How Much You Pay Your Babysitter?

[Ringmybells]

I don't have/need a regular babysitter so I am wondering how much one pays a sitter in Chiang Mai if they only hiring them sometimes.

I usually hire sitters who speak some English and have a college degree. They charge between 170 baht to 300 baht/hour. Is that the going rate?

My twins are 3.5 years old if that makes a difference.

[Gsxrnz]

Sounds a bit expensive at 300/hr. Those are the rates you pay at a hotel when they arrange babysitters at short notice and there are 2 or others in the food chain such as from hotel staff that find the sitter from a friend of a friend etc, all of whom get their slice of the action. Seen it happen when you pay the girl 300 baht and then see her give 100 baht to the receptionist and then been told not to forget to give 50 baht to Kuhn Na that is the girls aunty.

We've gone out for an evening and paid 300 baht for the 6 or 7 hours to girls 20+ years old here in Jomtien, and they really appreciate that much, believe me.

I don't think a college degree makes any difference and can't understand why that point has any relevance to employing a babysitter.

[PoorSucker]

I pay two thousand per month.

Usually involved evening + overnight stay 5-6 times per month.

Our son is 1 year 9 months.

[Ringmybells]

I pay two thousand per month.

Usually involved evening + overnight stay 5-6 times per month.

Our son is 1 year 9 months.

Are you in Chiang Mai? How can I find a sitter that charges resonable rate? Thanks.

[PoorSucker]

I pay two thousand per month.

Usually involved evening + overnight stay 5-6 times per month.

Our son is 1 year 9 months.

Are you in Chiang Mai? How can I find a sitter that charges resonable rate? Thanks.

On Koh Samui, our baby sitter is our old neighbour.

[Ringmybells]

Sounds a bit expensive at 300/hr. Those are the rates you pay at a hotel when they arrange babysitters at short notice and there are 2 or others in the food chain such as from hotel staff that find the sitter from a friend of a friend etc, all of whom get their slice of the action. Seen it happen when you pay the girl 300 baht and then see her give 100 baht to the receptionist and then been told not to forget to give 50 baht to Kuhn Na that is the girls aunty.

We've gone out for an evening and paid 300 baht for the 6 or 7 hours to girls 20+ years old here in Jomtien, and they really appreciate that much, believe me.

I don't think a college degree makes any difference and can't understand why that point has any relevance to employing a babysitter.

I find it expensive too that's why I post a question here. I pay almost the same as in the US ($10?hr) and my sitter in the US works in a community college day-care.

[AsiaCheese]

Come off it - usual charges for someone taking care of someone else's baby for a month in Thailand is THB 3,500-5,000. And that includes clothes and food...!

To my knowledge, the going hourly rate for a 7-Eleven employee is still something like THB 25...!!!

[craigt3365]

We're a bit generous because the "baby" we have is my mom, who is 88 and has dementia. It's not an easy job as she does some crazy things. Our maid stays for as long as we like, even overnight when we are out of town, for 500B. She's super honest and treats my mom like her own. Worth a bit more money.

Our neighbors use our maid's mom and pays the same for their 2 kids.

We live outside Pattaya.

[Skytrain2hell]

Good thread. I'm on the BKK/Nonthaburi border, and find it really hard to get a good babysitter and/or house cleaner.

I'm also a bit strict as to who can get the job (she would have to have a good reputation with at least a couple friends/neighbors), so that might be why we end up taking our kids everywhere we go.

[Stjohnm]

I wouldn't know our Baby Sitter is either the Mother-in-Law, The wifes cousin, Brother, Auntie, Uncle etc, normally a favour in kind and all the cable TV they can watch is payment enough.

[vijer]

300 an hour seems high considering minimum wage is 300 a day. Of course you are talking about someone taking care of your children so paying a little more seems reasonable but a few thousand a day seems a lot.

[johnlandy]

Sounds a bit expensive at 300/hr. Those are the rates you pay at a hotel when they arrange babysitters at short notice and there are 2 or others in the food chain such as from hotel staff that find the sitter from a friend of a friend etc, all of whom get their slice of the action. Seen it happen when you pay the girl 300 baht and then see her give 100 baht to the receptionist and then been told not to forget to give 50 baht to Kuhn Na that is the girls aunty.

