Nanny with own child, would you hire?

I am a nwoc. I was offered the job as the family thought it would be beneficial for their only child to have a playmate, the children are a similar age. It has worked very well for all of us. The children love seeing each other and my child is very loving and kind to my charge. My child was breastfed, if they both needed feeding at the same time I would lie them on a pillow on my knee and feed my child while holding my charge and bottle with the other arm.

I took my 7 month old baby, back to my nannying job, after maternity leave. I had 4 charges and my baby. It worked perfectly, my little boy just mucked in with everyone else. I think I am a much better nanny since having children

As a nanny employer I would only go for NWOC If there were little alternative. Doubly so with young babies. There are a lot of down sides and precious little upside.

I've had 3 nannies and there two that were already Mums were definitely the better ones, better at feedback at what they did during the day and they were more realistic about what taking care of a child is, taking the child out to activities and doing things that were more fun for them. It kinds of depends on what you expect a nanny to do, for example cleaning would be more of a challenge if you have two babies about, but I'm not too bothered about a nanny doing cleaning I'd rather them to be taken to baby groups and doing a bit of socializing.

I wouldn't be forking out for a second buggy and I would offer £10 per hour instead.

What I meant by my children fitting in , is that my children would have swimming dancing etc not on work days . But they would have to watch the minded child swim every week .

As for food I used to take some yoghurts with me or some snacks. Doesn't cost much more to feed another child .
I think it depends on the nanny and child to be honest, and would give it a try. I was a far better nanny after I became a mother.

my mother took me to work with her i had a great time playing with children around my age.The woman she worked for had 3 children one of them autistic my mother did a fine job.But they were older children but still mothers are good at multi tasking.2 children seems fine to me,my mother paid for me

I did this as a nanny and, for me and the family, it worked well. My DS was 3mths younger than my nanny charge but they slotted in to the same routine and enjoyed the same activities. It's not for everyone and I think you need to make sure you're on the same page in regards to routines, food, discipline, behaviour etc.

My boss was extremely laid back and lovely to work for. She always insisted I treated both children the same, as you would siblings, rather than putting her DC first. She had a travel cot so I used that for DS and I provided a double buggy that fit in my car. She always provided food for DS. If I took the kids to toddler groups, I'd pay for one group and she paid for the other. I paid for DS to do a music class and she paid for her DC. She was a GP and would occasionally get delayed with a patient. Knowing I didn't have to rush off to pick up my child from a CM, meant she didn't have to stress about being late.

Pay wise, I fully expected to take a pay cut as it was saving me at least £5 an hour in Childcare myself. However, she offered me the top amount that she'd put in the ad due to my experience. It's always worth negotiating with the nanny so it's beneficial to you as well as her.

Yes I would :)

Worked really well for us - children learned to share, Nanny was far more reliable than a younger one with an active social life and we are all still great friends years later. I much prefer a home environment to a nursery environment for younger children though.

I wouldn't consider it with that age difference. My highly experienced nanny brings her ten year old boy along during the holidays at no reduction in fee. He plays beautifully with my younger children - they love him- but he also is old enough to play with his iPad etc when they are doing something he doesn't enjoy.

I had a nanny with her own child for over a year and there was a two month difference between mine and her child. Started at 6 months to nearly 2 years old. It didn't work for us as there were many differences between the two. Her child ate different food, was more difficult to put down for naps, was pushing and hitting mine and generally quite bad behaviour which I think came from wanting attention as knew they were sharing their mummy. My child couldn't go to playdates as they had to leave from her child hitting others.
Along with this we were not free to do the activities we wanted such as swimming, music classes as she didn't want to pay for her own or couldn't manage with two at the same time.
We let her go eventually and hired a nanny who can focus her complete attention on our child, respond to her needs and schedule. Our child is absolutely thriving now.
The salary difference between them wasn't worth the complications and stress. We paid around 8.20 net for with child and 10.50 net without.

I would.
£12 gross is a reduction already for experienced nanny in London. Most are asking £12-14 net now (£15+ gross). So that's already a saving

You can always hire her on a 6 month review bases so she understands it needs to continue to work.

It also didn't work for us, but I had three children by then and an extra small one was just too much work.

However, it may work, but you need to be getting something out of it too. I'd also offer a reduction in salary as your child will not have 100% of the attention of your nanny - around £10/hr gross?

You also need to address the food issue, which won't be a big issue now, but will be if it works in the future. Maybe one week you provide food and the following week the nanny does..or the nanny brings all her own child's food.

I would also second the 6 month review; whilst the set up may work at the moment, in 6/12 months time it may not. You may decide that you want your child to swim or go to a class where 1-1 supervision is required, they may end p with very different sleep patterns that keep your child in the house when otherwise they'd be out somewhere.

