A babysitter co-op allows parents to exchange babysitting services without paying cash. Members must be willing to both ask for and donate services, and agree on rules and organization. Babysitting tokens are exchanged based on agreed-upon hours, and consequences for lateness or multiple children should be established. Co-ops work best with similar parenting ideals, schedules, and clear rules. Groups should not exceed 20 parents.
A basitter co-op can be a great way for parents to get the occasional help from basitters without paying cash. This type of group requires a lot of organization and agreed upon rules to be successful. It is also required that whoever joins the cooperative is willing not only to ask for basitter services but also to donate them.
The size and organization of a basitter cooperative is important. Most have at least five parents to begin with, and these parents can be found quite close to each other. At the beginning of each month, parents are given a certain amount of Babysitter Tokens. These may just be old chips.
Each chip can represent an hour or half an hour of babysitting. Parents must decide not only how many hours they want to babysit, but also how many hours they are willing to babysit. This means that the number of chips can depend on an agreed amount of monthly childcare hours each member can expect to give and receive.
When a parent needs a basitter, call members of the babysitting co-op to see who is available. Then she will pay the sitting parent’s tokens based on the babysitting total. In order for this parent to continue to get basitter services, he must earn chips by babysitting for others in the co-op. A more organized approach to the basitter co-op is to have parents assigned weekly shifts so other parents know who is available at any given time during the week. This constant trading of chips can mean that most parents have access to babysitting services on a regular basis.
The babysitting co-op can work best when all the rules are planned in advance. Groups should agree on the consequences if parents are late picking up children or if babysitting multiple children (say a friend’s five children) is more expensive in chips than babysitting two children. The group may also want to establish a code of conduct for basitters and ask people to get training in things like infant and child CPR.
If a babysitting co-op gets too big, parents may no longer know who they are leaving their children with. Some people who have organized these co-ops suggest that there should be no more than 20 parents in the co-op. A larger number of parents wishing to participate should possibly form a second group. There are also some basic concerns about leaving your children with people you don’t know well. Keeping the co-op smaller and getting to know all the parents involved can help allay these concerns.
There are definite advantages to forming a cooperative of basitters. It can mean that parents can have some free time without having to hand out money for it. These groups tend to be successful when the parents have similar parenting ideals, similar schedules, and know each other well. Co-ops do even better when very clear rules are established about how the co-op will work in the beginning. Parents need to understand that the babysitting co-op can only work if they agree to give as much as they get babysitting services.
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