Like many people, I live far away from my extended family – 120 miles, to be precise. So, any babysitting opportunities from my mum, dad, brothers or sisters in law are pretty much non existent. I have hooked up with local mum friends to do reciprocal babysitting but between work and family life and managing the odd night at the pub ourselves,we manage once or twice a year max. Having any kind of social life with my other half is REALLY HARD, I can count the number of nights out I’ve had with my husband since we became parents on both hands – possibly on one hand. It comes to five or six nights total. When I write it down that’s pretty sad! So, understandably, I was rather excited when I was asked to review Bubble babysitting app for The Motherload®.
Getting started
I downloaded the Bubble app, set up my account (which was super-easy to do) and had a little play and a browse through the babysitters in our area. It was really easy to get the hang of, all the sitters are background checked, have a photo and a profile and reviews. And the brilliant thing about Bubble is that you can use your social and community networks to see which sitters are recommended by friends. I added the school and nursery which my children attend, and The Motherload® so that I could see any babysitters recommended by my Facebook friends, fellow MOLOs, my contacts and people from my real-life community.
Booking a babysitter
Once I had decided on a date for our grand night out, I opened the app, put in the date, time, and duration I would need a sitter for, and up popped 25 available sitters. Amazing! Lots of them were nannies, childcare workers, teachers, students and mums doing babysitting for a little extra cash and the charges ranged from around £9-£12 an hour. I settled on Lauren, a nanny and nursery worker, who sounded lovely and had good reviews. I clicked to submit my request and that was it – easy! I didn’t have to wait long, Lauren confirmed the sit in about a minute and the app sent me a notification to say it was booked. We exchanged messages, which was useful and reassuring. There is also the option to express book, if you need a babysitter at the last minute which is just a great idea.
The big night out!
So date night arrived – it was our first ever night out leaving the kids with a babysitter so I was a little nervous. I exchanged messages with Lauren and had booked for her to come a bit early so we could have a chat and get to know her. She arrived on time, and had an air of calm authority about her. We chatted about the kids (who were fortunately asleep!) and Lauren reassured us that we could text her for as many updates as we needed. She settled in for the night and we skipped out of the door – freedom!
We managed to restrict ourselves to just a couple of texts to check in, and all was well. We arrived home to a quiet house, our bellies full of tapas and wine, and our souls restored by a bit of time as just us, rather than being mummy and daddy. As we said goodbye to Lauren, I clicked on the app to end the sit and it calculated the charge to the minute, added the £3.50 booking fee (there are no sign-up or hidden charges) another click and I had paid the sitter and then I wrote a brief recommendation. The whole process took no more than a minute. Brilliant.
I would definitely use Bubble again and will be inviting my friends to join. There are sitters all around Greater London and it’s growing all the time. There are so many parents around who, like us, don’t have any family around to help out and would benefit from having a trusted circle of babysitters to call on for a night out, or even an extra pair of hands in the morning. I’m looking forward to my next night out with my husband already!
Disclaimer: Bubble app have paid for this review, but as ever, we review any experience on The Motherload® as truthfully as possible in keeping with our ethos.
Image credit: Bubble
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