Nanny with own child - contract questions

[Meowser]

Hi,

This is my first post on Mumsnet.

We are looking to employ a nanny who will bring her own child to look after my two sons (aged 2.5 and 1.5) in our home. We have found a lovely lady who we 'clicked with. She has a daughter who is also 1.5.

I am trying to sort our contract etc and find a few issues a bit tricky. Any advice appreciated. If anyone had an example of a contract for a Nanny with own child I would love to have a look.

Questions

1. What is the correct terminology for the contract? Its not a Sole care Nanny, or is it? Would I just describe it as a Nanny who brings their own child...seems a bit unprofessional for contract wording!
2. Should I be providing high chairs / cots etc or should the nanny provide these? We have a travel cot so Im happy for that to be used but dont want to buy extra things unless we have to. I have said we will buy a double buggy that can accomadate a buggy board as ours cant.
3. What level of detail needs to be included in the contract about things like providing / not providing equipment, how expenses should be spent etc. I dont want to overdo it but want us to be clear on how things should work.

Any advice on issues/problems people encountered and how to best avoid these would be most appreciated. I have never employed a nanny before (only childminders) but am hopeful it will make returning to work much easier without the drop off/pick up runs and such stict time constraints.

Thanks!

what's the position on insurance if her child breaks / damages something or itself in your home?
who provides food for the child?
what if you want your DC to do particular activities that cost money - do you have to pay for hers to join too? she may not be able to participate in some things (like toddler clubs) sitting at teh side with her child while others (maybe tumble tots) she probably can (bit unfair on her child)
what happens to your cover if her child is sick? are there any instances you woudl permit her to bring a sick child into your house or are you able to absorb her throwing a lot of last minute days off to deal with her child's sickness?
what about her child's doctor / dental / shoe etc appointments? can she do them with your DC in your time?

it's a bloody minefield, you're good to consider it, I'm far too uptight for that kind of arrangement to work.

PS - I assume she's a lot cheaper than a nanny who comes without her own child?

I would be afraid that my childrens' needs would always be behind the nanny's 1.5 year old's needs.

As a nanny is generally unsupervised, you would never know if she spent all her time playing with her own child and doing the minimum for yours. I think it's different if a nanny you already know and trust has a baby.

Hi. My nanny has her own children and has brought them to work with her, although hers are slightly older than my children.

In terms of the contract - ours says 'sole charge' because she is the only person in charge of our children. We haven't referred to her children at all.

We had a travel booster chair to fit on a normal chair and a travel cot. In the event though, nanny's DD would fall asleep on a bed and be blocked in with pillows and then DS moved out of his cot anyway at 2 (when he climbed out and came downstairs while wearing his sleeping bag so that really wasn't much of an issue. The children took it in turns to sit in the high chair as both of them always wanted to use the booster.

On expenses, our nanny has a kitty which is theoretically £30 per week (outside London). As it is she prides herself on eeking it out for as long as possible so she actually just mentions when it needs topping up. I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask for receipts etc.

In terms of activities - I wasn't very prescriptive. They go to a music class and trampolining every week - I pay for my children and my nanny pays for her DD. Other expenditure comes out of the kitty for my DCs and she pays for her own. I supply enough food for everyone in the daytime but it is normal sandwich/ fruit/ salad type food but the reward is that they do a fair bit of baking and I get fresh biscuits when I get in.

I have found it absolutely brilliant. It helps that I have a superb nanny but my children and her children are very close and it is really nice for them. DD and nanny's DD are on the waiting list for Beavers when they are both old enough. Pros of a nanny with her own child definitely outweigh the cons (mainly that children get ill...)

Just seen the comment from OneHandFlapping. IME, it has worked out that the children are just treated as though they are all siblings rather than 2 pairs IYSWIM. Whoever needs something most urgently gets dealt with, just as it would be with a parent dealing with 4 of their own.

She is charing 75% of her normal rate which is why we can afford her.

