Take the babysitter on the trip?
 

I'm interested in learning about how other people approach travel in which you bring along a babysitter for the child(ren). For a trip to Europe, for instance, would you expect a babysitter to agree to go in return for airfare alone, or would you expect to also have to provide funds for lodging? Food? If airfare alone is not seen as sufficient, what about airfare plus a certain number of days "off" in which the babysitter could pursue their own itinerary (at their own expense) while we assumed 24-hr care of the kids? Is it generally acceptable/problematic to arrange for the babysitter's lodging to be at a different place (presumably cheaper) than the family's?

I know that there are no set rules, and ultimately, I'd need to ask these questions of a prospective babysitter rather than an internet forum. But I'd like to hear how others have done it first, so I'll have some sense of where "middle ground" is.

I'd also like to hear of experiences not covered by the above questions, such as how much time you end up wanting to be with the kids even with the babysitter along, whether you might've encountered any instances of separation anxiety or resentment on the part of children being left with the babysitter while mommy & daddy go out for a nice dinner, etc., or any other experiences you think might be instructive for someone just beginning to consider traveling with a babysitter.

Portions of the post that previously appeared in this space have been deleted. I would provide you with a reason why, but doing so would likely be against the TOS.

How many hours out of how many days are we talking? If you mean babysitter doing a job as a full-time nanny - primary care provider for the kid(s), I'd expect to pay them airfare, lodging w/family, all on duty meals plus wages. If you mean somebody coming along to just give you a few hours here and there, then I would negotiate the total compensation, but would expect to cover airfare + lodging w/ family.

We've researched this, but decided against doing it as we usually only want a few evenings out, and when the offspring was much younger a couple afternoons per trip for hiking/biking. Now he hikes/bikes with us, and we just hire local sitters for grown-up evenings out.

Interesting question
 

I am not in a position to bring our housekeeper/babysitter with us when we travel, but I concur with what uncertaintravel suggestions. Since it is a working vacation for her, you should provide hotel, ticket and a per diem. If the vacation were particularly long, you could arrange to give her a few days off in the meantime as well.

As for putting her in a different (cheaper) hotel, you could do that, but it depends on how savvy she is and what language she speaks. For example, our housekeeper here in Honduras, would be completely at a loss in say, London. She has no english and has never been out of her country. I would feel uncomfortable leaving her in another hotel, expecting her to make her way to and from our hotel everyday.

On the other hand, if we were to take her to Mexico, it would be fine. She could get along on her own.

Lorna

We did this once when my kids were 4 and 1 on a trip to Europe. We took along a young woman who was a semi-regular babysitter for us. We paid airfare, lodging, and any food and activities that we mandated, but did not pay for her off time expenses or a salary. This was a family friend who babysat for us and was just graduating high school.

Hope that helps. Of course, my other advice is that personally I didn't find it worth it. There were only one or two times that my wife and I wanted to go out without the kids, so the expense was quite high for a couple of dinners out. I think I would only bring a babysitter/nanny again if we were going to be staying put in one place for a long period of time, say a month.

Friends took a family friend who was a college student to Europe with them to help care for their four children. They stayed 3 weeks, one each on a different luxury property such as Villa d'Este on Lake Como. They paid all of her expenses, as well as a stipend.

Because she was inexperienced at European travel, and because they had sold the trip in part as a way for her to get to Europe, my friend ended up feeling as though he had one more person in his entourage for whom he needed to care. He said he felt as if he had to check to see that all the ducklings were lined up in a row behind him when they went out. He came home more tired than when he left.

We spent weekends in New York with them when they brought the nanny (not a college student, but rather their full time help). There, it was very clear that the nanny was there to work so that the parents were free to go to dinner, the theatre, or whatever. The nanny was simply working from a hotel suite, rather than their home.

So the situation where the nanny came as part of her job, all expenses covered, fully paid, and not expecting to sightsee worked just fine. The converse did not.

My friend was a nanny who was required to travel. She was expected to work and compensated appropriately. In addition to her regular salary, she also recieved airfare, all meals picked up when with the family, reimbursement for any other meals not with the family, a shared hotel room, and a small stipend (For example $50 dollars for a week in Aspen) for any misc charges she might need for personal items, a cab here or there, or extra snacks. Anything additional came out of her own pocket.

Many of us are business travellers. We get our regular salary, transportation, and either a perdiem or reimbursement for Meals and Incidentals. We are expected to work normally as we do in the office. As a nanny, her job hasn't changed...just the location. Treat her appropriately as you would at home or you would expect on a trip.

We have taken a nanny on many trips. We've paid the airfare, the logging, the meals and bought her some things on the trip (and before the trips). But it wasn't that big of a deal. It helped more when our kids were really young or we had one under one year old, but we still take a nanny on many trips. She's a distant cousin so it isn't a huge huge huge expense for us, just the extra person and she is our regular person at home too so she knew what she was expected to do.

