Searching for new child care ideas

[leilasmom]

dear moms and child carers
I work full time and have a lovely full time nanny for our three children. my husband is now working away about 1/3 the time including some weekends. I am going crazy because all I do is work. Trying to think of a solution. Can anyone suggest one?
We do have an extra bedroom and bathroom and live in a nice neighborhood.

Do you mean your nanny isn't able to do more hours, so isn't covering your working hours fully?

Where are the perceived 'gaps' in your childcare and how old are the children? How many hours does your nanny do? Is there any chance of increasing (by mutual agreement)? Live in or out?

If you feel that you are just working all the time it's unlikely you'll find someone to effectively work more hours than you so you're looking at some kind of supplemental care to your existing nanny or changing to one who will do longer hours. Finding a reliable babysitter to come in at the weekends for a morning or an evening, or even on a weekday evening, would allow you to have some childfree time.

Whereabouts are you located? What kind of profile are you looking for in an additional childcarer? How much would your budget be a) on top of your existing nanny or b) overall if you changed nannies? Have you outsourced as much as possible (cleaning/ironing etc)?

As far as I can see it you have 3 options:
Keep nanny if live out and unable to increase hours you can find supplemental childcare, possibly someone living in who might be willing to work weekends
Keep nanny if live out and can increase hours but find supplemental childcare during the day to give them a break
Replace live out nanny with a live in one who may be happier to work longer hours

If current nanny lives in and won't work longer hours then have a look at how much you're expecting nanny to work and where you can lighten the load/supplement with outsourced childcare.

Can you change your working pattern/ hours/ job?

When I was in your situation I had a nanny and au pair combo which worked well. Did this for around 4 years. It works because the nanny did all the heavy lifting child development stuff, and the au pair did all the ironing and tidying and released the pressure valves if I needed it at the weekend.

Thank you very much for these comments. They are really helpful. My first time on Mumsnet. It occured to me to try it last night after two solo days and a fever shared by me and the baby.
Indeed, the nanny is live-out. She works 10 1/2 hours, which is totally reasonable I think except that I commute an hour each way to London which leaves just enough time for working my job (and to keep up with my job, I work after the kids are in bed and the chores are done 7 days a week thus the crisis).
The issue is I really don't know how to alleviate all of the night and weekend chores. I want the time I have with my children--that is great and worth any pain. But all of the logistics and cleaning for three children! And with my husband constantly away, I never can never, for example, go for a run at night or exercise (which might help with the stress, I know). Maybe an au pair/nanny combination is the best option. Hate the idea of someone living here, but might be best option. I do have a cleaner once a week.
Or sharing an au pair? Is this done?
Many, many thanks!

You can't really share an au pair but you could offer extra work to someone else's during the day/at the weekend to do a bit of cleaning or extra weeknight babysitting/weekend care. It would be a bit like having another, junior, nanny though as you'd probably need to put it through payroll etc, pay minimum wage at least (as they're live out) and you'd only ne able to use them when their host family didn't need them. Most people get au pairs to help with the before/after school crunch times.

I think you need to decide what you want to outsource - you say chores and logistics are causing the issues. Can you up the cleaner to twice a week so more chores are done and possibly offload some of nanny's nursery duties so she can help with child-related logistics a little more? A local au pair or regular babysitter once or twice a week would let you get out for a run and you could be a little flexible on timings which makes it more possible for someone who already has another job.

I don't think you need someone living with you - you could manage without - however live in does give you a bit more flexibility. You just need to balance that up against the stress of having someone there who will need a lot of management.

I doubt that sharing an AP would work as people tend to need them for the same pressure times - bedtimes, early mornings etc.

In the holidays both AP and nanny did nothing but childcare but during term times I have had the AP's doing the following:

1. checking the kitchen cupboards against a checklist and going to Tescos and restocking anything we were running short of
2. dropping me to and from station
3. All family laundry, ironing, putting away
4. taking dog to/from vets
5. checking school uniform and tracking down replacement stuff
6. tracking all birthday parties and getting/wrapping presents
7. Peeling spuds and the like
8. Baking cakes/biscuits/quiches for weekend
9. the usual general tidying up and kitchen wipe-down.

Thank you Snapfrakkleandpop and Stillsquiffy. This is really good food for thought. It has been hard to get my head around the problems--and I am completely worn out.
For Stillsquiffy, did the nanny and the au pair work well together, or perhaps the au pair resented the nanny?
The list above is what keeps me working -- although my nanny is terrific when she is here, so much occurs at other times, and all three children require serious attention.

I always made it very clear to AP's that there was a hierachy, with me at top, then nanny, then AP. AP's always knew that they had to defer to nanny and they were all OK with it. Nanny was apprehensive at first in case AP turned out to be 'better' than her, but when she realised that chances of that were pretty much nil, she chilled.