We've gone out for an evening and paid 300 baht for the 6 or 7 hours to girls 20+ years old here in Jomtien, and they really appreciate that much, believe me.

I don't think a college degree makes any difference and can't understand why that point has any relevance to employing a babysitter.

On the college degree it is not worth the paper it is written on and the majority of university degrees fall in to the same category.

Thailand's education system is a joke 'period'

[bangarang]

My wife and some friends that have had experience working at a child care department for a athletic resort and their freelance rates about 150-250thb/hr in Phuket (depending on the amount of time) think about how long the commute is for them, if you only need for an hour or 2 then the rate will be high. No one wants to commute for an hour and make less than 100thb, its not worth it. You also have to factor in gas money for car as many of the clients live in the far reaches of the island. The baby sitting companies charge about 350-500thb because insurance is really high. And insurance is super high because Americans love to sue if anything goes wrong.

One thing I can tell you is that if your going to be a cheap-charlie on someone watching your kid, then your not going to get good care. There is a poor local neighbor girl living with her cousins taking care of their child full-time during the day and my thai mom has witnessed her hitting the child on many ocassions. Sooo... best of luck if you want to go cheap... I would make sure the girl is well educated at the very least before hiring.

Edited May 16, 2013 by bangarang

[rcalsop]

we rarely use Baby sitters always took the kids with us to socialise as a family , is not suitable for the kids or kids not welcome we did not do it ! normally on the two occasions we have done it in many years Grandma covered for us .. now the kids are older things are a little more relaxed

However I do have a nephew who looks after the garden watering whilst we are away we do not live full time in Thailand at the moment .he waters feeds the fish cuts the grass, and checks for mail and if the house has not been broken into ... usually after school every day for about one hour I pay him 1000 baht Month .. 750 month by month ,and 250 month balance ( very approx 50 Baht an hour but in there is some travel expense plus it's family support to help a little ..Divorced Mum ..) , when we visit thailand and I check the fish are alive and the grass still green ..

[how241]

300 an hour seems high considering minimum wage is 300 a day. Of course you are talking about someone taking care of your children so paying a little more seems reasonable but a few thousand a day seems a lot.

+1 ... Unless she also takes you of You, at the end of the evening. ha ha

[amykat]

My wife and some friends that have had experience working at a child care department for a athletic resort and their freelance rates about 150-250thb/hr in Phuket (depending on the amount of time) think about how long the commute is for them, if you only need for an hour or 2 then the rate will be high. No one wants to commute for an hour and make less than 100thb, its not worth it. You also have to factor in gas money for car as many of the clients live in the far reaches of the island. The baby sitting companies charge about 350-500thb because insurance is really high. And insurance is super high because Americans love to sue if anything goes wrong.

One thing I can tell you is that if your going to be a cheap-charlie on someone watching your kid, then your not going to get good care. There is a poor local neighbor girl living with her cousins taking care of their child full-time during the day and my thai mom has witnessed her hitting the child on many ocassions. Sooo... best of luck if you want to go cheap... I would make sure the girl is well educated at the very least before hiring.

Oh, come on Bangarang!! You can't possibly believe this do you??

We aren't in America for one thing. Next, I doubt many babysitters have anything worth trying to sue for since they are usually teenagers and if adults doing this work, probably poorer people, and I'm sure 99.9% of babysitting situations in the US, (at your house), do not have any insurance to sue. And sue for WHAT? You would have to suffer ACTUAL damages ..what kind of damages do you think a babysitter could become liable for?? If your babysitter does anything really egregious, it would probably qualify as a criminal act ...like beating your child, or yes, maybe negligent, if your kid drowns, got posoined (with poison the babysitter brought), played with the babysitter's gun and shot themselves, maybe. How many cases are there like this?

You think that raises the prices of insurance in THAILAND? Who or what babysitters would have insurance in Thailand? People barely have insurance for ANYTHING here. (Well I understand you are saying some kind of agency, which may or may not, really have insurance, no matter what they SAY ... but insurance for most things is pretty damn cheap here ...you might consider what killing someone costs here, in a car accident for example, and in the US, the same situation ...many multiples of difference.)