I have no idea how it'd work in the states. I guess I'd rather find a relative or close family friend who wanted a trip to trade off and on duties. There might be some responsible HS or college kids studying the language of where you are going that would want to go just for the heck of it to try out language and learn more etc...

Depends how many kids you have, we have four. Four kids to two adults is kind of rough. When we had one it was no big deal, when we had two it was tiresome, when we got to three kids there was no way I was going to travel with three small kids (new born, two year old, four year old) and no extra help. When we got to four, don't even ask.

Not employing a full time nanny, my source are limited to my current babysitter. I think it really depends. The one I have now would probably be more of a liablility then help - I'd feel like she was one more person I needed to keep an eye on.

My former sitter (now married and in grad school) would have been ideal. Very independent, excellent communicator and of course, great with the kids. I would feel comfortable having her take the kids to the pool/ocean while DH and I went golfing/siteseeing/etc

For that, I would expect to compensate her with a small stipdend in addition to airfare, lodging, meals and vacation expenses. However, I might offer instead of compensation to simply extend her time at location after we go home so she could enjoy some vacation time too.

I have yet to do any of the above mostly because it seemed to cumbersome, and we didn't travel nearly enough to warrant the down time from our little ones. Amazing how my baby is now 3 and the need for an extra set of hands is gone. Yes there are certain activities DH and I would like to do, but for us, it is a family vacation so it make sense to do family centered activities. For the short amount of babysitting we'd want simply doesn't warrant the cost.

My wife and I brought our daily babysitter with us to Cozumel for a Scuba Trip (5 days total). The deal I offered her was airfair, hotel, and all food paid. We only asked/required her to watch our son (about 8 months old) from 8:00am to 2:00pm while we were diving and after that she could either stay with us or do anything else that she wanted as long as she was around for the next morning. We also gave her about $200 for spending money and our first class upgrade from CZM-IAH but that that was not part of the deal.

Overall it worked out great and everyone was happy.

Keba

Unless your nanny/babysitter has requested lodgings that are different than yours, I think it would be quite rude to make him/her stay somewhere else (especially just to save yourself some bucks... do you think s/he won't notice...?).

I like another person's analogy to business-travel, assuming you're talking about somebody whose job it is to watch your kids, not a teenager who takes care of them one Saturday night a month.

As someone who babysat and nanny-ed in the metro area for 10+ years I can tell you that….

A family vacation with a babysitter is IN NO WAY a vacation FOR the babysitter. In fact it is much harder as children are generally over stimulated, off routine, cranky and home-sick. Even if you are all together (parents, sitter and children) in one place/activity the sitter is still on-duty.

To the OP - why would you even consider that a babysitter would spend her own $ (on food/lodging) to spend time with you and your family and care for your children?

If you are considering taking a sitter on vacation with you it is essential to put IN WRITING the expectations and obligations of all parties before you leave home. Hopefully good feelings on both sides would lead all parties to meet or exceed the minimum standards set down - but for the worst case scenario it is essential to have a written document to refer back to. Be as specific as possible and include back-up provisions should original plans change.

Generally speaking fair is:
-All travel expenses paid for – transportation, hotel, meals, any out of pocket expenses for activities shared with children
+Normal salary
+$100/day if children sleep in sitter’s room OR +$50/day if children sleep in parents room
I strongly suggest that the children sleep in the nanny’s room in the same hotel as parents.

Finally – if all you want is a couple of hours coverage to go out to dinner – do your homework pre-trip and hire a local sitter for those nights.

Depending on where you go it is not hard to find a baby sitter who can work 6 to 8 hours a day for around 10 to 15 euros/hr. This may work better - though you won't have help on the flight over. I often just ask the housekeeprs if they know someone - this works very well. Booking thru a hotel is often double or more.

I ran away with the babysitter for a weekend, oops, wrong topic :o

:p

All kidding aside, if you were to take her, airfare + hotel + meals and a negotiated rate would be fair.

If he/she is on her own, days off, then all expenses will be their own.

You could pay her after each day, so she can have some spending money, or half over there, half on the return, so she won't come home broke.

I have a hard time understanding why I would pay EXTRA for taking my nanny/sitter on a trip unless the hours were much longer than normal or there was an overnight in the nanny/sitter's room.

I've taken our nanny on trips, and while I've paid her airfare, lodging, food, and activities (plus salary), I have not paid her on top of that, nor do I understand why I would. Any input is appreciated. I feel I pay my nanny a good salary, good benefits, and she agreed to travel when she took this job. I give her time off to be out and about and cover her activities. Why would I tack on another $50 a day?