Back in November, when my only son, Benjamin, was 3 months old, I decided it was time to find a baby sitter. Don’t misunderstand: I am often overcome by how lucky I am to be his mother. Benji is the type of baby who wins over strangers with his pudgy-cheeked charming smile, and a steady, observatory nature. But with my days and nights taken over by diapers and breast milk, I couldn’t remember the last time I had an intelligent conversation with my husband. For our marriage’s sake, it was time to go out, sans baby. Finding someone both trustworthy and financially reasonable enough to leave my child with has proved to be one of the more difficult twists of new motherhood. I was surprised at how much had changed since the early ’90s when I was a baby sitter, making $5 an hour to sit for two kids. Of course, that was in Detroit, not New York, and the children I baby-sat for were school-age. We watched Nickelodeon and slurped Popsicles, and I put them to bed with a story. It wasn’t that hard. But I don’t have school-age children yet — I have an infant.

My first baby sitter, who turned out to be a disaster, lived in my building. From the day we brought our disarmingly blue-eyed, 6-pound baby home from the hospital, the older woman would croon, “Oh, beautiful, beautiful,” every time she saw us. As a safety precaution, I checked with a couple of the long-timers in the building about her character and then had her come play with him in my apartment while I cooked and cleaned for a dinner party.

She did fine, so I decided to trust her alone for a couple hours with Benji on a Sunday afternoon, agreeing to pay the $15 an hour she asked for. As I waited for her to knock on my door, I played with my baby pensively, surprised to find tiny flutters of nervousness in my stomach. When I answered the knock at the door, the stout brown-haired woman had a cheerful smile on her face. “Oh, beautiful!” she cackled to Benji, who, true to his nature, examined her carefully. After showing the woman where everything was and kissing my baby goodbye, we left, nervousness squashed by immense relief. Two hours later, we returned to find out that all had not been well. While we were gone, the baby sitter had decided to “run up to her apartment for a minute” while Benjamin was napping in his crib. Since she didn’t have a key to our apartment and our door locked automatically, she had her own grown son, who lived with her, hold our door open. Somehow, he had let the door close, and the baby sitter had to call our super to break the locks and open our door. Our baby had been alone in his crib in the apartment “not long,” the baby sitter said when I pressed her. I realistically estimated it to be somewhere between 15 minutes and an hour. Needless to say, that woman never baby-sat for us again.

After that first horrible experience, I swore off baby sitters forever. Phil and I determinedly ordered takeout and watched movies on cable after we put Benjamin to bed. We told ourselves it was just the same as going out, as long as the baby was sleeping. Eventually, though, “forever” got old, and I decided I had to try again, this time only using baby sitters who came via direct recommendation. My second attempt at finding a baby sitter was, thankfully, very successful. She started out all business. “I charge time and a half on weekends,” the young lady I met in an adult education class announced. The class had childcare available to participants, and she was the class sitter. I noticed when the woman changed my son’s diaper without being asked, and how her gentle manner made him smile and laugh. After getting a rave review about her from the class instructor, who uses her often, I pounced on my opportunity and asked for her phone number.

My baby sitter, who is in her early 20s and married, charges me the bargain price of $12 an hour because I live in Brooklyn, like her. For her Manhattan clients, she charges $15 an hour, a rate I find to be fairly typical for one child in New York City. Weekends and weeknights past 11 p.m. are time and a half.

My first bad experience was definitely not typical, but to find truly good childcare in New York City, the bar is set high. In the new television show “Cashmere Mafia,” the character Zoe, played by Frances O’Connor, agreed to pay her new nanny $900 a week, including perks such as a Metro-Card, cell phone with unlimited texting, and a television with premium channels in her room — and this is after Zoe’s first nanny is “poached” with more money from the neighbors.

In my naïveté, I felt aggressive to be propositioning a potential baby sitter the way I did, but I have since learned that my behavior was typical. “I approach teenage girls on the street,” one perky mother in my Mommy and Baby yoga class said. Apparently, scores of girls congregate outside certain establishments in my neighborhood. “It felt strange at first, but I find them to be pretty receptive,” the mother said.

Sometimes the baby sitter approaches you. As I was chatting with my mothers’ group at a Park Slope restaurant, a cheery camp counselor-type bounded over to our table. “Hi, I heard you talking about baby sitters,” she said. “I’m a nanny looking for work, so I thought I’d say hello.” After gathering a few phone numbers from us, she moved on.

For those with the time to reciprocate, there are baby-sitting cooperatives. One woman raved about the co-op she created in her building. Participants receive free baby-sitting equal to the amount of hours they baby-sit for the other co-op members. This works if you enjoy baby-sitting for other people’s children, and trust the other members of the co-op with yours.

For now, my husband and I love our baby sitter. She does a great job taking care of our son, and she is reliable. We go out on Thursday nights, not Saturday nights, to avoid her higher weekend rate, and the arrangement is not so bad. One day I would like to go back to weekend dates, but I don’t see things changing anytime soon.

I am a bit concerned about our situation, though. Because we pay less than her Manhattan customers, there is the possibility our baby sitter will leave us. Provided she keeps doing her job well, if she asks for more money, I will absolutely pay it. I don’t have the energy to hunt for baby sitters again.

Ms. Davis Bak is a writer living in Brooklyn. Sara Berman is on maternity leave.