What are you paying for childcare?

[Rikkele]

I have searched the archives and haven't seen any discussion of $$ but admit I don't always get great results with searches. Just wondering what you are paying for daytime childcare. I have friends who pay $10/hr for evening babysitters but they have 3 kids. Is this the going rate? Is daytime care the same? If so, how does anyone afford to work!! I am going to have my neighbor watch my 6mo DD for about 4-6 hrs one day a week. She has not asked to be paid but I want to pay her a fair rate. So I am specifically interested in what those of you who work part time are paying. Do you pay hourly, daily or weekly rate? Thanks so much for any input :)

[missym]

When our neighbor watched Gwen part-time during the week, we paid her $2/hr. Now, she goes to a licensed in-home provider whom we pay $3/hr (for part-time; the hourly rate is less for full-time). We also have to pay for the sitter's vacation and holidays.

Missy, mom to Gwen 03/03

http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_emerald_18m.gif
20 months and counting!

[cleo27]

Not sure if this helps since I actually went with a daycare center, since I am currently working full-time, but one of my neighbors stated that if I ever went to work part-time, she would watch Lindsay for $40/day, which would end up to be $5/hour or so.

Hope this helps. As far as cost of living, we are in Maryland.

Good luck,

Cleo
Proud Mama to Lindsay, 6/2/04

[C99]

I don't use daytime childcare because I can do my work mostly at night and on the weekends. And also, my husband works from home so I can switch off care with him if I need to have a daytime conference call, etc.

But I have looked into childcare options many times. For awhile, my best friend was watching Nate at her house on a part-time basis. We paid $5/hour. For a nanny who comes to my house, I'd expect to pay $10-12/hour, whether that is full-time or part-time. For an in-home daycare where I drop Nate off at her house, I would expect to pay $210/week for full-time, $6-8/hr for part-time. There don't seem to be many options for part-time center daycare, so I would expect to pay about $200/week for a center, whether I used it full-time or not. I am mostly too chicken and too unsure of what my schedule is like from week to week to set up any kind of childcare arrangement.

[jbowman]

We use a combination of Parent's Day Out at a local church (2 days/week, approx 9 am-2:30 pm, $125 per month) and a nanny (right now 2 days a week, for 2 1/2 hours each day). We pay our nanny $9/hour (we started paying her $8.50 an hour last January and gave her a raise in August). We pay her the same rate at night--our rationale: we want to keep our nanny--she's the best! We also have a back-up and pay her the same rate. HTH!

FWIW, we live in a medium-sized city in Texas.

[steph2003]

It is a weird thing - the going rate for night time babysitters seemed to be $10-12 range for college kids/adults based on a post about babysitters last week. I personally pay my neighbor girl who is 13 $5/hour to come over after Griffin is already in bed. Basically she sits there & watches TV/listens for him in the monitor. I'm perfectly comfortable with this, many parents might not be. But I just couldn't afford to ever go out if I had to pay $10/hr.

Now here is the weird thing - DS's daycare breaks down to $5/hour if you break down a 40 hour work week. So that is peanuts compared to the $10/hour night time sitters get paid. Ironic since during the day they are playing with him, feeding him, changing his diapers.

In my area $200/week is about the going rate for infant care in a 4 or 5 star center (state of NC uses a star rating system in addition to the basic licensing requirements)

ETA - for nannies the going rate in my area is $10/12 an hour.

[jk3]

Teenagers in our area get $10. Nannies charge $12-15. Full time nannies range from $450-750 a week. Daycares fetch between $1000-1850 a month for 40 hours/week.

Jenn
DS 6/03

http://lilypie.com/baby2/030603/2/5/1/-5/.png

[jec2]

We pay $120 per for 14 hours a week in an in-home private daycare. This works out to be $8.57 hour. You might also consider doing a swap with her so that she then has a few hours a week to get out and about alone. She might appreciate that.

[marinkitty]

We are in Chicago. When I was working and we had a nanny 40 hours a week she was paid $10/hour. Our new sitter, who sits during the day two days a week, gets $12/hour. I probably could have paid her $10 until the baby comes, but figured I'd start her at $12 but not give a raise when the baby comes - she works for two other families now, each with two kids and gets $12 an hour from them, so I wanted to be paying her the same to make sure she stayed.

We pay $10 to $12 at night as well, depending on the sitter.

In my experience, for a college or adult sitter around here $10 is the minimum. I have friends in the suburbs who pay high schoolers $8 an hour (day or night).

Holly
Mom to Mia (3.17.03)
Another March baby EDD (3.22.05)

http://lilypie.com/days/050322/0/0/1/-6/.png

[StaceyKim]

$12/hr for a nanny/babysitter with experience.

