you'd call someone, drop your kids at their place, and give tokens accordingly (ie. 2 kids for 2 hour = 4 tokens, 3 kids for 1 hour = 3 tokens.) 

    It seemed like it would work well, especially if everyone had close to the same number of kids...it would be "expensive" for me because I have 4 little ones that I'd need to have watched. Hope this helps!

    Mom to 4 boys under age 6 Evan, Darren, Liam & Isaac
    Report Reply
  • Loading the player...
  • Stacyc625Stacyc625 member

    google 'time bank' you can get a lot of ideas on how to set up/track the logistics.

    I have set up a time bank for my community and a lot of partake in babysitting sharing. 

    Lilypie Fifth Birthday tickers Lilypie Third Birthday tickers
    Report Reply
  • littlemermaidlittlemermaid member
    It should be common sense but I would put something about canceling if either the sitter's kids or the children being watched are sick ex..fever within last 24 hours, vomiting, diarrhea..etc
    Report Reply
  • celinamurphycelinamurphy

    Wow thanks for the great feedback! Keep it coming please. I am going to def check out Time Bank. Its good to know it has succeeded in other groups. 

     

    Report Reply
  • hellopoppyseedhellopoppyseed
    Growing up, my mom was in a babysitting co-op with a bunch of the neighbors. They had cards just like business cards that were printed on and were worth 1 hour of babysitting. I think everyone started out with a certain number to exchange. Theirs was very successful. Sometimes they exchanged other stuff like baked goods or whatever. Sometimes they had meetings or get togethers with like CPR training or whatever.
    Warning No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
    Report Reply
  • atcampbellatcampbell
    Check out SplitStuff (https://splitstuff.com).  It's a new online tool made exactly for what you're looking for.  Not only can you organize childcare and clearly lay out the rules for everyone (which is where a lot of co-ops fail), but you can get together and organize group deals for music lessons, or "split" bulk deals on diapers, etc.  The CPR class is a great idea, too!

    I was in several unsuccessful co-ops when my children were little.  The biggest problem was clear communication.  Wish SplitStuff had been around then!  Now that my kids are older, I don't need childcare, but I still use it to shop smart and spend less time in grocery stores.

    Annette
    Report Reply
This discussion has been closed.
Choose Another Board
Search Boards
"
"