I live in a HCOL area and my daughter goes to an in home with a provider who has a masters degree in ECE. Saying all that to help justify that we pay 550/week for 7 hour days.
For sitters I have friends who hire teenagers and pay them $15 an hour. I choose to hire less often and pay $25ish per hour plus tip for someone older with more experience since that feels safer to me.
I don’t currently have cameras but plan to purchase soon.
@987abc HCOL and we pay 400/week for 5 days for my toddler. Infants are more but idk what current rates are for them. Snacks are provided but not meals.
We pay $20/hr for a babysitter.
@987abc Didn’t do daycare since I’m a stay at home mom but now we pay $1,000 a month for half day preschool. $20/hr for non-family babysitters. Any overnights are covered by grandparents (free).
@987abc LO is in daycare FT. We live in a VHCOLA and pay $25/hour for date night babysitting. Worth every penny! We don’t call; babysitter knows to call us if there’s something concerning or she has a question.
@987abc We were paying less than $500/month (small-ish LCOL town in Texas) for daycare. Our son was in Pre-K, and they had a set-up where the bus from the school would pick up and drop off the kids at the daycare. So it was just before/after school care. None of this stopped during COVID. Both my husband and I were considered "essential."
Now we're out of the daycare stage. I work from home and used to have a pair of sisters (middle/high school) come over after school to keep an eye on him until I was off work. This was last year when he was in Kindergarten. They decided amongst themselves who would be the one to come over. Since I was home if they needed anything, I gave them $10/hr just to make sure he didn't kill himself. 1st Grade is over half done now, and we don't even need that anymore.
All that to say, we were crazy lucky to not really struggle with insane costs like so many other families. I didn't want another anyway, but there is NOTHING in me that wants to start over now that shit is finally manageable.
@987abc Man, reading these comments...prices sure have gone up since I was a teen and babysat! I used to get $1 per kid per hour. I never actually paid a babysitter to watch my son. I'm a SAHM. When he was little, we didn't have opportunity to go out much without him. Then I traded favors with friends. Then we moved close to family, so he'd hang out with his grandparents or aunts/cousins. Now he's old enough to stay home by himself if we go out, and let me tell ya, that stage is a game changer. lol I no longer have to drag him grocery shopping or to doctor's offices for my appointments. Don't have to plan ahead if the husband and I want to go out alone for dinner.
@987abc He was 10 when I first left him by himself. My sister only lives a mile away, so I made sure she'd be home in case of emergency, and he had a cell phone. It was 2020 just before the lockdowns started, so I needed to stock up on things, but didn't feel comfortable taking him to the store. As he's gotten older/more responsible, we've ventured further and for longer time periods.
@987abc I live in a LCOL area. My daughter is 17months. She starts a private school daycare in august, for 3 days a week 7am-6pm we will be paying $970/month. If she were to go 5 days a week we would pay $1250/month. We haven’t had a sitter yet but I expect it’s anywhere from $13-$25/hr depending on experience
@987abc We’re in kind of a HCOL area and between daycare 3x/week and preschool 2x/week for our 3 year old we are at about $1600/month. Thankfully we have 3 sets of grandparents (both of my parents remarried) so we rotate them and my brother/SIL who don’t have kids yet for babysitting
@987abc United States. Middle cost of living here. Daughter is just over a year. We pay $285/week for a well respected daycare center. They’re open 5 days per week from 7am to 6pm. She goes 4 days per week from 8am-4pm. They feed her an amazing breakfast, lunch, and snack while there.
@987abc We pay 225$ month for daycare right now (3 half days a week) I’m not working right now but in the fall I will be working full time so that will be 770$/ month for full time M-F preschool (she will be 3). we have family/both of her grandparents near by that babysit her when we want to go out so no charge there lol