[LucyG]

DD goes to a small home-daycare for four hours each weekday morning. We pay $15 per day. If she stayed all day, it would be $20 per day. The rates will go down a little when she turns two. We provide diapers and wipes, and the sitter provides food. We do not have to pay on days that DD does not attend (for illness, holiday, whatever). With the sitter we used last year, we had two "free" weeks per year to use. Otherwise, we did pay on days that DD missed. I am a teacher, and we do not have to pay our sitter in the summer when DD is home with me full-time. About half of the home-daycares in our area (mostly the larger ones) require some payment over the summer to hold slots for teachers' children. We love our sitter, so I would be more than happy to pay over the summer if she requested this.

http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_emerald_18m.gif[/img][/url]
21 months and counting!

[babymama]

I pay $562/month for fulltime childcare (M-F) at my first choice for childcare. That is cheap in Austin (my second choice costs $750/month). The rates for the infants room are higher bc babies require a higher student: teacher ratio. The rates for the infants classroom were raised in August, but we were grandfathered in under the old rate, so other parents of kids in the infants room pay $585/month - still WAY cheaper than most places in town.


Lydia
Mama to Santiago, born 11/16/03

[dotgirl]

We pay $850 per month for 5 days per week, 10 hours per day (9 hours on Friday) of care in our providers licensed home. (It works out to $4.33 per hour. ) We also pay full price during the months when she takes vacation (1 week in June and 1-ish week in December). When our provider is on vacation, we pay another our alternate care-giver $10 per hour (but since that's about $100 *per day*, when our provider is on vacation, we try to work from home or take vacation days to stay with DS).

We pay a college student $8 per hour to watch Riley if we go out in the evening (not very often, though - too tired!), or his aunt watches him for free. (Our daycare provider has offered to watch him at night for no charge, but I feel like that's taking advantage of her.)

[JElaineB]

I live in Iowa and in a rural area, so my rates are probably lower than a lot of people's (but most people here also have much lower salaries than other areas of the country). I currently pay $25/day for 6-8 hours of part-time care, 3x a week. I was paying $15/day when I had DS there for approx. 5 hours one of the days (before my schedule changed). My home daycare providers full-time hourly rate is $2.50 an hour, which I think is too low. Plus she does not charge if your child is sick or takes a day off, which I do not think is fair to her if it is a last minute cancellation especially. But that is what she wants to do! I need to talk to her tomorrow about whether I am going to have a daily or hourly rate starting in January when DS goes there 4 days a week for 7-8 hours/day.

In the "big city" here (Iowa City pop. approx 60,000) rates run $3.00 - $3.25 an hour. My old daycare provider there charged $3.25/hour for part-time with a minimum per day of 6 hours (paid, whether you used 6 hours or not), so $19.50 per day at least, or more if more than 6 hours.

Jennifer
mom to Jacob 9/27/02

[Elilly]

We pay $20 per day per child so $40/day now. This is cash "under the table" though. I know several people in the area who pay $30/day per child though. HTH.

[rottiemom]

Hey Rikkele! Good to "see" you. Hope everybody is well.

I pay $225 a week (5 days, ~8 hours per day so 45$ a day). This is for daycare that's affiliated with a facility but currently in home until the facility finishes undergoing the long, arduous licensing for infants that the state requires (the facility has been up & running for 18+ months for years). I really like the set up because it's in a mother/daughter set up, completely separate from the rest of the home & the "apartment" is completely child proofed & a dedicated daycare set up...it's a sattelite from the main daycare center.

My second choice was 280$ per week for 5 8 hour days. I did check out an in home daycare that would have been 150$ per week but my mom alarms went off for far too many reasons to list.

For all of these you pay for vacations, holidays, etc. Fortunately the place that I am using doesn't close for vacations (where I would have to scramble to find another provider or use some of my nonexistant time off).

I am in NY, north of NYC. As I understand it daycare is even more expensive in the suburbs than it is in NYC and infant daycare in my area is pretty much nonexistant.

Good luck!

Nina

[aliceinwonderland]

We are very lucky...We pay a very sub-market rate of $2/hour for at home care, where only one other child is watched, and often her hours do not coincide with Erik's so Erik gets all the attention! I try to pay her more, but she won't let me. She is in our community, so it's also a family type thing (hard to explain)

Anyway, the only downside is that we had to buy our house in the area where she lives so we would not have to commute too long to the sitter. ANd I do not like this area (it's nice and safe, but much too suburban for me, though technically within city limits) Oh well, 2.5 more years...

