[photo by ashley]
10: the number of times we’ve made use of a babysitter (a grandparent or trusted teenager) in the 32 months we’ve been parents. Also the number of times my honey and I have been out alone on some kind of date. Some of those I probably shouldn’t even count since they were professional obligations for my hubby. We really should get out more. But with our nearest relatives 2 hours away, well, goodness it gets expensive to hire a babysitter for a couple of hours–on top of dinner or movies or any other expenses for the evening.
My neighbor and I have tossed around the idea of a neighborhood child-care rotation. Something where this set of parents leaves their kids with that neighbor for date night, and vice versa. With 5 families, and over a dozen kids under the age of 6, it’s going to take a lot of planning and calculating and teaming up (a dozen kids!) It could be risky. It could be ideal. It will definitely require some cut and dried parameters.
Have any of you clever moms out there done anything like this before? Are there guidelines we should follow? Does it work or do personal schedules make it too complicated? Any suggestions or alternative solutions?
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Kimberly
...by day, making a home where the buffalo roam. By night, pretty much the same thing, punctuated by the occasional fantasies of sunny beaches, italian movies and sparkling lemonade.
Our family does a coop with two other families. We only have five children in the mix, but they are all under five. As far as the children are concerned, they go to “pajama parties” at each other’s homes and the parents are left to fend for themselves.
We have specific guidelines: the children can’t be dropped off before 7 (unless you make prior arrangements with the host couple) and must be picked up before 11. They should have already had their supper, and be in their pajamas.
Our plan was to do it every other Friday (because every Friday was messing with bedtimes too much.) With scheduling it isn’t exactly every other Friday, but the three families sit down and figure out a whole rotation.
We love it. We highly recommend doing a coop with other families you trust. Once a month our boys’ best friends come over to play, and then we get two date nights out of the deal. Before we started the coop my husband and I had been on only two or three “dates” in three and a half years.
I have a good friend that I trade babysitting with, but a formal coop sounds like a really good idea. When it’s less formal, you always feel like you do much more babysitting, bec. your friend is pregnant or you don’t want to be greedy, etc. Five families/12 kids sounds like a lot though. Except in the summer, maybe, when the kids can play outside for a long time and then just come in for a movie after 9?
We do a co-op on Saturdays from 4:30-7:30 so that kids can be in bed at a reasonable time but parents can still catch an early movie or dinner. Among my group of friends we have two different co-ops going, one for parents who only have one kid and one for parents who have two or three kids. That way you aren’t watching a billion kids so that someone can babysit your only child (make sense?) We drop off and go– usually bringing a snack and drinks, but each host provides dinner for the kids since it is right during the meal time. We do it with three other couples so that we get out three times a month and watch kids once a month.
I love it! We also all know that if something comes up during the week, the co-op members will always watch your kids if needed, and you’re always there to watch their kids. It’s fabulous!
We’re in a coop that is part of the family network in our town, so it’s larger than what you’re talking about — between 15 and 20 families. We operate on a poker chip system. When you join up you get 100 chips and one chip equals 15 minutes of sitting. The idea is that you make sure you have 100 chips when you leave the coop, which you have to do once your youngest child turns six.
You can get a sitter just about any time, either by submitting a request before one of our quarterly meetings or on our email list. If it’s a daytime sit, the kids come to your house; in the evening you go to their house.
The beauty of the system as far as I’m concerned is that you can tailor both the sits you request and the ones you do to your needs and preferences. I tend to do my sitting only during the day. Others only do evenings. At least one family aims to do one sit and request one evening out each month.
The chair of the coop gets chips (four? five? I can’t remember) from each family as annual dues to compensate for the administrative duties.
It’s a great system for anyone who feels she has more time than money!
boysrus – how old are your kids? Your system sounds great but it also sounds like your kids might be older. Thanks.
We have three four year olds, a three year old, and a two year old. We began a year ago, so the children were one,two, and three.
What really makes our group work is that our three families have been friend since the oldest three were born (actually, we were in the same childbirth class as one of the other families, so these boys have been friends since they were in the womb!) I know that my children will be held to the same behavioural standards at the pajama parties as at home. I trust those parents — I think they’re better parents than my husband and I are!
There is a group in our area that has done this for near 3 years now. They all seem to love it. They have some rules I do know, and I am sure some that I do not. Kids have to be older than 1– there are several infants and they are not left with the group. They do this every Friday night, and I believe the time is 6-12, though I am not sure if anyone has ever left the kids till 12. They need to eat before they come and then each fam brings their kids jammies, which they put on later in the evening. There are 4-6 families and they all have two or more kids. The ages vary. I am sure there are other things, but I am not sure what they are.
We’ve done a co-op like that, but I’d recommend using just 4 families–one for each Friday night of the month (if something comes up on your week, you switch with another family).
Make sure you designate times, like 6-9:30, so no one takes advantage. . . .even if my hubby was working late on a Friday, I still dropped my kids off and did something for myself.
great input, ladies. Can’t wait to share with my friends!