Originally Posted by JudgeDread:

Now this other babysitting experience was terrible. Kids running around naked, the other one was humping furniture, shitting outside, and then the little one was putting chips on his junk and EATING them off it! The big one tried to stick his finger up the dogs butt!

LMFAO I'm sorry but this seriously made me laugh so hard. :hug:

Originally Posted by fitness4life:
This may make you look more professional and put a stop to the over time: Write a contract that says you will get paid $xx per hour for time of contract and charge her time and a half for anything over per 15 minutes of each hour.

Edited to add: do NOT raid her fridge. That will put stress on her life as she may have planned to use the food you consumed the very next morning. That would p me off as an employer and it is very unprofessional.

No more unprofessional than not telling her what time she's going to be back. The least she can do is give her an accurate time frame on when she will be babystitting. From X time to X time. This gives her the option of saying no, I have plans at that time. Or saying yes and packing a meal or a few snacks.
If I were running late and say my phone died, than I would expect her to eat something in my home. I would not expect her to starve waiting on me. Thats just cruel and she would totaly deserve to lose a great sitter if she were to get upset.

Originally Posted by JudgeDread:
Now this other babysitting experience was terrible. Kids running around naked, the other one was humping furniture, shitting outside, and then the little one was putting chips on his junk and EATING them off it! The big one tried to stick his finger up the dogs butt!

Horrible children...I was babysitting so their parents could be at the bar. I was a teen and had no idea what to do. I couldn't slap them or get mean, and yelling did NOT work....OMG psycho kids! They could have used some Nanny 911.

Nanny 911 only works if the parents accept responsibility. Sounds more like these need(ed) DHS, 'specially w/all the sexual related stuff! :o

They won't respect your time unless you do. Get a contract, set an expectation or drop them, otherwise they will believe that you are "on-call" and completely at their disposal.

If they mistreat you at first, that's on them. If they continue to do so, that's on you. You deserve to be treated like a professional.

You go, girl!

Originally Posted by JudgeDread:
I've done that text mistake before, but it ended up looking way worse than yours LOL! Talk about foot in the mouth! I hear your frustrations. I haven't babysat in years, but I have had nothing but MONSTER children to babysit for. The only kids that were perfect were my cousins...they listened to me and I didn't have to fight with them to go to bed.....


Now this other babysitting experience was terrible. Kids running around naked, the other one was humping furniture, shitting outside, and then the little one was putting chips on his junk and EATING them off it! The big one tried to stick his finger up the dogs butt!

Horrible children...I was babysitting so their parents could be at the bar. I was a teen and had no idea what to do. I couldn't slap them or get mean, and yelling did NOT work....OMG psycho kids! They could have used some Nanny 911.

Glad you got paid extra! You are a grown woman and have bills and a LIFE..they can't treat you like your 16!

Omg, if I babysat a children like that, I would probably end up calling my mother crying (and of course she would just laugh at me hysterically lol). The boy I babysit is now learning the words NO and how to lie and argue when I say it is time to do something, but that stuff is a cake walk compared to the children you described.

Text mistakes SUCK. I am just happy I didn't end up writing some mean or nasty accidentally lol!

When my husband and I have our babysitter come over we:

~Give and start and finish time. One time we went to see a show, when we got there the said the show was starting an hour late, so we call the sitter to ask her (not tell her) if an extra hour was ok. My husband specifically asked if she had work in the morning, or need to be home at the previously decided time.

~Put our cell phone #'s on the fridge along with the name and phone # of where we are going.


~Tell her everytime to help here self to anything in the kitchen. If its around dinner we ask her if she ate, and point out a few of the more real food items she might like, rather than just offering her the crackers or cookies, which arent really dinner foods.

~I premake the kids dinners, so she only hae to reheat them, OR I just make them PB sandwiches for dinner.

~Set up their beds and lay out the little ones PJs. (My older son picks out his PJs when he goes up to bed.

~I never ask that she bath them. One night not taking a bath isn't going to kill my kids.

~Tell her not to clean up, even if the kids are sleeping. She's not there to clean up and I'd rather do it myself anyway.

She asked us for $8 an hour for 2 kids. We give her $12 as that's what we pay our other sitters.

The way we see it is she's not the kids nanny. Usually she's only with them for an hour or two before bed. I don't care if my older one plays video games until she puts them to bed, or my little one refuses his dinner and ends up eating cookies. She's only with them like twice a month. I'm a stay at home mom, and I spead most of my time "engaging them" and making sure they eat healthy and do all those good things that parenting magazines tell you about. I'd rather just make the time she's with them easy and pleasurable. One, so the kids will look foreard to her coming over when she does, and there for getting out of the house is easier. And two, so she will not dread babysitting for us and be more willing to come over when needed. To me, her job is to keep the kids alive and happy while we are gone. lol

We do call her last minute sometimes, only because sometimes we decide to do something last minute. (Not for BIG things, or long plans) but if we want to go out for an hour after the kids go to sleep, I'll call her. But if she can't, she can't. Because thats the possibility with calling last minute. ANd usually if we call her last minute, we will ask her to come over after the kids are alseep, and just stay for an hour or so.
Oh and we always offer up the TV. DVR, DVD player ect. :)

I babysat when I was younger, and I learnd if you dread babysitting for someone, stop doing it. Its not worth the stress and there are better parents out there that you can sit for. Honestly, I want our babysitter to be HAPPY here, she's watching our kids. If a parent is not concerned for how they treat YOU, the person caring for their children, then what does that say about them???