Nanny share question

[Lala29]

Hi, I am very new to all this and was hoping someone could help. I thinking of a nanny share and wondering how much it will cost us. Is it a different price to looking after 2 children from the same family and if so, why? Both children are pretty much the same age ( a boy and girl 2 months apart) and will be around a year old. We are near Bromley, so close to London. I had a total gross figure of £10-11/ hr in my head. Is that unrealistic? Thank you!

Also just to clarify, We were planning on doing 1 week my house, 1 week the other mum's. Children would always be in the same place for the nanny, so no extra work in terms of picking up/ dropping off. Things like double buggies, etc will all be provided. We are looking for live out.
Thanks so much for your help!

I think £10-11ph gross is ok, although the more experienced nannies will be looking for a bit more, around £12-13ph gross is the going rate in London. Often nanny shares do pay more, though I've known others to offer the same as a one-family job. The reason nanny shares pay more is because they are generally far more hassle for the nanny and therefore less appealing (I know several nannies who have done shares who say 'NEVER AGAIN!') and ultimately it's about supply and demand (loads of families want nanny shares, not many nannies want to do them).

The reason they are more hassle is because of things like;
holidays - are you and the other family going to take your holiday at the same time, or is the nanny going to lose out?
location - it's easier to be based in one house as you can establish a routine/way of working in a space, switching round every week makes that a bit more tricky. Are they near to each other, or is the nanny going to need to find seperate activities for each house?
cooperation - sometimes nannies want to do A, but the parents would like B, throw in another set of parents who want C and compromise becomes more difficult. What if you want your child to do an activity that the other child doesn't like/can't afford or vice versa, often the nanny gets stuck in the middle.
pay; being paid by two sets of parents means more chance of late payment/problems in pay
What will happen long term?; often nanny shares end (and not always well) when 2 years down the line both families have another child, the nanny is then in the awful position of choosing which family to stay with (this happens more than you'd think!)

Thank you Holy. That is really helpful. I am just trying to think of all the issues that may arise and see how we can prevent them. The other mum is a friend, not just someone I met for the purposes of nanny sharing and so I would really like to preserve the friendship!

To answer some of your questions, we will be living very close to each other (we are currently moving) and will be about 15 mins walk apart, so shouldn't make a difference in terms of activities, travel, etc.
Holidays definitely need to be discussed. How much would a nanny expect to get off a year?
Money, not something I thought of, but would setting up a joint bank account solely for the nanny money and expenses work? That way the nanny only has to deal with one payment coming in.
We currently do very similar activities, so I hope that wouldn't be an issue and money is certainly not an issue providing the activity is for the benefit of the children rather than just the nanny!

I haven't thought about second children, that is a really good point.... Hmmm... I am not planning on any more until DD goes to school, but I know the other mum wants a second baby fairly soon... What's the maximum number of children a nanny looks after?

Thank you again for your help!

The nannies insurer may impose a limit - 6 children I think it says on my public liability policy.

Holiday wise, minimum is 5.6 weeks, which can include bank/public holidays.

I have done a nanny share, although it was a while ago.

The problems I had were that one family wanted us to be more home based, I.e, not go out more than three times a week, and then only a morning or afternoon, not the whole day so no trips to the zoo or beach or even a picnic in the woods etc. the othe family had an older child who had classes every day, the former family never took it up with latter family and just tried to get me to change our routine. The latter family "found" the former family and they should have discussed their priorities before starting the share.

The money for that share was 1/3 for one child family and 2/3 for two child family.

Holidays were a real problem, it stated in my contract that each family choose a week, a week at Christmas and I choose two weeks but I very rarely got my choice of weeks because the families would book holidays, I'd still have to work for the other family and then when it came time for me to have a holiday, they had no holiday left to cover me. Which, in essence, wasn't really my problem but they would moan about having to pay double for a temp nanny, or having to take unpaid leave and so made it hard to say "no, I'm going."

The first year, I had two days off apart from bank holidays and christmas week.
The following year I booked up a weeks holiday and two odd days right at the beginning of the year but that was all I got and I couldn't have the odd day off, for a distant wedding/party or visit to friends because again they had used all of their holiday allowance.

Another problem was food, one family was really laid back about what they ate, the other family wanted a more specific diet and no snacks unless fresh fruit. The tantrums we had when one had an ice cream or biscuit or some crisps were terrible, but as the no snacks family joined after I had been there for three years (in another share but with the children's cousins and no problems about anything) it was hard saying to the three year old, no you can't have xx or yy.

Also, the new family were terrible time keepers, I had two dental appointments in the 18 months I worked for both families, the plan was for a parent from each family coming for the child over lunch time (they worked locally, I specifically booked for lunch time) new family turned up 40 minutes late and then just sat in the sitting room on his phone while old family looked after all three. They were almost always 15 minutes late home, meaning I had to stay late with old family or, if I had plans, leave child with old family, that got old real quick but the only option would have been to leave child o. The doorstep!!

There were more problems including late wages, no spares (nappies, wipes, clothes, etc) forgetting to leave car seats, not sharing their toys.

