Find a babysitter in Sydney: where to look, and what to check first

Most Sydney families find their first babysitter through somebody they already know, and their second through wherever they looked in a hurry. This guide is the version you would do on purpose: where sitters actually are, what each of those places checks for you (mostly nothing), and how to get from a stranger's name to someone you would leave the house for. It is written for casual evenings and the odd weekday. A regular weekly arrangement is a different job, and how to hire a nanny in Sydney covers that one.

Decide what you are looking for

The search goes faster once you can say it in one line: Saturday evening, 6pm to 11pm, two children aged three and six, in Marrickville. That line tells you where to look, and it is the whole first message when you get there.

The shape matters more than people expect. An occasional evening and a set of hours every Tuesday and Thursday attract different people, and in NSW they sit on different sides of a legal line. A regular, ongoing arrangement in your home is nanny work, the sitter needs a Working With Children Check, and you are the one expected to verify it. An evening here and there, arranged privately, is not. The babysitter vs nanny guide walks that line. If what you want is the Tuesday and Thursday version, read that first, because the rest of this guide is about the evening.

Where Sydney parents actually find sitters

There are five routes, and none of them does the checking for you. What differs is how much you already know about the person when their name arrives.

The strongest lead is a sitter another family has already used, because somebody you trust has run the trial you are about to run. Ask at school pick-up and at the daycare gate. Educators at your child's centre often babysit on weekends, or know who does, and a sitter who already knows your child's name is a rare thing. Some centres have a policy on staff sitting for families, so ask rather than assume.

A post in a suburb parents' group on Facebook is how a large share of casual babysitting in Sydney gets arranged, and it works: sitters post their availability, parents post their Saturday, and replies come within hours. What you get is a name and a phone number. You do not get any checks, any history, or any way to tell a sitter who has done this fifty times from one who has done it never. Everything in the rest of this guide applies to a group lead exactly as it does to a stranger, because that is what they are.

A marketplace is the third route, and this is one. Every profile on AusBabysitters is public, with the suburb, the ages they have looked after, their rate where they have set one, and whether we have verified them. Babysitters in Sydney lists them closest first, your own suburb page does the same from your door, and you message whoever you like without giving out your number. We do not take a booking fee and we never touch the money. Search Sydney and see who is near you.

A babysitting agency sends someone from its own books, usually with a minimum booking of a few hours and an agency fee on top of the hourly rate, and it will have verified the sitter's Check and usually asks for first aid. You are paying for the vetting and for not having to do any of the below. That is a fair trade for an emergency; it is an expensive way to find a regular Saturday night.

Then there is everywhere else: the noticeboard at the library, a university's student job board, the neighbour's teenager. These still work, and the same rule applies. You have a name, and the checking is still ahead of you.

Give yourself a week

A Saturday night sitter found on the Saturday is a sitter nobody else booked, and that is a lottery rather than a plan. Start a week out if you can. It leaves room for one message, one reply, a quick call, and a check, and it leaves room to say no to someone and try again.

Same-day searches do work, sometimes. The families they work for almost always have a short list of people who have been before, and the search is three texts. If you have no list yet, the point of this guide is to build one, and the way to build one is to start before you are desperate.

The first message

Send the whole thing at once. Drip-feeding questions across a day of replies wastes the sitter's time and yours, and the speed and shape of one reply tells you a lot.

The rate goes in the first message because it removes the awkward end to the evening. What Sydney families are paying for casual sitting, and what moves it up or down, is in babysitter rates in Sydney; most casual evenings land between $25 and $40 an hour, and more children or a late finish move it.

The questions worth asking, and what a good answer sounds like, are in questions to ask a babysitter. Two of the five belong in every first message: which ages they have looked after most, and two families you can ring.

Check what can be checked

Once someone has replied and you like the reply, spend two minutes on the part that does not depend on anyone's opinion.

If they hold a Working With Children Check, ask for the number and their surname and verify it on the Office of the Children's Guardian's site. It is free, it is public, and how to check a babysitter's WWCC is the step by step, including what each result means. A sitter who sends the number without being asked twice is telling you something too.

If they do not hold one, that is normal for casual sitting in NSW and not a reason to walk away on its own. Under 18, they cannot hold one at all. What it means is that references and the first booking are carrying the whole load, so ring one of the two families rather than just collecting the names. The question that works is whether they would have them back.

First aid is worth asking about and not worth insisting on for an evening sitter. The course parents recognise is HLTAID012, the one childcare educators hold, and a sitter who has it will say so.

The first booking

Make it short, and be somewhere you can get back from. An hour or two while you are at a neighbour's tells you more than any reply, and it gives the sitter a low-stakes first go at your children too. Ask them to come ten minutes early so the briefing is not shouted from the door.

Pay the agreed rate on the night, in full, however the evening went. If you would not have them back, say thank you and do not book again; there is no version of this where you owe someone feedback on their childcare. If you would, say so before they leave, because the good ones fill up.

Keep two or three

One babysitter is a plan that fails the first time they are sick. Two is a plan. Three, and the Saturday-morning search stops being a search: you text the list, somebody says yes, and the children get someone they already know.

Building the list is just doing the above more than once, and spreading the bookings so each sitter knows your house. It is also the honest answer to "how do I find a last-minute babysitter in Sydney": you found them a month ago.

What we do, and what is yours

Sitters here say which kind of work they want, casual babysitting or regular ongoing work, and plenty say both. Their profile carries their suburb, their rate and their own words, and families nearest to them see it first. We check ID and WWCC status for sitters who opt in. Profiles without a badge say which of the two checks is outstanding.

The rest is yours. We do not screen for competence, we do not place anyone, we never touch the money, and sitters keep all of what you agree. The message, the phone call, the check and the short first booking are the parts nobody can do for you, and they are the parts that make the difference between a name and a babysitter.