Any advice on how to juggle older children and childcare please!

[Gillyflowers]

I have 3 DCs, the DD starts school in September and our lovely nanny is leaving at Christmas after seeing her through the first term. (she's taking time out to travel.) DH and I work full time.
So I will need childcare after school from 3pm to 630 or 7pmMonday's to Thursday's or Friday's (I may ask to go to 4 days a week at work) and possibly from 7am to 9am. Not sure yet whether DH or I can do drop off everyday but would flex for the right nanny.
In the holidays, I need full time care 4 or 5 days a week for all three DCs who will be 5, 11 and 13.
Would nannies be interested in this sort of role?
I could extend the hours with housekeeping but again I'm not sure this help as most nannies don't want to do house work.
Thanks

Or would a share work? Would anyone be likely to interested in a term time only share?

is there an out of school club linked to the school? My Ds aged 5 attends in the holidays @ £28 per day which includes all meals and days out too so I think it is reasonable. They aslo offer wrap around care form 7am to 6pm which again includes meals

we use a childminder who has them 3-6pm 4 days a week after school, and the odd week in the holidays. The remainder of the holidays they do a variety of camps and we have a 2 week family holiday.

No after school club unfortunately or wrap around care.

Have you thought of an au-pair?

Thanks. I Wonder about that but I'm not sure if we have enough room. Our spare room is tiny. Would love to have one. It would be ideal for term time though and possibly half terms.
Where would you look? How many hours can they do?

when we were in this situation we found that a nanny with her own child was a good solution - probably helped by the fact that the nanny was extremely good. between us DH and I were able to do the drop off each morning so we needed child care from school pick up time and all day in the holidays. Our nanny was originally looking for full time work, but prepared to accept a lower hourly rate because she needed to bring her 2 year old with her. We agreed to pay for a 40 hour week although in term time we generally only used 30 hours (1-7 M-F -the hours pre school pick up were used for laundry, meal prep etc) but this then covered us for inset days or sickness and then in school hols we paid overtime for any hours above 40 in any week. Whilst this seemed quite complicated at the start - it all seemed fair and worked well for 2 years until our nanny went on maternity leave.

The advantage of this arrangment over an au pair for me was that we had a nanny who knew what to do and needed a lot less management/input from me than the various au pairs we had. It was more expensive although there were no hidden costs of an additional person living in the house.

Sorry for typos. I'm on my iPhone.

Thanks mrs w. that sounds like it might work.
How did you find someone? Agency, gumtree?
Do you think your nanny would have coped with 4 in the hols including her own? The older two are pretty self sufficient.

Maples. Thanks for that. 25 hours masses in term time so might work if I can juggle the rooms around (and get the older two to share!). Will look at the threads on that too. I'm wary of having to manage another teenager? Is your au pair going well?

If you go for an aupair, I would be careful to select an older one. An 18 year old would not normally be mature enough to tell a 13 year old what to do and you might end up in the middle of their battles.

Good to know its working out, Maples - I do worry about teens bashing heads as Soldeinviergo mentioned!

agree that a nwoc would be the best solution

I think I'd be wary of a au pair for a 13yo. Possibly a graduate or someone who has done youth club/guiding/scouting/similar and is used to being in charge. A very small room may be an issue. If you had just the two younger ones it would be ideal but 13 is a tricky age and I was horrid to our APs at that age

I think I'd go for NWOC too.

we found our nanny via Tinies. On paper I don't think we were a good match at all but the agent was very helpful in getting us both to think about what we really wanted - what mattered most and what was negotiable.

Hi- I may be able to help with your childcare issues. I have just given up my 10 year teaching career to become a childminder. I have experience with teaching all age groups in particular reception children but have been a year 1,2 and year 6 teacher. I think I would be great for all those homework issues and behaviour management if needed! I have also looked after children aged from 7-12 in the past and have great references. I also have 11 year old twins, one boy and one girl who are lovely. I am at present in the process of registrating with Ofsted and this should be complete in the next month. I live in Effingham, Surrey, please feel free to contact me if you think I could help.

I use au pairs for childcare for older children. When we had our first au pair DD was 10 (Y6) and DS was 13 (Y9). We had a 19 year old who was great and got on especially well with DS. In total we have had 3 older (28+) and 2 19 year olds. I recruit via Gumtree or AuPairWorld.
We always interview (in real life or skype) with the children and involve them in the decision as for older children liking the au pair is more important than whether the ap has babysitting experience. However, we have found the best au pairs are those either with younger, still teenage siblings or with experience of teenagers. HTH

Thanks everyone. Will look at nwoc and APs only if experienced and if I can swap rooms around (13 yo not keen!)