Mum offers to pay babysitter $1000 to take care of her kids on flight

Children and long haul flights can be a disastrous combination – but one mum has come up with a unique solution to settle her pre-flight nerves. She is offering $1000 to anyone willing to help her look after her three young children on a 24 hour flight from London to Sydney.

But there's a catch – you need to book and pay for the flight yourself.

UK mum Rachel, whose children are four-years-old, two-years-old, and two-months-old, issued her desperate plea for a "babysitter in the sky" in a number of Facebook groups for Aussies living and working in London.

"I'll be travelling alone with my three children so really need someone to help me," she explained.

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She says that her children have done well on long flights before, but that she now has one extra baby and won't have her husband to help her.

The mum says the types of things the lucky candidate would be expected to help with include entertaining her older daughters, helping them with their meals, holding the baby and putting it to sleep so that mum can spend some time with her older daughters, and more.

"It's a 23.5 hour flight so essentially that's $42 an hour however I would not expect you to be helping out with the kids for 24 hours straight! Whenever the older girls are asleep you wouldn't need to do anything and even when they're awake I am happy for them to watch as much TV as they like so all you might need to do then is make sure headphones don't fall off, put on next movie etc. I will also do as much as I can, but I'll have the baby to look after as well," she said.

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Speaking to Ben Fordham on his radio show this morning Rachel said she had not yet found the successful candidate, but several people had contacted her providing counter-offers.

The mum says she is willing to consider any such offers.

"I haven't said no to any of them because I'd rather have something than nothing," said Rachel.