Au Pair

[KayTee87]

Posting here for traffic.

I have a 10 week old son and will be going back to work full time in the middle of May, my husband also works full time.

The plan was that our son would go to nursery 4 or 5 days a week which would cost approx £670 / £830.

I've read a few posts about au pairs recently and it's made me wonder if having one would be a better option. I've no idea how much they cost though so can anyone point me in the right direction? I'm in Scotland if that makes a difference.

I don't think au pairs are usually deemed suitable for sole care of a baby/toddler. Also consider how attractive where you live might be for a young adult from overseas in terms of socialising with others and access to EFL courses.

Au pairs are not trained or intended to be a cheap substitute for a nanny or other professional child care for the full-time (or almost) care of a baby or young child. Using them as such is exploitative.

Au pairs are for a few hours care here and there and maybe a bit of light housework. For taking a child to school, collecting them and looking after them until parents get home at 6pm.

It will be an option later, when your son starts nursery and school, but not for a baby. Au pairs are untrained, unqualified teenagers, they do housework and childcare such as before/after school, it's not an alternative for full time care of a baby.

Have you looked into childminders in your area? They're often a bit cheaper than a nursery, and IMO a good CM is much better for a baby - home from home care. Unfortunately for the next few years there isn't a really cheap option for childcare outside of family. That's having a baby.

No way. Au pairs are not a suitable option for baby-care.

You shouldn't use an au pair for sole care of an under 2. Plus they only work for 25h/week or thereabouts so you'd need additional childcare anyway. Price wise, in the region of £80-£100/week.

I didn't realise they were untrained! I thought they were basically live in nanny's. Ok he will defo be going to nursery then! It's not the money aspect, I just thought more one to one care might be better for him than nursery. (Can you tell I already feel guilty about going back to work?)

Au pairs are more like babysitters - they do about 25 hours a week, babysit on a couple of evenings and live as part of your family, eating with you, going on outings, participating in weekend activities. They also might need mornings free to go to a language class.

For sole charge of a very young baby, you would need to employ a nanny rather than an au pair. Childminders are also a good home based rather than group care option for young children (but their own home rather than yours).

What about a child minder, have you explored that route?

Your child is far too young imo.

Aupairs aren't meant to provide full time childcare for small children.

Just imagine an upset, grumpy, teething/poorly baby and a untrained nanny/aupair with a language barrier.

You could hire a live-in nanny if you wanted, but you'd be looking at more like £300-£500 a week for 50 hours.

I will look into nanny's as well, the nursery close to our house is nice and I know people that are happy with it so not too worried. Can't imagine leaving him with anyone at the moment!

We would need someone 36-45 hours a week not sure if it's a nanny that they would require a full time 50 hour contract though, something to look into.

An au pair is meant to be treated like a member of the family: that's what the term 'au pair' means - so helping out in the same way you'd expect an older child to, or a cousin staying with you. So they are part of the family and NOT a nanny or childminder or cleaner etc.

Au pair plus's work more (30-40 hours a week? ) but I don't think I'd be able to leave my DC with someone untrained for that length of time.

www.aupairworld.com/en/au_pair/working_hours

30 hrs apparently

Don't know if people have missed my update - I definitely won't be getting an au pair, I didn't realise they were untrained

Live-in nanny is something to consider but cost likely to be more than nursery. You may find someone new to nannying, just out of college or leaving a nursery role who may accept a lower salary than an experienced nanny would accept.

If your working hours fit with 8am-6pm childcare then nursery or childminder are usually the financially viable options of care for one child. Nannies are more cost effective when you have three or more children, or if you need childcare outside of the core 8am-6pm hours.

Look at funding options, does your and your partners employers provide childcare vouchers? Are you lower or higher rate tax payers?

www.gov.uk/childcare-calculator

50 hours a week is not a full time contract. 35-40 hours is normal in UK.

Some nannies work longer weeks but they would obviously be paid more for doing so.

Not a normal full time contract.

Yep I think they missed your update or didn't RTFT

Nannynick

I'm a normal rate tax payer and my husband is a higher rate payer. From April 2017 we can claim back 20% of childcare costs through Scottish government I'm sure. It's more about finding the best care for our baby than money (within reason) maybe half nanny and half nursery might be better. I'm just worried full time nursery will be too much for a 9/10 month old baby.
Unfortunately I can't do my job part time and it's not financially viable for my husband to do his part time.
I was in nursery from 6 months old and seem to have turned out ok so maybe I'm worrying unnecessarily.

As a nanny I work 36 hours over 3 days. Nannies will work all sorts of hours. So 45ish hours per week some will view as full time and others will view as part time. It does not matter, what nannies will want to know is the salary, working days and start/finish times.

Location will be an important factor as for live-in you need to find someone suitable who wants to live where you live. You may be in a village, town, city, you may be near mountains and ski slope or you may not. The job needs to be attractive to someone and they could have various reasons for wanting to be a live-in nanny.

Do you really want someone living in your home? Think about that as it is a big change.

Perhaps someone local who can work for you as a live-out nanny a couple of days per week would work, combining with nursery for other days.

Tax-Free Childcare (TFC) scheme will currently need the nanny to be recruited via a nanny agency in Scotland. Is there a local agency? In some areas the agencies can be a very long distance away - they tend to be city based such as Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh. TFC is being rolled out and thus it may or may not be available from April, the launch date has not yet been confirmed. Pilot study is currently underway. It could save you up to £2000 as you have one child (your childcare spend would need to be £10,000 per year to get £2,000 of contribution). Childcare vouchers is the other scheme which is available through employers - can be worth using the Childcare Calculator to see which scheme is best given your circumstances (I think the new scheme is but there may not be that much in it).

You may find the table on the second page of this document useful for getting a feel for costs of employing a nanny. www.nannypaye.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/New-Employer-2016.pdf

Nannies often talk in Net salary terms but I would encourage you to discuss salary as Gross pay, especially for a part-time nanny, as some of their tax free allowance may be with another job.