Hi
Looking to find a babysitter so me and my wife can go out and have dinner to ourselves occasionally. Anyone know where to look and what sort of rates to expect to pay? My wife only had few replies where she posted and some of their rates seemed rather high.
We are in Taoyuan if that helps.
Thanks.
I used to remember friends paying me about 1000nt for this. I think that’s the going rate for one night.
We found through Facebook groups, when we need it few years ago.
Unless you only want some with reference. Then better ask friends or wait for more people to reply here.
BTW, I’m glad to hear you and your wife are trying to find time for yourselves. It’s really important if you want to improve things between you two. 
Thanks
It will be good to have a few hours to ourselves. My wife put up a post online, So far not a lot of success, we had a few replies but with rates of > 500 per hour.
One person came and seemed good but then bailed on us on the day twice after that.
per kid?
To be honest the replies were in Chinese and most of my discussion was over total price. I am not sure we got a reply with a toal price of 500 per hour. It is my wife who came to the conclusion that it would be > 500 per hour total.
That is why I am asking what other people know as the going rate as a quick google search can give an indication for other countries but I am lost when it comes to here.
I’ve never asked babysitter, but from what I’ve seen online, 500 / hr in total is almost the low end, and 500 / hr per kid is close to the high end.
You have 3 kids, right?
Hee is a reference for rates in Chinese.
That’s good info!
Thanks for sharing!
Also, when looking for a babysitter, try to find one who had taken the certification course. Your kids will be in better hands.
Also invest in some IP cams and let the babysitter know you have them and will be checking in.
Good idea.
Or some old smartphones can also do the job.
If it’s just infants and they’ll be in bed, then pay a friend 1000nt to make sure nothing bad happens.
If they gotta play with the kids and all that then put them in bed (which is like herding cats), then 500 per hour per child would be the going rate.
If you just want to pay someone 150nt an hour for this… then you get what you pay for.
That much, really? When I was in high school I was paid about US$15-$20/hour when I babysat lawyer/ ER doctor family kids. That was in the US, 15ish years ago. It was considered quite good. Inflation would mean you could double that, if you’re loaded and living in the US.
If it’s NT$500/hr/kid I should start babysitting and quit teaching.
The problem is that vast majority of Taiwanese would never pay NT$500 per hour for a babysitting service, since they rely heavily on family to look after children when the parents are working or out. The only people paying for such a service are foreigners without family in Taiwan, rich people who don’t care, and a very small group of Taiwanese with no family able to help. You also have to consider that most outcall babysitting jobs are likely only available for a short period, perhaps around 7 to 11PM, meaning that anyone becoming a professional babysitter can only work for a few hours a day, so they have to charge more in order to survive.
AFAIK, you have to be licensed to babysit babies, my wife’s friend babysits a few infants in her home every day, almost like a private nursery, and she said that it is not a straightforward process to get licensed. She has a degree in early child care, and also had to do an exam.
Is she a nanny or babysitter?
Hired babysitters are rare here. Like you said, most Taiwanese rely on family. Same with foreigners married to locals. Family are the only ones trusted to watch kids for a few hours so parents can go out alone. Very rarely friends will be asked to help. And almost never a nonrelated person will be hired to ”babysit”.
Don’t know the difference in English. She is a 保姆.
Its a market scarcity thing: it is very difficult to find this kind of help here. It is quite lucrative, hence the proliferation of anchingbans and buxibans.
I think babysitting isn’t really a thing here, so you are more or less paying a tutoring fee, which is 500+ and closer to 1000. In Taipei we’ve found two young women who do ‘tutoring’ with our kids, of varying quality (one is quite good the other so-so) and we use that time to nap or run errands but aren’t totally turning them over for hours at a time.
I have a 12 old and wonder if babysitting could maybe be a job for him in a few years. He’s done red cross training and is responsible. I worry about the legality in Taipei though. It is very different from the past–my spouse babysat for little kids at age 11 
I started babysitting at age 11. That’s when the Red Cross allows babysitter certification, which I think I got through my Girl Scout troop… at 11 I was mostly just sitting on someone’s couch while the kid took their nap and the parents ran errands, but in retrospect I was just very fortunate to have never had anything happen — I’ve taught 11 year olds, and I would never want to leave them with a small child and no adult.
Thanks–I kind of assumed there was a law about this, where one needs to be 20, be inspected, have various qualifications and so on. It looks like the law doesn’t apply to English teaching, tutoring, etc., but in those cases other laws apply.
I have mixed feelings. All of our babysitters (in the US and here, and there haven’t been a ton) have been 18-20 and we’ve paid in the realm of $12-20 US/hour for our kids. I think it’s a bit of a bummer that for non-local kids (and in practice for local kids) there are basically no jobs like this in the high school years.
At 12 I feel like our kid can be left alone now for longer stretches of time, including short periods watching siblings.