Finding a babysitter is tough. I lucked out when my daughter was young because we had two girls who lived on our street who liked to babysit. We always paid $5 an hour since we had one child and she was pretty self sufficient at the time -- I think she was 5 or 6 when we started using neighborhood girls. Some people pay $10 per hour but they have multiple children. Most of the time I relied on friends and family who didn't expected to be paid, thank God :)
Now my daughter is a certified babysitter who loves kids. She is very eager to make money on the weekends and over the summer. I'd be interested to find out from moms with young children what they think the best way is to connect certified babysitters to young families in the city. Like in our case, my daughter wants to "work" but I am concerned for her safety and linking her with families and kids that will treat her well, too. Love to hear others thoughts on this topic.

It's tough to find a baby sitter. We don't go out much. But when we did, we would always use a girl that lived on our street. For 1 child we would pay $5.00 an hour. For 3 kids we would pay $12.00 to $15.00 an hour depending on what time it was. I would have liked to find someone who knew first aid or cpr. My son has a blood disorder so it's hard to leave him. We are lucky these days we have an older son who watches the littler ones if we need to go out somewhere.

My husband and I are not from around here, so we don't have any family members to help out. We are so lucky to live on a street with lots of wonderful babysitters within walking distance! When our first son was born 6 years ago, the girls were all eager to babysit, but they were 10, 11, and 12 years old. I started them out as mother's helpers - just coming over to give me a hand while I was at home. This way they got used to the baby, the baby got used to them, and I got used to a babysitter!

Before long, we felt comfortable leaving the baby (now babies) home with the sitter after they had fallen asleep. That soon evolved into them putting the kids to sleep, and now, six years later and a total of 3 kids, our sitters are responsible teen agers who know my kids well and are able to make dinner, give baths, and put everyone to bed competently.

I always ask the girls what they charge, and pay accordingly, up to $10/hour. Therefore, our rates vary from babysitter to babysitter. We give raises, and with raises more responsibility (i.e. if I'm paying $10/hr, please make sure the dinner dishes are put in the dishwasher).

My husband and I go out nearly every Saturday night, and I usually go out one night during the week with friends. Also, anytime I have a doctor's appointment or something like that, I need a sitter as well. So the kids are well versed in having surrogate care, and I'm sure we've paid the first year of college tuition for a few of these girls!

And to continue my ramble....we often lose babysitters to their social lives as they get older, or by sharing their names with my friends, their availability is cut down. I am always eager to meet their friends and always take their names and numbers if they are interested in babysitting.

I also always ask people the kids interact with anyway if they are interested in babysitting, e.g. swimming teacher, childwatch workers, etc.

www.sittercity.com is a great website that connects you with people that really want to babysit (or pet sit), their rates are listed and the site has an option where you can do background checks (for a fee). I found that exchanging emails with these people would indicate whether I wanted them caring for my children- I would invite them over to meet (and evaluate), plus they could meet my kids. When you set up your profile you can stipulate all sorts of things for special needs, etc.
On the site you can post specifically what kind of babysitting you need (daily, night-shift, only Saturday night...). Every job I ever posted would generate dozens of responses and I always ended up with someone that I would bring back time & again. There is a monthly fee (about $10), but once you get a few phone numbers it's totally worth it.
I used sitter city in 2 states and had good results in both places.

Care.com is another great resource... I posted a free classified "ad" describing my situation (children with multiple severe allergies) and what I needed in a caregiver and I got more than 10 responses almost immediately and another 15 or so over the next day. I opted not to "upgrade" for $35 which meant I did not have access to the contact information for each reply which was frustrating... I did not realize when I first signed up that I would need to pay to reply to those who applied for the job. Still, there were a lot of great caregivers who replied and it would be great for someone to find qualified babysitters (and even in-home day care) if they did not have access to family.
That being said, we rely on my parents for 99% of our babysitting when we have (too infrequent) date nights. Because of the added concern of multiple allergies (and frequent outbreaks/attacks), we usually keep one child and send the other for a "sleepover," but they have occasionally taken both kids to give us an evening together.
The other 1% of the time, we have a high school student from across the street watch the kids, but I'd only do that for an hour or two in a pinch.