We did one week in each house and I spent most of Monday popping round to the other house for high chairs, prams, travel cots but I liked doing one week in each and it's good for the kids to spend time in thir own home.

yes be aware of frequent changes in nannyshares. I have been a shared nanny since april 2011, and im now looking for a new family to work with for the 5th time since then. It became very stressful as the family and I would look for new share families together, and the parents wanted something different to what i had envisioned. All becauses families move, have babies, send their children to nursery etc etc. I have now decided NOT to stay with any of my families and look for one whole new position. It can be very disruptive for everyone involved. I realise families cannot predict the future but its a good idea to have a firmish idea of where life may take you within the first 6-12 months of a nannyshare.
Good luck!

Hi all
I'm currently considering a nanny share and interested to hear this advice.

We're potentially sharing with friends and neighbours who would need 2 days a week while we'd want 5. I assume this means they'd pay 2/7 of the salary - does that sound fair?

They have similar values, diet etc to us so hopefully shouldn't be too many issues, and they only live a few doors down. Planning hols would be a slight pain I suppose. And I can see that what happens next could be an issue as its likely we'd both want another child in the next few years.

If one child is sick and infectious I suppose that child's parents would need to take a day off and look after them - do you have to do that with a nanny anyway or do nannies sometimes work when a nursery would send them home?

Batman and Callaird have covered it well

Nanny shares are a pita :(

And salary wise for that area op it is a little low. Normal nanny job average is 11/12 gross and share a bit more so possibly £13/14 gross - even tho thread is a year or so old wages haven't changed much

Snowflake - no the other parent won't have their ill child - the nanny does - that's the real selling point of a nanny compared to cm or nursery - they look after ill children

So in a share that something to consider / what the other child may get your child 99% will get as well

I did a nanny-share and it worked well for us. We always used the one house so there wasn't the to-ing and fro-ing. The family that 'hosted' took the added household costs (eg heating on all day) and the 'visiting' family took the additional capital costs (eg paid for the double pushchair, had a highchair in both houses).

I.think that wage for London is low..

Normally a London.nanny share is £13-£14 gross an hour...

CALLAIRD - That's just bad luck and wrong doing on the parents side...

you would of had the same problems if they wasn't in a share I think

I was advised that nanny share would tend to be about £12 net as opposed to £10 net in London.

I am a nanny employer, and I live in Bromley. Going rate here for a qualified and experienced nanny is about £11 per hour gross ime, and that is working for just one family.

I was part of a nanny share for three years now just work for one of the families as one lot moved and the other one gained another child.
Mine worked out really well I had the option as to what house to base myself at each day. One of my charges was 11 so it was easier to be at his as his stuff was there however when he was at a playdate or away we were at the others literally a couple of doors down.
When it came to food I would generally cook two days at main house and then a day at the other as one family had two and the other had one at that point.
I had one point of contact to arrange stuff like holidays I would choose two and the share familes would work out themselves the over two.
Yes there were times when one lot was away and the others were not but I always had my four weeks usually five.
The two girls were only four weeks apart in age and after nusery went to the same school and were in the same class really helped when it came to playdates having mainly the same friends and to this day are the very best of friends.
They both did ballet together and a afterschool club sometimes .
Days out such I would split the costs per child so if it was just the girls it was a fifty fifty split if it was the three of then a third each.
I would do it again worked out really well the mums were friends approached the way that they brought up their children in the same way.

Thanks all. I really appreciate your help :-)

I've done a nanny share in the past flipping between two houses. The only thing that we moved was a double buggy and being in London no-one really had the space to store the sodding thing. It was PITA to move it over /receive every Sunday night and set up a travel cot so in hindsight I would make the swap over one fortnight/month and it will make things a little easier. Also the nanny gets a chance to do some proper batch cooking and can take on stuff like childrens laundry etc more easily when based somewhere for a bit longer.

The family we shared with relocated overseas after 8 months so it ended. It was a relief by then as despite agreeing on diet for our two babies before the share started we discovered just before the share ended that the other family were buying really cheap food for the babies and nice stuff for the adults. It v nearly blew up. We would also give our nanny money for the week for playgroups, random bus fares and odds and sods, and we discovered that the other family without fail, "forgot" theirs. To our knowledge there were no cash flow issues with them, it just wasnt a priority.

We had issues with holidays - we agreed in advance that the nanny would have a choice of two weeks and the families would choose the other two. In practise though our share family wanted to holiday with their family in August and everyone else wanted to avoid peak season until we were stuck with it when school started. Our nanny wasn't English and she wanted Christmas and Easter off so that worked v well as we were all on board with taking a week then.

Caillard's experience is horrible though. Every family should bank on 3-4 days a year when their nanny is ill and save those days. You should agree whether or not in that instance, between 4 parents you step up and "be the nanny" for a day, or each family makes it's own arrangements.

The salary rates you have been quoted look about right. Agree in advance with the other family what you think is an appropriate bonus and birthday present budget too btw. That was an issue for us at the time, but we also set a precedent which when we became the sole family was a bit tricky.

Illness - the whole point of having a nanny imo is that you don't take time off when your kids are ill. D&V perhaps but other childhood stuff like minor temps and heavy colds that might have them sent home from a nursery, the nanny should handle and unfortunately the other child(ren) will also bear.

If either family has lots of support and will randomly have grandparents turn up and take the kids for the day, it is best to agree in advance that this does not mean that they forgo their childcare costs for the day.

I used to be paid £10 net ph whilst working on a nanny share for 2 12m children. We used to do about 1 month at one house and 1 month at the other. I would say changing each week would be a bit of a faff tbh but see how you feel! I'm now working for just one of the families (they had a second baby) and am on the same wage.