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Original poster

OK, nanny is leaving - what do you do if you only need a bit of childcare?

26 replies

elliott · 12/03/2008 10:47

Well here we go again. After a whole year (!) of stability in childcare arrangements my nanny is leaving in Sept and its back to the drawing board.
Dss are 6 and 4, the younger is starting reception in Sept so we hardly need any childcare really - ideally 2 afternoons per week plus occasional days in the holidays (amounting to probably 12-15 days in total).
Our options are:

  1. Go it alone. We might JUST be able to do this (we both work 80%). Problems would arise when either of us is away, plus in the school holidays when we would need to make heavy use of camps/clubs (which I'm not keen on, would rather they had time chilling at home). Viability depends on whether we can get places at afterschool club. Not too keen on that as they tend to get really tired at after school club.
  1. Recruit another nanny on the same basis. Very expensive for what we need (we have been paying about £500 a month just to cover the needs outline above). Quite hard to find someone whose needs fit ours, and stability is a problem. Could (and will) try to find a childminder but have never had luck with this previously - very thin on the ground.
  1. Try the housekeeper route - has anyone had a satisfactory experience with this? No idea really how to recruit - only know of one agency locally. Could try a newspaper add I suppose, feels a bit risky.
  1. Au pair? Overkill probably for what we need and too many downsides.
  1. Try to find something ad-hoc - e.g. a student. Again, not really sure where to start with recruiting, and also not sure whether this is something I'm comfortable with. they would need to be available occasional days in school hols and one or two nights after school.

I am interested particularly in whether anyone has made a more informal/ad-hoc arrangement work (as in 5) - how do you recruit, how do you pay etc? If it were someone's only job its probably below the hours limit for employment registration, I think, but if not the whole hassle of employing someone for so little time input seems ott.

Sorry for the long and tedious post, probably of limited interest to anyone else but at least it helps me to think it aloud!
Would be interested to hear how other people manage when it just doesn't seem worth the time or expense of employing a nanny.

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MrsWobble · 12/03/2008 11:29

for various reasons we are going it alone this week and it's not easy. one reason we decided to try was to see if we could manage without a nanny from september - and so far the jury is still out. it obviously depends on your jobs and needs but there is no way i would even contemplate it at your dss' ages. as well as school holidays you should think about after school activities and playdates - these are the complications that have nearly killed us this week.

we've also thought about your other options - we don't particularly want live in so an au pair is out and we've not worked out how to find/employ a housekeeper when we're never at home.

Your ad hoc option 5 strikes me as a variant on the go it alone as you will still have to do all the juggling and arranging. The one thing that you might be able to organise are routine reciprocal playdates - given that you are able to return the help you might find a friend in a similar position. you'll probably need a lot of luck to make it work for both your children though.

In the end I think we're going to face the fact that we'll continue to pay more than we ideally want to for a service we only partially need - but, as all the nanny threads testify, cutting corners doesn't usually turn out to be a benefit.