u/Fast_Divide5850

I’m starting to feel like I’m accidentally making the 3yo I babysit dislike her FT nanny, and I really don’t want that to happen.

I’m 17 and babysit for this family about once a week, usually for date nights or on weekends. They have a FT nanny during the week, who I’ve met and really like. She’s very sweet, has been working with kids for 20 years, and clearly knows what she’s doing.

Nanny generally just has a lot of rules with her - most of which are 100% necessary. I have rules with babysitting girl too, but I’m much more go with the flow as we don’t have a schedule to stick to. An example is that she has a big Princess Belle book that the nanny only will only read up to one story from each day, while I’m happy to sit and read it with her for as long as she wants because we don't have anything we need to specifically get done. I also once traded off with the nanny (came in right at the end of her shift), and the second I walked through the door 3 yo immediately took off the shorts from under her dress because she knows I don’t care about what she's wearing in the house as long as she's dressed, while the nanny has a strict rule that she must wear them.

I’m starting to notice that she REALLY prefers me. One time she thought the nanny was coming and through the door I heard her say, “Why is (nanny) coming into MY home?” and then she got super excited when she realized it was me. At her birthday party, she basically ignored the nanny, again, the woman who she's with every day and wanted to be with me (and her friends) the entire time. I could tell nanny was a bit disappointed with that understandably.

I know she’s 3 and I’m probably just the “fun” babysitter, but I feel guilty because she’s with her nanny all day and I really want her to have a good relationship with her. I don’t want to undermine the nanny or accidentally make myself the “fun one” and her the “mean one.”

Is there anything I could be doing during the 4-5 hours a week I see her to help with this?

Next week me (17 yo) and my friend (also 17) and a family friend (13 yo) are watching

three 4.5 yo girls

two 5 yo girls

four 6 yo girls

one 7 yo girl

We have a super tight schedule for the week (calling it a "camp") so I don't need any tips on what to do, but really needing some motivation that we can do it lol

I know it differs per fam, but what do we think? I babysit a fam w/ an 8 yro girl and 5 yro boy, when would it be time to split them up? 8 yro girl is for sure capable of showering by herself, but I think she just enjoys having me there to wash her hair and such. Do I just wait until the family / kids say something?

I'm 17, and I usually babysit for babies / toddlers. Next week I'm babysitting 3 girls, ages 10, 8, and 4.5 for a couple of hours each day. Any ideas on how to entertain older girls? Thank you!

I'm 17, and I babysit for about a dozen families in my area. I'm finally at the age where I can drive the kids around, and I have my own safe, relatively new car (which I paid for myself with money I saved and invested from babysitting!). I'm a super careful driver. I'm in California, and I’ve driven for hours at a time, including longer trips, and my family and friends all agree that I’m a very safe driver. However, after having some close family friends experience a serious car accident, I started thinking… what’s really in it for me? Driving kids around feels like a huge liability. If something happened while I had kids in the car, I feel like I would never forgive myself whether or not it was actually my fault. Will I eventually grow out of this feeling? I feel like I have a good amount of driving experience for my age (I’ve driven from the bay area to LA which is about 6 hours). At the same time, part of me wonders why is it worth the risk.

For those of you who do drive the kids you babysit around, what made you decide to start? Did you have these worries at first? Will I grow out of this lol

I'm 17 and babysit for quite a few families with girls ages 2.5-6, and a lot of them are in their dress era. I was wondering what parents' expectations are these days.

Do your girls usually wear shorts under dresses, or just underwear?

I'm asking because I honestly don't know what I should be doing as a babysitter. When I get to a family's house, the girls are sometimes just wearing dresses with no underwear underneath (I'm assuming Mom and Dad just didn't want to fight that battle at home, lol), so I don't really have a clear idea of what their normal routine is.

I personally was raised not wearing shorts under dresses, so I wasn't sure if the norm has changed. Would you expect a babysitter or nanny to just follow whatever your child was already wearing, or would you want them to add shorts under a dress before going out or doing activities?

I always make sure they put on underwear before we go out - I'm mostly wondering about the shorts part!

Hi everyone! My friend and I are two teenagers planning a park playdate for a small group of girls we babysit, around 5 of them. We're thinking arts and crafts and other movement activities in a shaded spot, along with time on the playstructure: roughly 9am-2pm for the day.

We looked into a permit through the city just to be safe, but the fees on the Sunnyvale site are running $50-100+, which is insane compared to how much we are each being paid for the day. I'm planning to call Parks & Rec once they open to ask directly, but wanted to see if anyone here has dealt with this before - maybe for a birthday party or similar small event. We really want to avoid a situation where we show up with a group of young kids and get kicked with nowhere else to go!

