Childcare advice (and help) needed - 3 days a week in Hackney/

[Sophiep79]

Hi, we're in need of childcare for 3 days a week to begin with moving to 5 days in October to look after energetic 20 month old son. The problem is that we need 9 - 6.30pm. Our current childminder who we use for 2 days can only do until 5.30. The nursery up the road needs you to pick up by 5.30.

A nanny is a bit of a stretch for us (once you add in NI etc) - someone recently mentioned that they are using a live-out au pair and that she's really good and is £7 p/h. What exactly is a live-out au pair and how do you find them?

The other option is for someone else pick him up after nursery and from the current childminder's and look after him for the extra hour, but i worry that this might be too many different things and people for him - maybe it won't, but he's still not properly settled with the childminder.

Any advice about live out au pairs / nannies etc would be great, or if anyone thinks they might be able to help up and live close to Hackney, please let me know.

Live-out au-pair is just another name for a nanny. They may or may not have any formal childcare training and may have au-pairing experience. Thus they are cheaper than a qualified nanny with many years nannying experience.
Employers NI would still apply, so calculate the costs and see if a nanny is affordable if they were to accept a job at £7 gross per hour.

try another cm lots of cm are open till 6.30 good luck
i used to have alovely little boyfrom 8 til 630-7pm

Have you tried looking at www.childcare.co.uk? We've found two excellent CMs through that site.

Just one thing about au-pairs, if you're entitled to any subsidies e.g. child tax credit (the child care bit) or via student finance (you don't mention being a student but I am so I thought I'd mention it just in case!) then your childcarer has to be Ofsed registered which most au-pairs, and some nannies aren't.

Whereabouts in Hackney are you?

Thank you for all your replies - very useful. I like the idea of someone coming to our home just for ease really. As we can't afford to stretch to a hugely experienced nanny, does anyone know any good places to find nannies/live out au pairs who are looking to gain experience? We're in Clapton, e5.