[barbarhow]

We go to a licensed daycare center and pay $42 a day-they are open 7a-5:30p. So its about $4/hr. We pay our college student babysitter $7/hr. We live outside of Portland, ME.
When I was in NYC my friends nanny charged us $15 an hour for night time sitting. We'd never get out if we lived in NY....
Barbara-mom to Jack 3/27/03, a Red Sox fan
expecting #2, a Yankee fan, around 5/9/05!

[ALLEYCAT]

I watch a 13 month old 3 days a week 5 hours a day and I get paid in a swap for a 90 min massage (one hour if she only comes 2 days).

[ohiomom]

We pay $110 for 3 days and $25 for each additional day of the week. She'd charge $150 for 5 days a week. We pay 52 weeks a year in cash "under the table". We take diapers, wipes and formula/baby jarred food. Once on table food she supplies lunch and snacks. It is a in-home set up where she watches a few other kids between infant and 5 yrs. DD is generally there 6.5 hrs/day. Her entire basement is set up for her childcare business and her teen daughters help w/drop-off, pick-up times. She's been doing this 10 yrs and has 5 of her own aged 13 - 30+. She's amazing. Makes you feel as if she only watches your child all day. She's worth her weight in gold to me. I feel very fortunate to not have to worry about DD AT ALL while I"m at work.

Another in-home sitter we met charged $25/day only for the days you used her. In-center daycare was around $165 or so a week and charged full-time rates only for infants regardless of how much you used them.

Nicole's Mom 7/03

[ppshah]

We pay $46/day at a daycare - usually DS attends 2 days/week

[squimp]

Good question!

We pay $7.75 an hour to our 24-yr-old sitter, for 5 hours per day. Minimum wage is $7.25 here, and I did not want to pay less than that. We have to do this above board, because DH and I would be a big IRS red flag otherwise :). So we pay about $600/month for half time. Daycare around here is like $600/month full time, so about $3.75/hour. But we love our sitter that much more!

I pay our teenage babysitter $7/hr, but her dad (my friend) says we're too generous! I'm into making people happy, and it's an important job.

If I were you, I would definitely pay my neighbor, if only to feel fair. Or maybe you can offer something in trade.

[essnce629]

I have a 15 month old son and I babysit another 13 month old girl full-time (50 hours a week). I charge $35 a day, which comes out to $175 a week. Her parents provide her diapers, wipes, and formula/milk and I supply all of her meals (breakfast and lunch). I am in San Diego, CA. When broken down into an hourly wage it's nothing, but we go by daily and weekly rates out here and this is what the average is. There's days when I feel the money is not enough, especially since I take care of her for 10 hours a day! But at least I get to be home with my son.

***Latia
Conner 8/19/03
http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/a/aug2003angel
http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_gold_12m.gif 15 months & counting! http://www.windsorpeak.com/dc/user_files/9870.gif

[McQ]

Blech! I pay more a week than you do a month. Granted it's for two kids and in my home but still sick. This thread is dispressing me!

Allison
~ mama to Declan 3.24.03 and Meghan 8.26.04

[jayali]

I pay $75/week for 3 days a week about 31/2 hours a day. I thought I was getting a real bargain. Still do actually. Our sitter is a retired pediatric nurse and I LOVE her. We have to pay whether Matty is there or not, but that doesn't bother me.

This summer I used a woman I found on Craigslist (embarrassing, but true) and we paid $10/hour. She was very sweet but Matthew slept most of the time she was here. With our current sitter she reads to him and plays with him - I guess it is because he is older and able to do more.

At night, expecially on the weekend, we pay $15/hour! This seems crazy because Matthew goes to sleep at 6 o'clock and sleeps through the night so I basically pay someone to come over, order pizza (that we pay for) and read or surf the net. Hmmm, maybe I should babysit on the weekends!

Also, I think is depends on where you are located.

[hez]

My sitter figures her rates on 40 hours of childcare a week, with 5-6 kids (full load). We pay $2.50 an hour, and even though I work 4 days, DS is there 9-10 hours a day, so I just go ahead and pay $100 a week. If I add a half day here or there when I can't convince my coworkers that I truly don't work Fridays, I pay the extra $12.50 for that half day. If DS is there more than 10 hours in a day, I pay the sitter the extra in half hour increments to be fair to her, but I don't deduct if he's there less than 10 hours, because that's what I had 'booked' her for, if that makes sense. I HAVE swapped out half days here and there if we work it out ahead of time.

My friend has her children in another in-home situation, and her full-time rate is $125/week, which essentially works out to the same rate as mine.

We're in the midwest (OH) if that helps you for comparison.