Babysitting-Going Rate

[Polotoo]

Hey all

Hoping for a quick response as someone is going to ring me shortly and they are boound to ask how much we want!

A family friend's son is getting married shortly and they do not want any children at the Reception. Therefore my husband and I have been approached and asked to babysit. Potentially for upto 5 children between the ages of 3months-6years (or thereabouts!). We don't have kids and other than being realible adults we have no qualifications for looking after children!!

We've been asked to tell them how much we want-and I have no idea! There may be feeding, burping and nappies involved..... yuck. Also, they may want us to look after the kids during the ceremony so could be a long day (from 1pm ish til 1am ish I guess).

Don't know if to charge more for after midnight/extra for the number of kids/ and for the length of time involved, as going to take up more or less a whole sat!

Any clues, tips, advice etc would be great!

Thanks a lot, Polotoo

[Buenchico]

I'll get the legal bit out of the way first:
It's illegal, under the provisions of the Children Act 1990, to take care of other people's children under 8 years old for periods of over 2 hours unless either (a) they're all in their own home or (b) you're a registered child-minder. Now, I'm not suggesting that Social Services and the police will rush round to arrest you but if I don't point this out I know that someone else will! :-)

Having got that out of the way, I'll try to answer your actual question!

Childminders charge around �130 per week.
Source: http://www.personneltoday.com/Articles/2006/02/08/33817/ Typical+full-time+nursery+care+costs+%C2%A37,400+a+year. htm
So that's �26 per day per child for say, 8 hours. Based upon this, �40 per child for 12 hours would seem reasonable. (Yes, some of that time might be after midnight but, to offset this, there's the advantage that, hopefully, the little darlings will be asleep for much of the time that they're in your care). That means that for 5 kids a fee of �200 would seem to be reasonable.

I offer that figure of �200 as a starting point for you to work around. If it's likely that the children will all arrive dressed in designer clothes and transported in Mummy's Range Rover then I wouldn't have the slightest hesitation in asking for �200 (or, possibly, rather more). If, however, you know that the wedding is being arranged on a shoestring because, say, most family members are struggling on benefits, then you might not want to ask more than �100.

Chris

[DavidUK]

That's a big responsibility Polotoo, particularly if you have no experience of looking after babies and small children. Also, if you are having them at your house, is your house "child safe"? Most of us that have children have things like child-proof catches on cupboards (containing bleach etc.) and stair gates and cooker guards and nothing lying around that might be dangerous (that a toddler could choke on, for example).

I don't mean to scare you but these are all things that you might not have considered as you don't have children of your own.

[Polotoo]

Thanks Chris - wasn't aware of the legalities!

�200-phew! That's more than the day job!! LOL! I was thinking of more like �50-�100, cheers for the facts and figures to back it up. I'll have a chat with the lady concerned and see what she says-the wedding isn't a shoestring event so I might be lucky!

Thanks to you too DavidUK, They won't be at my house, its one of the parent's home so fingers crossed they will be child-safe already, but I'll certainly be more aware of this now.

I know the huge responsibility this is, and at first it was only going to be one child, which was fine. I used to babysit for some little darlin's when I was younger, so hopefully it will be ok. I am apprehensive but my husband will be there too and he's a sensible sort! I'll wait and see how many kids there will be when she rings me!

[lukey121]

is that really true its ilegal to look after someone's children over 2 hours?

[Buenchico]

For Lukey121:
Yes, but I've just discovered a loophole which let's Polotoo off the hook. As well as the exemptions for periods of less than 2 hours per day or for children in their own home, there's another exemption when the child care arrangements apply for fewer than 6 days per year. So, unless Polotoo suddenly decides to start a permanent business, she's got no legal worries!
http://www.childcarelink.gov.uk/pdf/England/English/CCL8 R.pdf

Chris