Recently Michigan tried to stop a mother from babysitting for her neighbors by enforcing a state law that prevents you from providing more than four weeks babysitting each calendar year unless your a licensed day-care provider. The mother wasn’t being paid to provide babysitting and the parents often exchanged babysitting at night. If you’re in [...]
Here are two posts I recently came across from parents who have just hosted their babysitting co-op. Sounds like a great time was had by all.
Free babysitting…well, sort of
Babysitting Co Op & best husband in the World
I’ve already made a number of posts about starting a babysitting co-op. Recently I stubmled upon an article by Debbie Simmonds which adds a few additional items to consider.
Size of the group
Membership requirements
Guidelines for handling emergencies
Sick children
Late pickups
If you have any other suggestions for starting a co-op then let me know. I’ll try to incorporate [...]
So far I’ve only written about babysitting co-op’s using a points model but this isn’t the only model available. If you have a smaller group, 3-5 families, then there is an alternate co-op model that uses a roster instead of points.
Everyone in the co-op agrees on a day/time that babysitting is provided. For example, Friday [...]
I was reading a post at The Cozart’s blog about starting a babysitting co-op. I’ll write more about their model next week. One thing I got from the post is that you don’t need a complicated system to keep track of your babysitting co-op. It can be as simple as giving all of the members [...]
So you’ve found a group of families who are interested in joining your babysitting co-op. Now what?
The first thing you need to do is call a co-op meeting. At this meeting you have two objectives:
Get the details of everyone joining your co-op,
Establish the co-op rules.
If this is the first time that some of your co-op [...]
So you’ve read what a babysiting co-op is and you want to start one. What now?
The first step is to find other families that might be interested in joining. Finding them is easier than you expect. Start by trying:
Friends and family with children
Parents in your mothers group
Parents in your playgroup
Parents of your children’s friends.
Your group [...]
I came across this article about a week ago. Being part of a babysitting co-op is more than just swapping babysitting duties. It provides:
friends for your children to play with,
a support network when you need advice,
people to trade toys and equipment with
people you can borrow equipment from
The article includes cost saving ideas such as [...]
Babysitting co-ops use a points base system. Using points has a number of advantages. First you don’t need to provide babysitting to families who babysit for you. Here’s an example with 3 families where each family provides 5 points worth of babysitting for another family.
Family A => Family B (5 points)
Family B => Family C [...]
Paying for babysitting can easily add $50-$100 to your night out. That’s if you can find an available babysitter that you trust. Babysitting co-op’s are formed by a group parents who exchange babysitting services. This means you have a pool of trusted babysitters available and all it will cost you is time babysitting other children.
Families [...]