And cheap or not, you will probably end up with, more or less, the same person babysitting. For example, Thai people aren't great with safety issues ...we all know this. It doesn't change if you pay the person, 100 baht an hour, or 3000 baht an hour, they will come and apply the same standards that they tend to have. If you happen to have a swimming pool in your yard, I would probably NEVER employ ANY Thai people to watch my kids. I don't think I need to explain why.

Edited May 16, 2013 by amykat

[SiggiCM]

if you want, I have 2 babysitter here in Chiang Mai, both with university degree, 500 baht for evening, (about 3-4 hours) more you can discuss, good english, ver kind to kids and take care, if you want the telefon number, tell me how to post here, never made this

[bangarang]

>My wife and some friends that have had experience working at a child care department for a athletic resort and their freelance rates about 150-250thb/hr in Phuket (depending on the amount of time) think about how long the commute is for them, if you only need for an hour or 2 then the rate will be high. No one wants to commute for an hour and make less than 100thb, its not worth it. You also have to factor in gas money for car as many of the clients live in the far reaches of the island. The baby sitting companies charge about 350-500thb because insurance is really high. And insurance is super high because Americans love to sue if anything goes wrong.

One thing I can tell you is that if your going to be a cheap-charlie on someone watching your kid, then your not going to get good care. There is a poor local neighbor girl living with her cousins taking care of their child full-time during the day and my thai mom has witnessed her hitting the child on many ocassions. Sooo... best of luck if you want to go cheap... I would make sure the girl is well educated at the very least before hiring.

Oh, come on Bangarang!! You can't possibly believe this do you??

We aren't in America for one thing. Next, I doubt many babysitters have anything worth trying to sue for since they are usually teenagers and if adults doing this work, probably poorer people, and I'm sure 99.9% of babysitting situations in the US, (at your house), do not have any insurance to sue. And sue for WHAT? You would have to suffer ACTUAL damages ..what kind of damages do you think a babysitter could become liable for?? If your babysitter does anything really egregious, it would probably qualify as a criminal act ...like beating your child, or yes, maybe negligent, if your kid drowns, got posoined (with poison the babysitter brought), played with the babysitter's gun and shot themselves, maybe. How many cases are there like this?

You think that raises the prices of insurance in THAILAND? Who or what babysitters would have insurance in Thailand? People barely have insurance for ANYTHING here. (Well I understand you are saying some kind of agency, which may or may not, really have insurance, no matter what they SAY ... but insurance for most things is pretty damn cheap here ...you might consider what killing someone costs here, in a car accident for example, and in the US, the same situation ...many multiples of difference.)

And cheap or not, you will probably end up with, more or less, the same person babysitting. For example, Thai people aren't great with safety issues ...we all know this. It doesn't change if you pay the person, 100 baht an hour, or 3000 baht an hour, they will come and apply the same standards that they tend to have. If you happen to have a swimming pool in your yard, I would probably NEVER employ ANY Thai people to watch my kids. I don't think I need to explain why.

Regarding the whole insurance thing... this is true. Whether you like it or not. My wife in the past had been asked if she had insurance by a resort that was speaking on behalf of some guests because they couldnt speak english. Non agency "freelance" babysitters charge a lot less. If you go through an agency babysit they must have insurance 100% otherwise its illegal and that insurance gets expensive. What are parents going to do if something happens to their child and gets injured? You can still get taken into court in thailand. I dont remember the cost exactly but i remember it was enough to deter my wife from starting up her own daycare shop as I dont have the extra money to pay for that insurance.

The american part was a joke. I am an american and I know that its the land of lawsuits waiting to happen rather than the land of the free. But the high insurance rates is true because the agency is liable for your child. Thats why the agencies charge so much, believe it or not. But dont expect much service from someone without a university degree that has to commute an hour to and from your place for only 30thb an hour. If thats the case you better leave your nanny cam on.

500-700thb should be a fair price for all day though, at least in phuket.

Personally I would never employ anyone to look after my child, but if my thai mom cant look after her then I will just stay in.

[diz]

For 300 Bath an hour my wife would do it too (or me)!

No university degree but she speaks English, German, Swiss-German, Spanish, Thai and Akha.

Btw. just saw a babysitter service today behind Big C Don Chan. I think it's 60 bath / hour and they have a lot toys and soft covered floors and walls.