Does a group our size (under 10 people, one day, no tables/equipment/amplified sound) actually need a permit, or is that more for bigger events? Any tips on navigating the process in general would be really appreciated!

Hi everyone! Posting this here instead of the babysitting sub, I hope that's okay.

For some context, I'm 16 years old and have over 700 hours of babysitting experience. One of my regular babysitting families invited me to nanny for them on a ski vacation. They have three kids (ages 6, 4, and 5 months).

The plan was that my role would be one of two things, depending on the day:

• Stay at the house with the baby for 4-6 hours while the family went skiing, or
• Help out with the two older girls while they were skiing.

We agreed on a flat rate of $200 per day. (Looking back, I probably should have charged based on hours, overtime, and included a separate overnight rate)

However, there ended up being a huge snowstorm, so the trip was not as we expected. We were stuck at the house the entire time and ended up leaving early. Even though I wasn't spending long stretches alone with the kids like planned, I was still helping throughout the trip. I kept the older girls entertained with crafts and baking, helped with the baby whenever needed, and did the evening routine, including bath time and bedtime.

When it came time to pay me, the parents asked what I was thinking. I told them I was happy with the amount we'd originally agreed on. They seemed very surprised since I hadn't "spent any time alone with the kids." My thought process was that I had committed a week to this trip, and still helped out where I could so why should I have been paid differently?

I ended up being paid the agreed $200 per day for the days we were there, and I wasn't paid for the days I was home that we originally planned to be on vacation. Was it reasonable for me to want to stick to our original agreement, or should I have reduced my rate per day because the trip didn't go as planned? Also, for anyone who's done vacation nannying before, what would you do differently in the future when setting rates and expectations in general? I would appreciate any advice because I'm new to this type of child care 🙂

Edited: Thank you all for your input. With everyone's general consensus, I will refrain from ever posting faceless photos of my babysitting kiddos on my private (~30 teen girls I know well) account. As for photos, I stand on the fact that it is NOT gross or creepy to take photos of kids I've been babysitting for a couple of years (or even frequently for 6+ months)! Pics are always sent to parents, and they ask for more often. Below is a summarized version of my OG message.

Hi everyone,

I'm a 17-year-old babysitter in California, and babysitting is a huge part of my life. I often take the kids I watch on outings, swimming, and other fun activities. Recently, another one of my friends who babysits was shocked that I had a few photos of the kids I babysit on my phone, and this made me wonder what the general consensus is.

I've never explicitly asked parents if it's okay to keep photos, although most ask me to take pictures and send them updates during the day (especially if I'm there for 5+ hours and we're doing something fun)

For context:

• I only take an occasional quick photo.
• I never post a child's face publicly
• I've never shared the photos with others, BUT I have occasionally posted a face-hidden photo on my private Close Friends story (~ 30 of my friends are on it, all teen girls) that was really about the activity or scenery rather than the child. Ex: We were in Italy and I posted the view, back of the kids head was in it from far away.

I'm trying to figure out where the appropriate boundaries are. Is it considered inappropriate to keep a few wholesome photos of the kids you babysit, or is that fairly normal? And does the Close Friends part cross a line?

I'd love to hear what parents and experienced babysitters or nannies think. Thank you! :)

I babysit for a family with two little girls, ages 8 months and 6 years. I've been with their oldest since she was 3, and I absolutely love working for them. When the baby sister was a few months old and started crawling, the older one would sometimes "copy" her by scooting around next to her. I thought it was adorable and completely harmless. Since then, though, she's started copying her sister in ways that are a lot more difficult to manage. For example, after bath time I lay out her pajamas for her to put on (she's been dressing herself since she was 3!), and while I get her baby sister dressed, she'll lie down waiting for me to dress her too. I tell her, "I'm here if you need help, but you're a big girl and I know you know how to get dressed." She'll refuse and say, "I'm a baby. I don't know how." At first, I would just wait it out. I'd stay in the room with both girls until she decided to get dressed, and that seemed to work. But the last time I babysat, she simply wouldn't get dressed. I talked to her parents, and they said not to give it too much attention and to just continue the evening as normal because she'll eventually get dressed. But honestly, a lot of the things we do together are piggybacks / handstands / dances and I would just prefer her be dressed in general, at least with underwear.

I give her a lot of one on one attention, so I don't think it's an attention issue. Her baby sister is super chill and is usually happy sitting next to us or in her bouncer (if anything, I sometimes worry I'm not interacting with the baby enough!). The oldest has always been perfectly behaved, she's pretty smart too, she reads the bedtime stories instead of me haha so this is just really out of character for her. I'm 17 and have been babysitting regularly for the past 6 years for multiple families with young kids, and I've never run into anything like this before. Has anyone experienced something similar? Any tips on how to handle it?