Nanny, Daycare, Babysitting costs?

It seems to range from $28-40 per hour. Families tend to add PTO and sick days as well. If you can find a good nanny it’s worth it especially the first 6 months to a year. Just do all the checks because we’ve definitely had our good and bad nanny experiences !

We pay $38 (split across two families) for a nanny share with 2 toddlers. We are in Berkeley. We usually pay $27-35/hr for babysitting. 

If you can wait to move, I definitely would. The bay area has some of the highest childcare costs in the country. Due to the pandemic we mostly bypassed the daycare stage, but we did do it for a year. We were able to find a low budget site in the east bay that worked for us, but it was clearly low budget. Preschool in the area usually starts at age 3. We had an impossible time finding a full-time preschool (as in not just half days) for $2000 a month in Berkeley or El Cerrito areas. The absolute cheapest that we could find was about $2400/month per child. I imagine that SF is closer to $3000/month per child. I have seen some sibling discounts, but it is usually only 200-300 per month less for the second child. This could have changed. We never used a nanny, but rates that I have seen on BPN are about $20-25/per hour for one child and additional $10-15/per hour for the second. Many people do a nanny share but that has other considerations such as who will host, which days the nanny will come or full-time. I have noticed that a lot of families I know space out their children so that only one is in childcare at a time. If not, they usually have a stay at home parent or a family member helping on some days. I wish that we had that.

I can only respond with the info I know, which is babysitting rates (for infant twins - for date nights) will be about $25/hour. And later (after 2 years old) preschool is ~2K / month for full time. And don't worry about car seats in cars! Thieves don't care about car seats. Now diaper bags are another thing - don't leave any bags/backpacks, etc in the car. But it's easy enough! I think living in SF with babies is GREAT - so fun, so walkable, and lots to do. But of course the East Bay is great as well. Good luck! 

Hi- We pay our nanny (we have 1 child, 13 months) $30 per hour and $45 for overtime (time and a half). Seems like industry standard, we've had a few back up caregivers and they all charge the same for nannying. We have a occasional sitter that charges $25 per hour.

We almost did a nanny share and it was going to be $36 per hour for two babies.

We have 14-month old twins. We had a nanny from when they were 5 months old or so until last week and the nanny charged $35/hour. We managed to find two spots at a small in-home daycare and it will be almost half the cost per month, but it was tough to find the spots. We're in Berkeley and we love it here. 

Hi, I think it probably varies a bit depending on city / neighborhood.  I think daycare is about $1400-$2500/month per kid, preschool is $1700-$2600, and babysitting is also really variable depending on the situation.  If the babies are awake, I'd say probably $25/hour is the minimum for twins, with many babysitters charging a lot more.  I've hired teenage babysitters for date nights starting after my daughter is already asleep at $15/hour as well as hired my nextdoor neighbor to watch the monitor for the same.  Another option is exchanging babysitting with another family.

I live in the east bay and pay $1400/month for the licensed home daycare (full time, 8:30-5:30) and the preschools we are looking at are in the $2000/month range.  If we needed to save money we would keep our child in a home daycare setting for longer.  Hope that is helpful.