Im not sure about the insurance side of things some people say not to bother its a risk but paying for insurance is a huge cost. Small breakages and damage are to be expected when kids are around so it doesnt worry me too much. Probably more likely to be my boys damaging things anyway!

My feeling is she should pay for her child during any activities they may do. Generally the local day to day activites arent expensive or are per family in my area so its not like we would be asking her to take our kids to the zoo every week and pay for her own child. There are lots of free activites my kids already do. O

We have discussed sickness and the feeling is the kids are likely to get exposed to the same bugs so unless its D&V then she will bring her child to work if it is unwell and she will still come if ours are unwell. Seems fair and I am happy with that arrangement (Im not a detol obessed quarentine parent as it is).

I am happy for her to take her child to medical appointments in work time as long as they are not overly frequent. My son actually loves going to the doctors so he can read the stories and play with the toys there!

Thanks for advice azazello. So your contract was just a standard sole care one then? It doesnt need to mention her child? I find the paperwork side of having a nanny a bit daunting.

I think it will be nice for my younger son to have someone his age to play with especially as the older one will be at preschool half the time. I really cant imagine her just playing with her daughter and ignoring my children as that would be a strange person / parent let alone Nanny and Mother. She comes reccomended, has expereince and seems lovely. Although she obviously hasnt worked with her child before she has looked after a family with 4 kids.

I'm a nanny with my own child and I can assure you that I don't spend all day playing with my child while ignoring the children I'm looking after! I suppose it's just as likely as a nanny without a child spending all day watching tv or chatting on her phone, you never really know.
I think your nanny would still be classed as I 'sole care Nanny' she just happens to bring her child iyswim.
Maybe you need to have a chat with your nanny about equipment, I tend to bring most of the things I need for DS with me i woukdn't expect an employer to provide anything for him. I have been offered a travel cot (he usually just sleeps in the buggy though). Activity wise, I pay for DS, my employers pay for their children. And food wise, for 1 employer I bring DS's with me, another we take it in turns to provide food for her DS and mine. But you need to work out what works best for you and your nanny.

Insurance wise, I have my own, you have to if you're ofsted registered..
Bobbi - surely there's always a risk of any parent having to take time off of any job for a sick child. I wonder if your employers asked you about tgat when they took you on?! If DS is sick I try to find someone to look after him, sometimes DH can take time off, but yes there may be a time that I have to take time off to look after him, like any working parent. I've always actually found that he tends to be ill the same time as my employers children so I either end up bringing him anyway or I'm not needed as 1 of the parents is at home with their sick child.
I wouldn't take my child shoe shopping etc. while working. I'm assuming that would be obvious...
I think it actually doesn't have to be a complecated situation actually. Probably good communication is the key to it. Good luck with your new nanny.

Thanks Bagofspiders thats very helpful.

Did you have all those arrangements for equipment and paying for activites in your contract or just work the detail out between you verbally? I would be happy to do the latter really.

The Nanny will be Ofsted registered so thats good re insurance.

Foodwise we have said we are happy for her to have what the children are having (3 meals/day plus snacks and drinks). I will be interested to see how much our food bills are impacted.

Your nanny's insurance is unlikely to cover accidental damage to your property. That would be your home insurance or possibly her home insurance if it were her DD.

I would just have a standard nanny contract with a phrase saying she is permitted to bring her DD to work with her.

Bagofspiders - One of the really significant advantages to working parents of hiring a nanny and paying that premium is to ensure that you can turn up to work every day.

