I guess this isn't really a working moms question but I know we have some moms of three plus on this board so I thought I'd ask here.
If you have more than two children, do you find it hard to find a babysitter? My sister frequently watches our children but I've been trying to find non-related people who I could also use. We found a great college student but her availability is limited. So, recently I asked a good friend of mine to babysit and he didn't hestitate to say yes but then later he told me that numerous people were shocked that he was willing to watch ALL THREE of our kids.
With this in mind, I'm wondering how hard is it going to be to find people to watch four kids? And, how much will I be expected to pay them? We paid the college student I think $12 an hour.
Kelly, Mom to Christopher Shannon 9.27.06, Catherine Quinn 2.24.09, Trey Barton lost on 12.28.09, Therese Barton lost on 6.10.10, Joseph Sullivan 7.23.11, and our latest, Victoria Maren 11.15.12
Secondary infertility success with IVF, then two losses, one at 14 weeks and one at 10 weeks, then success with IUI and then just pure, crazy luck. Expecting our fifth in May as the result of a FET.
Re: Babysitters and # of children
I don't think it's the number of kids as much as their ages.
I would expect any competent babysitter to be able to handle your current kids. When you add a newborn, you might not want to leave one person with all 4 at first. When I was a babysitter and had to watch 3 kids and a baby, parents often asked me to bring a friend.
Even for just my 2, when the baby was non-sturdy and needing to be held all the time, I sometimes used teenaged siblings together.
And I would pay a little bit more than that, but maybe that's my area.
My friends use a woman and she charges $12 for 3 - ages 1, 3 & 4...
the norm in my area is $10-15 for babysitters...but with 4 (and one being an infant, I would expect to pay a little more)
Our babysitters work at the kids' daycare so they are used to watching more than 2 kids at a time. I would expect it would be much harder if I didn't have them and I'd probably go directly to care.com or sittercity and just look for someone willing to watch 3 kids. It's actually easier to get our sitters to watch the 3 kids (we have 1 regular sitter plus 2 that can do weekends) then our parents - who are quite overwhelmed by the 3 kids. If they are watching the kids and they are going to be awake much of the time, we pay $15/hour. If they are going to be sleeping most of the time, or if it's just 1 or 2 of the kids we pay $12/hour.
This- the price is why we have my mom babysit whenever possible (and we generally go out after 8pm, so all she really has to do is be there). Unless someone knows are family (and knows our kids) I wouldn't think anyone would take on 5 kids under 7! I've had friends watch my kids a few times (we swap time rather than paying each other) but again, they know me and my kids, and have no problems caring for them.
DS babysits, but if we are going to be out for longer and we're going into the city, we have my neice come over to help. There are tons of large families in our area (there is a family with 6 kids on our block, another with 5 and quite a few with 3), so there are lots of babysitters that are experienced with big families. Normal wage for sitters here is $9/hr, but if it's one sitter on their own (other than DS), we pay $12-15, that's what the high schoolers are charging the other families around us with 3+ kids.
So, no, not hard to find a good sitter here for lots of kids, but based off the last stats on our community, we live in a bubble of large families, and the majority of our population is under 30.