[bangarang]

For 300 Bath an hour my wife would do it too (or me)!

No university degree but she speaks English, German, Swiss-German, Spanish, Thai and Akha.

Btw. just saw a babysitter service today behind Big C Don Chan. I think it's 60 bath / hour and they have a lot toys and soft covered floors and walls.

Should have been more clear... I was referring to the baby sitters coming to your house, not dropping the little rugrats off.

Whats the difference between swiss-german and german? Same kind of comparrison to American and British English? I always assumed the Swiss just spoke German. (dont hate... thats the kind of stuff they teach us in the US. so im curious)

Edited May 16, 2013 by bangarang

[HerbalEd]

My wife and some friends that have had experience working at a child care department for a athletic resort and their freelance rates about 150-250thb/hr in Phuket (depending on the amount of time) think about how long the commute is for them, if you only need for an hour or 2 then the rate will be high. No one wants to commute for an hour and make less than 100thb, its not worth it. You also have to factor in gas money for car as many of the clients live in the far reaches of the island. The baby sitting companies charge about 350-500thb because insurance is really high. And insurance is super high because Americans love to sue if anything goes wrong.

One thing I can tell you is that if your going to be a cheap-charlie on someone watching your kid, then your not going to get good care. There is a poor local neighbor girl living with her cousins taking care of their child full-time during the day and my thai mom has witnessed her hitting the child on many ocassions. Sooo... best of luck if you want to go cheap... I would make sure the girl is well educated at the very least before hiring.

Giving extra money don'

[bangarang]

My wife and some friends that have had experience working at a child care department for a athletic resort and their freelance rates about 150-250thb/hr in Phuket (depending on the amount of time) think about how long the commute is for them, if you only need for an hour or 2 then the rate will be high. No one wants to commute for an hour and make less than 100thb, its not worth it. You also have to factor in gas money for car as many of the clients live in the far reaches of the island. The baby sitting companies charge about 350-500thb because insurance is really high. And insurance is super high because Americans love to sue if anything goes wrong.

One thing I can tell you is that if your going to be a cheap-charlie on someone watching your kid, then your not going to get good care. There is a poor local neighbor girl living with her cousins taking care of their child full-time during the day and my thai mom has witnessed her hitting the child on many ocassions. Sooo... best of luck if you want to go cheap... I would make sure the girl is well educated at the very least before hiring.

Giving extra money don'

not sure what that is supposed to mean...

and stumbled across this agency...

phuketbabysitting.com

Minimum charge for bookings is 3 hours of care at between 900 – 1300 baht depending on specific times and locations of assignments.

[yankee99]

Come off it - usual charges for someone taking care of someone else's baby for a month in Thailand is THB 3,500-5,000. And that includes clothes and food...!

To my knowledge, the going hourly rate for a 7-Eleven employee is still something like THB 25...!!!

complete rubbish!!!!!

Its at least 8000 up with food , clothes and room...

[rotary]

B300 per hour you should have a line outside the house that goes all the way around the Moo Baan.

[fire and ice]

To have a college degree they must have studied in the USA or Canada, I dont knwo of any other country that has "college" degrees.

[dieter1]

f.e. "technical colleges " and others....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_and_colleges_in_Thailand

[kdw512]

As far as I know there are 2 rates in Bangkok: 10,000 bht/mon for farang families, or 2 - 4,000 bht/month for the non-farang. The level of care is the same as most Thai females genuinely like children. The English language however, is a must so parents can communicate with their nannies. I would never leave my children with someone I couldn't talk with. It's hard to find English speaking nannies, therefore the $ difference here. For hourly-rate we pay 500 - 1000 baht per evening, depending on how long we stay out.

[Ringmybells]

if you want, I have 2 babysitter here in Chiang Mai, both with university degree, 500 baht for evening, (about 3-4 hours) more you can discuss, good english, ver kind to kids and take care, if you want the telefon number, tell me how to post here, never made this

I am not sure if you can PM me here...I desperately need sitters who charge me a reasonable rate. We usually go out less than 4-5 hours and would love to pay 100 bt/hr + food and cab fare. Thanks.

[NCFC]

I know a middle-aged Thai lady with grown up kids who charges 600baht day in the Bangkok area.