Anyone use one of those on-line sitter cites to find a sitter?

[BabyBearsMom]

DH is hounding me to find a sitter (why is this my job?) so we can go out more and spend some more 1:1 time. I agree that we need more time off from the kids, but I'm nervous about using an online site like care.com or sittercity. Anyone use one? Any advice on how best to use them? We've been trying to set something up with a girl who lives in our neighborhood but our schedules haven't been syncing.

[anonomom]

I used Sitter City, it was fine. IIRC, I found it a little clunky to use, but we did manage to find a few decent sitters. The problem for us was finding a sitter for the casual (once a month at most) basis that we needed. Many of the sitters we spoke to wanted more regular work.

[megs4413]

I've used care.com to find help (not a sitter specifically, though) and it's a little overpriced and a little too much to wade through, IMO. I got so many responses to my ads...it was overwhelming. Do you have any local mom friends who could give you personal recs?

[BabyBearsMom]

I've used care.com to find help (not a sitter specifically, though) and it's a little overpriced and a little too much to wade through, IMO. I got so many responses to my ads...it was overwhelming. Do you have any local mom friends who could give you personal recs?

All my local friends are in the same pickle we are. We are lucky as my parents babysit for the girls fairly often but my mom is going through radiation right now so I don't want the girls tiring her out. The rest of my friends haven't had date nights in years.

[vonfirmath]

We use drop in childcare for the occasional night out. do you have anything like that around?

[BabyBearsMom]

We use drop in childcare for the occasional night out. do you have anything like that around?

ALl the ones near us require potty trained kiddos. Fine for DD1 but DD2 is only 14 months old.

[Philly Mom]

We have used them and found them successful. I have had college students that I liked as well as women in their 20s who are looking for extra cash as their jobs don't pay enough. I like sittercity better. If you have any nursing/medical schools nearby that is often a great place for an ad on a bulletin board.

[brittone2]

I did. Sittercity in my area was kind of a bust; there weren't many options. Care.com is much better in my area. We did one round of interviews on care and I didn't find the right person. We did a 2nd round a few months later and the first two sitters we found were both great.

Sitter 1 was an el ed major, 22 or 23 yo, but couldn't find a job right out of school. She works as an instructional assistant in a K classroom in an excellent SD, and nannies after school. She's very professional but a little less interactive. I like her very much. She's great because she's proactive. If she has a free night she'll text me to see if I want her to come over so I can run errands (she knows DH travels sometimes), or if we want a date night.
Sitter 2 is 19 yo, works as a daycare employee, goes to school part time, works at a bounce house place on weekends, and sits on the side. She's awesome. I told her we aren't big TV watchers but that I don't care if she puts in a movie for the kids. She's like, eh, I don't like TV for kids. She interacts with my kids constantly, setting up obstacle courses, baking with them, you name it. I adore (!) her. She's so ambitious, and I admire all that she juggles at 19 yo. Even her texts are very professional and so forth.

I'm so happy to have 2 great options for date night. They both charge a little more than less experienced sitters...we pay $15/hr and I think that's totally reasonable given their professionalism.

[BabbyO]

All my local friends are in the same pickle we are. We are lucky as my parents babysit for the girls fairly often but my mom is going through radiation right now so I don't want the girls tiring her out. The rest of my friends haven't had date nights in years.

I've use Care.com - but it was for a FT sitter that watches our kids while we work. IIRC there was a filter you could apply to find occasional/date night type sitters. I should have looked for a few of them before my membership was up.

Since you and your mom friends are in a similar situation, what about starting a babysitting/datenight co-op. Where you trade nights with other parents to watch your kids. I've heard of families that do this and it works really well. Unfortunately, we haven't had the opportunity to do this as we don't really know many people in our area with kids. Now that we've started to meet a few, I'm hoping we can do something like this, especially with our next door neighbors!

With the co-op idea, you don't pay anyone...just trade dates. I think it is pretty nice, but I suppose expectations need to vetted out up front so everyone is on the same page.

[flashy09]

Sittercity has been great for me. I found two or three wonderful sitters using it.

[TxCat]

We've used Sittercity successfully. I think I received about 30 replies in 48 hours to my ad, and about 10% of those fit my original criteria ( had to be close by, CPR-certified, have a background check). We are fortunate to live in an area with 3 major BSN programs close by, so there are a lot of nursing students around looking for after-school work, and that was the route I went on Sittercity. The two sitters I ended up with were great - very professional and great references. And one of them referred me to a friend of hers who was starting nursing school just as the first sitter was graduating, and she's been even more wonderful as our regular date-night babysitter.

I would be very specific in the ad that you place - something like looking for a 2-3x/month sitter for date nights, etc., must be CPR-certified, must have a successful background check or be willing to undergo background check if it's not already done (you pay for the background check on Sittercity if it hasn't been done already), must provide a minimum of 3-5 references, and be available for an in-person interview, etc.

Additionally, I've found that the key to using a Sittercity sitter successfully for the occasional date night is to book them at least a week or more advance - the further in advance, the better. The sitters usually have several families that they sit for, so trying to book one last minute is usually a sure route to frustration. It means less spur of the moment outings, but in some ways DH and I have found that this makes our date nights more regular and successful - there are times we would have canceled, thinking we were too tired or worn out but since we had the sitter coming, forced ourselves to go out and ended up being really refreshed by some 1-on-1 time.

I will say that my biggest babysitter frustration has been how busy young people are these days. Last year we moved to a very family-friendly neighborhood and there are several tweens and teens nearby (about 7-8 in a two-block radius) and none of them will babysit regularly because they are so busy with after-school activities. I played sports and took all honors and AP classes in high school, but I also worked regularly after school as well, including babysitting. The kids in my neighborhood definitely don't seem to have after-school jobs at all.

[PunkyBoo]

I found our wonderful nanny on care. com. I paid for their 3 month subscription just in case the first selection(s) didn't work out. I did get lots of applicants and many of them were flaky but my original ad was somewhat vague on my hours at that time and I have the nanny show up at my house at 6am, which is not ideal for most applicants.

We had a date night sitter that we use as back up for date night if our nanny can't do it, I got her number from a local friend who found her on sittercity. So even tho I didn't directly use sittercity, I have used a sitter from them and she is also great.

[basil]

We used care.com unsuccessfully to find a nanny. Interviewed 3 candidates, liked 2, but they chose other jobs over us and we ended up deciding daycare was a better choice at the time.

Then we used it to look for a housekeeper. One we hired ended up stealing random stuff from us (NWT baby clothes, tank tops from Costco, etc) and needed to be fired.

We went back for a third time and ended up finding a great occasional sitter (mid-20s professional with grad degree, used to work at a daycare, very prompt and reliable, just likes kids and finds it easy money to sit at my house with my sleeping child for a few hours while I enjoy a needed night out).

So I guess it's a pretty mixed bag for us!