Babysitting circle

Tue 25 Jan 2011, 20:02

Hi all!

Having chatted with Sophie on Monday, we've decided to pool our interested parents into one circle, for which I will do the admin and set-up. There are three people from the baby and toddler group who are interested and a few other mums i know around the village so that'll make 10ish fmailies with children of various ages.

As i mentioned previously, we thought it would be good to have an informal get-together in the near future, so we can all meet each other and our kids; discuss what being in the cicle will involve, and hand out tokens and contact details for members etc. I thought I might try and book the town hall for this, but please do say if you have a big house or garden and want to host! We need to decide when would be best for people - early on a week day evening, or a weekend day.

Andrew and Kat, could you please send me your email addresses so i can contact you directly about this, I'm on gould_christine@hotmail.com, or 07703121715. Also, if you could let me know your preferred time for the inital meet-up if you're still keen, that would be brilliant.

Helen, any chance you're free for a chat one afternoon next week?

Very best,

Chris

Fri 21 Jan 2011, 13:42

Thanks Helen and Andrew for getting back to me. Shame you can't make it on Monday but as I say, I'll go along and be back in touch after I've chatted to Sophie about how we move forward. Helen i understand that it might be difficult for you to get involved, but i would really like to come and chat to you about how your previous group worked so thanks very much for offering.

Susie, thanks very much for your thoughts and advice too. Hopefully we can get the charlbury circle revived!

Hi Kat! I'd be very happy to sit for your four if you would have me. It'll be good practice for having more of my own! I'll keep posting on here so you can stay in the loop with what's happening. Unfortunately we're booked in at the leisure centre creche and gym on friday mornings otherwise we'd have loved to come to your story and rhyme group. Is it always on Fridays?

Hope you all have a good weekend! Back in touch next week.

Very best,

Chris

Fri 21 Jan 2011, 10:04

Hi Chris
My boys are 8 and 4. I generally work during the day as well, so Monday would be tricky to meet up. I'm not sure how practical it will be for me to be part of it, but I'm interested in principle and happy to talk through my experience of it.
Helen

Fri 21 Jan 2011, 08:50

Hello Chris - sorry for slow reply to this. Definitely still interested. Alas neither of us can make the Monday morning meeting because we both work in the mornings (afternoons generally more flexible), but do please keep us in the loop - sounds like joining forces may well be the way ahead. Thanks!

Wed 19 Jan 2011, 22:53

Just to let you newcomers all know that when we first moved to Charlbury in 1983 there was a very good babysitting circle, where any newcomers were welcomed and like Helen states, we were given 16 hours of tokens to start with, in half hour tokens, along with a list of those who were on the circle, contact numbers (no mobiles then!) and ages of children etc. It all worked out very well and sadly only came to an end when the majority of mothers instead of being at home during the day (as most of us were then), started to go out to work. Its a great idea, and would not take away income from students also wanting to sit. Students came into their own during holiday times, when parents who did work needed help looking after children all day. I hope you manage to get it off the ground!

Wed 19 Jan 2011, 18:50

Dear Chris
I'm a "possible", though with four children it may be that a lot in the circle won't relish the idea of swapping with me!
Either of you free this Friday from 10-11 am? I'm running a new group for under 6's called "Mr Cow's Story and Rhyme Time" at St Mary's parish church in town. It'd be nice to meet you there.

Wed 19 Jan 2011, 17:48

Dear Andrew and Helen,

Thanks very much for responding to my post and for all your thoughts and comments. Andrew, we?re also new to Charlbury and so don?t know many people yet, but I figure this is a good way to start, and perhaps we could organise a few get-togethers…

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Tue 11 Jan 2011, 20:56

Hi Chris. This is a great idea. I was a member of a babysitting circle when we lived in Oxford and it worked really well. Instead of 'points' as the link you give suggests, we actually had printed out card 'half hour' tokens. When you join you were given a certain number of these to get you going - I can't remember how many - probably about five to ten hours' worth. Then you simply babysit to earn more, and 'spend' them as necessary. That way you don't need books to keep track of points, you just need one person to update the list once a year and act as a point of contact if there are any problems. Everyone was given a contact sheet with names of parents, ages and names of children, telephone numbers (mobiles for emergency) and postal and email address, any alergies/health issues. There were about twelve to fifteen families on the list. You were also given a set of guidelines about 'best practice' - being clear about whether the sitter would be expected to put kids to bed, when you would be home, it's the sitter's responsibility to find another sitter if they can't do it at the last minute, don't accumulate more than x number (20 hours?)of tokens otherwise it starves the system of tokens, etc. After midnight you got double the token rate, i.e. and hour token for every half hour. I never heard of anyone babysitting during the day. Although possible, this might be complicated and harder to manage (different parenting styles, alergies, what if there's an accident, etc). In practice you tended to develop 'favourites' in which case daytime sitting could develop out of those relationships once they were found to work, but I would recommend avoiding it officially.
Hope this info on my experience of it helps. I'm interested, but as my partner is not often around in the evenings it's tricky for me to earn the babysitting points back!
Helen

Tue 11 Jan 2011, 20:34

I think this post completely ignores the fact that there are plenty of experienced babysitters in Charlbury, such as myself and other young people, for example students, who rely on the income we get from babysitting. 'Babysitting circles' such as the one you are suggesting, would be taking away the sole income of this particular group and since the tuition fee rises, students like myself, are scrambling around looking for any means possible to save.

Also, how many parents would actually be happy going out on a night, knowing they would have to go out later in the week to babysit someone else's children? Where as they could just pay a babysitter and enjoy their night out without thinking about having to babysit themselves.

Tue 11 Jan 2011, 20:07

Oops, greenhorn messes up text formatting...

Tue 11 Jan 2011, 20:06

Hi Chris. As fairly recent newcomers to Charlbury, we don't know many people so of course this would be very interesting to us - though I suppose that doesn't work so well with the suggestion at that link that everyone must be known to someone (perhaps connections via Charlbury's nurseries, pre-school and school can help). We have a two-year-old.

My wife points out that different parents may have different experience or different levels of confidence in terms of the age of the children - in our case, for example we're obviously now used to babies and toddlers, but have less experience with older children! Something to bear in mind, perhaps.

Anyway, please consider us interested! Cheers; Andrew

- we have a two-year-old. My wife

Tue 11 Jan 2011, 19:06

Calling all Charlbury parents!

I was thinking that seeing as there are so many young families in Charlbury, it would be good to set up a babysitting circle. (I don't think there's one already, but please correct me if I'm wrong.)

A babysitting circle is a group of parents who baby sit for each other in exchange for baby sitting points. Each time you baby sit for another member of the circle you receive points, and lose them when someone baby sits for you.

I envisage the group doing some daytime sessions as well as evenings and I was thinking we could have a little 'launch' to meet each other and our respective children if there is enough interest.

I would be happy to set up the circle and do the admin. I think we'd need 5-10 members to make it work.

Would anyone be interested?

More details of how a circe works and its advantages here: www.kidsguide.co.uk/parents_corner/baby_sitting_circle.htm

Hoping to hear from lots of parents!

Very best,

Chris