How Does Your Babysitting Coop Work??

[annasmom]

So as I was sitting in the dentists' chair this morning with a squirming, crying one year old in my lap, I became determined to resurrect my MOMS Club's babysitting coop. I have so many doctors' appointments I *should* make, but I won't because I do not have a babysitter.

No one in my group can remember a time when we actually had one, so no one knows exactly how it worked. When we have talked about it before, people seemed interested, but worried that it would be abused by some. Or that the dc would only be comfortable with certain members.

I was hoping that someone here is involved in a babysitting coop and can tell me how it operates and how you worked out the kinks.

TIA!!

[jhrabosk]

I was JUST on this website that someone recommended: www.babysitterexchange.com. I haven't tested it out personally yet, but it looks as though it's a great tool for tracking and keeping things "fair."

Our little group petered out recently due to a bunch of people moving out of town, but before that, we just kept it very simple. I think we limited it to 10 people, most of whom only had one child at the time. (That's changing, so we'll need to take it into consideration.) We did 1 point per hour.

We're fortunate to live in a community where most of us know eachother, so we kept it to only people we know and are comfortable leaving our kids with. We're planning to keep the same idea as we rebuild the group.

Take a look at the site I gave above...some of their features include being able to select certain people to sit for you. This says to me that it's not uncommon to prefer certain sitters. I know in my previous group, I only used 1 or 2 moms regularly.

One of my friends found some great articles when she Googled babysitting coops...I can't find them at the moment, but you might give that a try too.

Good luck!
Jessica

[gatorsmom]

I'm not sure what a coop is, but I can tell you what we do that is so simple. There are three of us moms and we each take one day of the week to have all the children at our house for 4 hours, from 9:30am to 1:30pm. I have all the children on Friday mornings and the other 2 moms have them on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For the most part, we stick to these days which allows us to make doctors and hair appointments in advance- knowing we won't have the kids that day.

It's nice too, because we serve the kids lunch when they are at our house, making it one less thing that needs to be planned that day for the other moms. And really, the kids are very well behaved about eating at the table.

We've been doing this for a year and love it. And all the kids love it too because they've developed friendships and look forward to playing at the other kids' houses. Also, I made sure that I was leaving my children with other moms who share my parenting philosophies (in other words, when my kids are at their house, they are actively supervising them and playing with them. Also, they are constantly refereeing so that the children aren't bullying each other, etc.)

So, on Friday mornings, I have 5 little boys. I can't imagine trading kids with 4 or more moms. This would mean I have 3 or more mornings free but I'd have like 7+ kids to take care of on Friday mornings. I think that would be just too crowded. Three moms is just a great number and 2 free mornings works well.

Lisa
Mom to Gator July 2003
And Cha-Cha July 2005
and surprise! twins due 11/07!

[Karenn]

I just recently resigned from the oldest babysitting co-op in the state. (It was great in theory, but not practical for my kids who take forever to get used to new people and places!)

Here's how it worked:
It was invitation only. You had to know someone to be invited into the coop. Then each joining member had a home inpsection & interview completed by at least 2 other members in good standing, plus the sitting pres. of the co-op.

Membership was limited to people in a specific geographic area so no one would have to go too far. I believe membership was also limited to 20 families, but ours was smaller than that.

The president would send out correspondence and organize quarterly meetings. The secretary would keep the books. Those postions would rotate quarterly.

The co-op organized occasional social events so that the families in the co-op could get to know each other and become comfortable with each other.

If you need a sitter, you call the secretary and tell her the date and time you need. She calls people in the co-op, starting with the person who has the fewest credits and works her way down the list until she can find a sitter for you. You are "charged" credits when someone watches your kids and you earn them when you watch someone else's kids. The secretary keeps track of the credits earned/spent. It was expected that you would arrange your "sits" through the secretary so that the person who was most "in debt" credit-wise would have the opportunity to build up her credit again. You could occassionally arrange a sit on your own and call the secretary to ask her to add it to the books but this was not encouraged.

There are a few more details to it, but that's the basic gist of it. It's working beatifully for my friends who are parents of really outgoing children. We were already friends with 80% of the co-op when we joined, but my children still weren't comfortable being left with more than one or two of the 10-12 familes in the co-op.

[C99]

Ours is basically like Karen's, except for a few changes -- no one does a home inspection, everyone is local, and if you need a sitter, you send an e-mail out to the list and anyone who can do it, responds. Then at the end of the sit, she sends an e-mail to the secretary detailing the hours and # of kids. I would never take anyone up on a sit when my kids didn't know their kids because my kids were too shy around people they didn't know, but other people didn't have that issue. We also weight the points -- you come in with 25 points and you can only leave with 25 points. If you watch 1 kid for 1 hour, it's 1 point. But if you watch 2 kids for 1 hour, you earn 1.5 points. And so on. Everyone in co-op also gives .5 points to the secretary per term (a quarter) and .5 points go to families w/ a new baby.