It can sometimes be hard to find the right babysitter for your child or children, so when you finally do find a reliable person you can trust and depend on, you’ll most likely want to keep them around. Babysitters today generally charge around ten dollars an hour. If you are dealing with an individual and not someone from a child care agency, the rates may vary depending upon the person. Here are some of the top tips for tipping a babysitter.

There are no hard and fast rules about exact amount a babysitter should earn per hour, so you will need to discuss that with your child’s caregiver. After establishing their hourly or daily rate, you may then wonder about whether or not you should tip the babysitter for babysitting, and if so, how to handle that. Again, there are no set rules when it comes tipping the sitter, this is something you need to make the decision on, generally based upon circumstances.

If you have someone who does babysitting for you on a regular basis, for example, every Monday and Wednesday from 9am to 3pm, and you pay them $10 per hour, this is somewhat like their salary, similar to what they would receive if they were working a regular part time job. In these cases, it is generally not necessary to provide a tip. However, if your regular babysitter has gone above and beyond the call of duty by doing something special or extra for you, such as picking a sick child up from school, or cleaning up after an ill child, you may wish to give them a little something extra to show your appreciation.

If you only hire a babysitter on occasion, you may wish to round out their payment to the full hour.For example, if you were gone three hours and forty five minutes, just pay them for the extra fifteen minutes by rounding it out to four hours even pay. This basically serves as a tip.

Another factor to consider is what you are already providing for the babysitter. If you are providing meals for the sitter, or allowing them access to your food, snacks, and drinks, then you generally should not be expected to give them a tip. Also , consider the degree of difficulty of the job. If you have a toddler who will sleep three of the four hours while with the sitter, chances are the babysitter is watching television or chatting on the phone or computer the rest of the time. Earning ten bucks an hour to watch television is decent money, and no tip should be required. Obviously, this person is there to care for the child during the waking hours and to be there to make sure all is well while they sleep, but they really have little work to do.

In other instances, if you have multiple children, a special needs child, or an extremely difficult to handle child, a tip may be in order. Consider the amount of work the babysitter will be required to do , and take into consideration other factors such as if you were gone two hours later than expected, or if you contacted them on very short notice and they saved the day for you. These special situations are definitely tip worthy. it is also nice to provide a tip on holidays and perhaps on the sitter’s birthday if they worked for you that day.
When you give your sitter a tip, simply handing it to them along with their regular pay works nicely. You may want to mention the amount you owe them and state that there is a little something extra with it so the sitter is clear that you have tipped them and not simply counted the money incorrectly.