• With the Baby Bank you can ask all your friends to babysit for you by sending one simple request. The Baby Bank then e-mails or sends a text to all of your friends asking them if they can babysit. If someone can, they accept, and if they can't, they don't need to do anything. The Baby Bank will also make sure that your friend gets rewarded with points for babysitting, and you are debited points for requesting a babysitter. This will help keep things fair between your friends.

1. You set up a group and invite your friends to join - by doing this you are creating a babysitting circle. You can have multiple groups or circles - one might be for your neighbours, another might be for your fellow nursery mums.
2. Your friends are sent an e-mail telling them that you have invited them to join your babysitting circle. They need to use their e-mail address and the temporary password which is included in the e-mail to log-on. They will then be prompted to change their password and provide their telephone numbers*.
3. When you register you will also be prompted to register for the text message service as well. Registering for the text message service means that every time you request a babysitter, a text message will be sent to your chosen group and anyone can accept the request by responding to the message, making it quicker for you to find a babysitter. You will be charged £1.50 for each babysitting request made by text**.
4. When you want to request a babysitter, all you have to do is log in and go to the 'Request a Babysitter' page. You then click on the 'start' and 'end' buttons for the time and day you want, select which of your groups you want to ask, add any special requests such as picking the kids up from school, or giving them dinner etc, and click next.
5. The Baby Bank then sends texts and e-mails out to your chosen group of friends asking them to babysit for you. When one of them responds via the website or by sending a text message, the first response will be accepted and The Baby Bank will let you know who is going to babysit (by text and e-mail), and confirms back to that person that their offer to babysit for you has been accepted.
6. Once the babysit has been done you have 48 hours to adjust the actual hours of the babysit otherwise your statement will be automatically updated with the relevant points.

* Please note that we do not ask for addresses as a) we have chosen not to hold sensitive information on-line for your safety and b) we have provided an e-mail capability to allow you to circulate additional information to your group separately if you need to.

** If you decide you don't want to continue to send babysitter requests via text message you can cancel your text registration by texting STOP to 80160.

• Free membership
• £1.50 per 10 members (or less) in your group for each babysitting request if you register for the text service. If not it is free.
• £1.50 per 10 members (or less) in your group when you cancel a babysit you have agreed to do if you have registered for the text service. If not it is free.