OUr nanny has a baby. It is a bit different though in that she was our nanny for 4 years before she had the child. The contract is the one we had before she had her baby and we have not formally updated it. The other difference is that our DC are school age. Also, she has family who can do ad hoc child care for her.
In general it works well, but a lot of that is becuase she has got family who can help with her DS if he is ill (or my DC are ill and she does not want him exposed) or my DC want to do something during holidays that is not age appropriate for him. She can also arrange drs appointments etc for the mornings she does not work (during term time she only works 2 mornings). We still have various bits of equipment and toys around the house that our nanny is welcome to make use of for her DS (eg there is an old tripp trapp chair and she manaed to find the baby attachment and safety harness) - and indeed we have given her stuff for her house too. I would not buy any equipment for the baby though - if there is extra equpment she needs, it is up to her to provide it, and to store it away when she is not here. Generally, it has worked ok without the need for it all to be dealt with in a contract. There are, though, a few things that have come up that make me wish some of this was agreed in writing. The first is food. This was not an issue when baby was small, as nanny would bring milk and then pureed food. Now her DS is bigger and eating the same as my DDs, though, I actually have no idea if I am feeding him or not. It is not a big deal at the moment as he does not eat much (and I would feel mean to raise it), but could become more expensive as he gets older. DDs say he does eat the same as them so I guess I am feeding him for the meals he is here and I need to have the discussion before thinking about appropriate pay rise etc. Also, now he is older he has caused a little damage (and I know nanny does keep a close eye on him becuase our house is no longer child-proofed) - usual child stuff like the odd scribble and rip. I have not charged our nanny for this, but I guess if there was big damage I would think about it. The girls are on half term this week and I have left a kitty for activities. If they go somewhere like softplay, I imagine nanny would pay for her DS, but thinking about it I have never had the conversation so will check the receipts this week. If she does not want to pay, she can leave him with her family on those days.

A lot of people ask whether i am concerned about my DDs getting less attention than her DS. I am not too bothered about this - i think it is inevitable given her DS's age. In fact, I suspect the reality is that my DDs entertain her DS for her and a lot of the time she has little to do! He is a bit like a little brother to them - they adore him.

So in summary I think it can work well but there are things that you will need to agree up front and things you can be more relaxed about and take them as they come

Slighly amended standard contract is probably fine, the standard clause on "during working hours shall work exclusively for the employer and shall devote all her time to work for the employer" or similar needs to be amended of course. You do need to have some agreement on who provides what re. food/nappies/equipment etc but doesn't have to be in the contract.

Not specific to NWOC (Nanny With Own Child) situations, but note that Statutory Sick Pay only applies when the employee is sick.

Get a nanny payroll agency, there are recommendations elsewhere in this forum and they will provide a draft contract.

Of course you do Bobbi, as do people employing anyone would imagine. I'm just saying that the fact that someone usually brings a child with them to work as opposed to leaving them in some kind of childcare doesn't mean they'll be more or less likely to have to take time off if they're DC is sick.. I don't think it's any more of a risk than employing a nanny with their own child who they don't bring with them or indeed employing anybody with a child for any job.

Meowser - we talked and emailed a lot before i started about various things, then the more important things (food/ activities) were put into the contract. There were also a couple of issues that arose once I'd started that we just talked about between ourselves.

Hi there - we have had two NWOC (nanny with own child).
They worked well at the time, but we now have a nanny without a child, and for my older children that works better.

Our contract was standard, plus (like Mr. Anchovy said) a paragraph that explicitly stated "the nanny is permitted to bring her son XXXX to her place of work with her". I wanted to make it explicit to one child, because I certainly didn't want it to automatically become "children" further down the line.

We eventually bought a high chair and some inexpensive 'baby' items for use by the nannies... they did bring their own to start with, but i remembe how hard it is lugging baby gear to and from, and I wanted to make it easy for all of us. We have friends/relatives with babies who use the kit anyway, so it's not wasted.

We gave our nanny a storage area for her baby's toys, nappies, spare clothes etc., so again it wasn't too stressful to lug it all back and forward.

Re: Paying. You need to be very clear on who pays for what. Paying for activities: in my opinion, who pays is down to who 'instigates' it. Typically, if I arranged / requested for my children to attend Tumble Tots / the cinema / the zoo, then I paid for the entry of the Nanny AND her child. It wasn't her choice to go, hence the cost was down to me. Especially if you are paying her a lower rate - that (to me) leans even more to you paying for activities.

