Babysitting Cooperatives - Good Idea?

Hi Everyone,

My wife and I are looking into babysitting cooperatives between friends/coffee groups/school parents etc and we wondering if anyone does this?

It is something that seems quite popular overseas but we haven’t come across it too much in New Zealand. We thought it is a great opportunity for parents to get free babysitting by looking after another parent’s child in exchange for a token per hour of sitting that is then traded with another parent for the same within the group.

It’s essentially a bartering system within a group of parents you know/trust to save money and get the ease of have a collective group of members who you can rely on to babysit for one another.

The thought then developed into an idea for a website that would facilitate a booking system between members and track the trading of points. We asked around our friends and got a reasonably good response but we are interested to know if other parents have ever been in a babysitting cooperative or would be interested in using one.

We would appreciate your thoughts on the idea of babysitting cooperatives – good, bad or stupid idea.

Thanks heaps!