How Much to Pay a Nanny

In my experience, a quality day care is actually more expensive than a nanny. But I use nannies from the " premierre nannies" and they charge between $11.00 - $15.00 an hour, depending on the number of kids and their age.

My research over the past year indicates that a GOOD nanny will be about $10 - 15 per hour. for me to pay someone at the higher end of the pay scale, they need to be someone who:

will consistently interact with my children rather than plant them in front of the TV while they text message their friends;

can be reilied upon to take my children fun places and keep them safe;

has a reliable car and can drive if necessary;

I also pay more because I want someone who is bilingual in order to provide foreign language exposure for my toddler.

Although I pay gas$ for my nanny's outings, I still think it is a bit more expensive to find someone with a reliable car AND who is sharp enough to take your child out into the world and return him/her safely. (I think some nannies might be great staying home with the kids, but might not do as well keeping up with them in large areas like the zoo. I don't know - that part is just a gut feeling you have to follow.)

If you don't need the transportation element, then I think you can expect to find someone very good for between $10 -$13 per hour, but don't be surprised if you still must go as high as $15 per hour.

I pay less for babysitters who come for just a few hours, because I basically just need them to keep my kids safe and get them in bed. Still an important job, but a lot less responsibility, so I adjust pay accordingly.

Hope that helps!

I saw that the other responses were $10-15. that's the minimum....We pay a teenager $8/hour to babysit - and she's watching TV most of the night because the kids are asleep! But, pay can be negotiable...Our first nanny (6 years ago) we got away w/$215 per week for 35 hours - but we were nanny sharing and she occasionally brought her own child too. Our second nanny we started at $300 per week for a 35 hour week (four years ago) but she had zero child care experience (other than teenage babysitting) AND she was bringing her own children. When I quit to be a SAHM 3 years ago, she was at $390 for a 30 hour week (we really liked her!) Other things to consider: your policy on sick leave/vacation time; you'll need to leave wiggle room for raises; extent of housekeeping duties; acceptable activities (how much TV are you comfortable with); your policy on use of your home computer; who's providing the nanny's meal (you or her?), etc. And if you have more than one child, a nanny is going to be the same or cheaper than any commercial daycare. After our second we were looking at $450 per week at a commercial daycare! We used 4nannies.com not only to find our nannies, but they also had good resources on background checks (some of this you can do yourself), sample contracts, etc.

Hi,
I have been a nanny twice. Once when I was going to night school and then again a few months ago. I did it just for about 6 months to help save for a down payment on a house. The first time I went through a nanny agency and the next time it was a friend of mine. Both times the starting pay was $10/hour for one kid. That wasn't my asking price that was the offering price. Both families understood that it is hard to take care of kids and you want to make sure that you pay enough because you never want the nanny to feel like, "this isn't worth it". I still have friends that nanny and I don't think any of them make under $10/hour. It's pretty expensive, but if you are sharing the cost with someone that would help a lot. Hope this helps. Sorry that I don't know what people are charging for two kids. I am a mother now and I wouldn't pay less than $10/hour for a good nanny. Good Luck!