If however, your children are roughly the same age, and you both agree that they'd all benefit from going to a Playgroup/Tumble Tot type things, then maybe you could negotiate - but if she's going predominanltly under your instruction, then you pay for that.

If during the holidays, your nanny takes you children to the park / cafe / pizza etc, you pay for her meal / coffee / ice cream... it's like expenses at your own job; if you incur cost in the line of duty, you reclaim. We have a kitty tin that's always got cash in it (unless I've nabbed it!) - our nannies simply take what's needed and provide the receipt. They have all been under initial instruction though - "kids have a Calypso lolly, not a £3.95 ben and jerry's" etc, that sort of thing, so they know your guidelines..

Re: Food. I allowed both the nanny and her child to eat our house food. She often bought her own, but all of my nannies have had access to the fridge / kitchen, and I want them to eat with the children / share social eating etc. Their children ate our food too.

For what it's worth - both our nanny's with own child were exceptionally reliable and tried their best to please all children. I hardly had any situation where they couldn't come to work because their child was ill.

Good luck; you just need to agree the rules up front, accept that you're both parents and need a bit of give and take, and you should get along fine.

I am a nanny and have worked for my current employer for 8 years, after 4 years i had my first child and went back for 3 days a week when my son was 8 weeks old. When i am working it was verbally agreed that my employer would supply food for my son but not baby milk as long as he did not start eating extortunate amounts of food!! I tend to bring in extra snacks and everything that my son needed but it did not stop mum buying some little bits, i think she was secretly pleased to have a baby in the house again as her children were 7 and 9 :) As for activities i pay for my son, my son loves going to work and he calls my bosses mum and dad, he has grown up pretty much as a 3rd child and it has worked very well. (he had his first sleepover in the summer at there house!) Communication is vital esp if nanny has a child, i now have a second and i work 2 days a week in the holidays only, it suits both of us very well and yes if anything is damaged i pay for it, but when my son deletes things accidently off the nintendo wi when i have asked the eldest (13)to put it away, that is the 13 year olds fault and tough, mind you it was rather entertaining trying to explain to said very cross 13 year old that he did not do it on purpose and that he is only 3.9 and can't read.........

As a nanny with my own child I can agree it can really work.

my son is 11 months and charges in one job 7 and 4 and other job 3 and 1

I supply everything he needs, cart around bags of stuff to each job and take it home with me each night.

He isn't mentioned in either of my contracts. I pay for things for him if we are out and he has a snack, my boss pays for mine - I haven't had to pay for his entry into anything yet.

Likewise sickness and drs haven't occured yet either - my OH works shifts so there is some scope for daddy to do that. I do however live 20 miles from work so I'd rather not take my charges to my ds doctor's appointment its not like its round the corner. If i needed to see a dr in an emergency I'd try my work's dr.

Good luck - it can really work - my charges LOVE my son and enjoy playing with him - even the 7 year old - it odoesn't really stop us doing anything just makes me busier.

Hello,
Im a begginning nanny/babysitter with my own child. Ive applied for tens of jobs already from which a few parents got really interested on hiring me, but when I arose the issue of bringing my child with me, they either break off any further communications or just tell me they are not interested any more. Do you have any suggestion/ ideas on how to promote as a NWOC? I have a professional profile on a childcare site, where I just mentioned I am a mum. Should also include in my profile that I am a NWOC and I offer some lower than average rates or it applies to the next stages of negotiations with potential employers? I`d appreciate some real/practical ideas.

Hi Zarrina - as someone who employs a NWOC. It would concern me to employ an inexperienced first time nanny [which your post implies] who will also have to juggle their own child's needs.

You may find it helpful to state your salary expectations in your letter of application [not on your profile], provide some detail of your child [age etc] and also provide a little detail about what support you have in place if your child is ill or requires medical treatment.

If you are London based, as an employer it is v helpful to state if you plan to supply your own double buggy and other equipment. Storing a double buggy as well as a household single one is a total pain.

Thanks for your advice. I`ll keep it in mind.