The other thing I would put in the contract is that your nanny is responsible for breakages caused by their child.

If you decide it isn't for you, at £12/hour gross you can get your own nanny.

You need to get something out of it - I would suggest a 25% drop in salary from whatever is the going rate. Also contract to say that ability to bring child is reviewable every six months - then see how it goes.

I think this could be a really fantastic thing. I'm a childminder and I look after a little girl who is now 2, but I have looked after most of her life. I can honestly say that I love her like my own.
You can always have a trial period and see if it works out, what is the harm in trying?
Also, to the PP who said that your child will always be hearing 'that's my mummy, not yours' I think that's bollocks. 1) that would be a very unkind thing to say that nanny would obviously nip in the bud and 2) if the children grow up together then I can't see why the nanny's own child would suddenly become jealous enough to motivate saying something like that?
Also, as there are only two of them, I struggle to believe that an experienced nanny won't be able to deal with them if she is breastfeeding at the same time, first time mum or not and I say this with vast experience.

In theory BF is easy by 6 months but mine were both very distractible (sp?) at that age so feeds took a lot longer than they needed to and were tricky in public ... and I certainly couldn't feed them while pushing them in the buggy... (is it really irresponsible to give a bottle to a baby in a buggy, I see that all the time?) Anyway, this is a massive tangent! I think the BF is the least of the issues tbh.

minipie I agree establishing breastfeeding is hard and the support is shocking; the baby will be nearly 6 months though and by then it's all benefits, no costs.

It's irresponsible to stick a bottle in a baby's mouth and leave them unsupervised, I doubt any nanny would do that.

We didn't it, and sadly it wasn't a success for us. The nanny in question left because she wouldn't take our daughter to nursery in the afternoons as it wouldn't fit with her child's schedule. She also left my then just two year old in the living room for 45 minutes one morning while settling her child to sleep upstairs. It just wasn't ideal which was a shame as in paper we had the same parenting styles. I think she underestimated how hard it would be to give her own child less than perfect care in order to look after another child. As did we.

We had a nanny share before that, which was brilliant so if there's any way of doing that with another local family, that would be my choice.

Moo I'm a big BF fan but from 6ish months many bottle fed babies can hold their own bottles which means they can be fed in the buggy en route somewhere, or while sitting in a bouncy chair while the nanny tends to the other child/laundry/cooking.

By the by, it's not a myth that BF is hard work. Loads of women find it bloody difficult because they aren't given the right support and help (or any help). Denying it's hard undermines attempts to fight for more support and help for BFing women. (Not relevant to this nanny who will be over the hard but by now). Tangent over...

You could give it a trial run and see how it goes?

Nope, never. Ive now done it 3 times and its never ended well. Even though i have a 'if your kids wreck my house, you fix it', sometimes its impossible to fix,eg, permanent markers on carpets. Also sometimes kids do not want to share their toys and house with another kid. Also ive had nannys kids who are ill,food allergies,very young and that tends to shape and determine whether she comes to work and what my kids eat.

I've breast fed 3 babies myself as I'm sure many other people in this thread have

Perhaps my DCs are spectacularly badly behaved but I would have real trouble explaining to them as breastfed babies that they needed to just "fit in"

I have 13 months between the 3 and 2 year olds and that was hard enough. You cannot give the level of care commensurate with a £12 an hour salary whilst breastfeeding (or bottle feeding) your own child, given the age gaps.

Breastfed babies are so portable, not sure how anyone could think that's a downside. Presumably bottle fed babies need the adult to sit with them to feed them too, how is a breastfed baby going to be harder? They're proven to be calmer as they're less prone to colic, and they don't need sterilisers/bottles preparing. We've got to stop spreading the myth that breastfeeding is hard work.

OP There's the added benefit that anyone breastfeeding at nearly 6 months is likely to lean towards AP, you might find she's a sling user too in which case her baby will most likely be in a sling a lot so she can chase the older child about.

I considered this but wrote it off for a number of reasons.

1. I don't think a nanny will form as strong a bond with my child if her own is the same age and right there (different if she had school age kids)

2. my DD was/is not an easy child. I worried that if the nanny's child was easy, mine would look worse because of the comparison, and if the nanny's child was also difficult, she would struggle to cope (this applied to any nannyshare not just NWOC)

3. I wanted a long term nanny and worried about the higher chance of a nanny with a baby having another soon or stopping work (in fact the NWOC I interviewed told me she wanted another soon )

4. I wanted my dd to do various activities and a nanny would probably not have been able to afford those so I would have had to pay for her child too or let dd miss out

Audrey I wouldn't have wanted my child to always come first and the nanny's child fit in - gives my child the wrong idea of what's fair

OP a couple of other points 1) the rate she is offering is not the usual NWOC discount as far as I'm aware and 2) I really cannot see how this would work well with her BF.