Thoughts on structuring a Nanny role when all kids at school?

[LongStory]

We have a term-time nanny three days a week (DH and I cover the holidays).

Our nanny is wonderful and shows good judgement and has dealt with some pretty challenging situations with our five children. They all have a good relationship with her. There is quite a lot of driving through London traffic for the school runs. She has only been ill one day in four months and has dealt with all emergencies sensibly without needing to call me out of work (v important for me).

From next September the youngest twins will be going to school all day and we'd obviously like to cut down our childcare costs. A German friend has said that his daughter would be interested in an au pair position.

I am worried about the unknowns of an au-pair (driving on a different side, relationships with children, sharing our home) and would prefer an arrangement where our current nanny looked after other people's children in our home during the day when the kids are at school, alongside any of our children if they were not able to go to school.

The primary school our kids attend is very large, and I have had positive feedback from other parents about how our nanny looks after the children when I'm at work. I was thinking of asking around to see if any other parents wanted babies or pre-schoolers looked after from 9am - 3.30pm.

I was ideally looking to cut our childcare costs down from £135 per day (gross) to something closer to £80 - which would cover the beginning and end of the day.

I would be interested to hear if anyone has tried this sort of arrangement and had perspectives to offer?

i dont think you can do this. this is a combination of a nanny and a childminder. if she is a childminder it should be in her house and it needs to be registered etc..

if you need her at all in the day (sickness/ school holidays), how will that work?

also you say their is a lot of london traffic. so realistically she has to allow for getting stuck in traffic every day after school drop off and before school pick up. so would arrive back at say 10am, and leave by 2.30pm to allow for traffic. so thats only 4 1/2 hours. allowing an hour for lunch, thats 3 1/2. wont it be more helpful if she uses those 3 hours to cook for the evening, bake, sort childrens things/sew name labels/ pick up presents/ childrens laundry blah blah..

'i dont think you can do this. this is a combination of a nanny and a childminder'

It's a nanny share. It's fine as long as she only looks after the children of one other family at a time. 3 or more families AT THE SAME TIME then you need to register as a childminder.

Theoretically you could do a nanny-share every day with different families, so work for ten families (2 families x 5 days) and still be a nanny, not a childminder.

When I worked as a nanny in London I got a part time job in a clothes shop. It was more for my benefit as I was bored during the day.

I would help her find someone at your school or in your street who needs a nanny. It might be hard though as its not every day.

Longstory I haven't tried this set-up, but it is something me and my employers are thinking about in the future when the youngest DC goes to school.

I think the things you need to think about are;

1. Assuming a 10 hour day, you pay £13.50 ph. You want to cut your childcare bill by £55 per day and offer 6.5 hours of childcare. So you need the other family to pay £8.50 ph and you need your nanny to have extra children for no extra money.

2)£8.50 ph is pricey considering
a) the share will be at your house - the children being looked after in their own home is one benefit of a nanny, the other family won't get this benefit.
b) the nanny will be 'on call' for all 5 of your children.
c) when one of your children is ill, the nanny will look after them - the other family is faced with the choice of sending their young children to be around a sickness bug/flu/chicken pox/other contagious illness or not using their childcare that day.

3. As a nanny I would not want to take on extra children for no extra pay, even if the other children were at school. If she is that good and that reliable I can't see why she wouldn't just leave and get a job with two pre-schoolers or something. £13.50ph is highish for London, but not off the scale. Not enough for 5 + extras during the day.

4. Forevergreek makes a good point about the traffic. If she needs to pick-up/drop-off the baby/other children she isn't going to be able to do 9am-3:30pm. It could work if you can find someone at the school who is happy to bring their DC's to school, hand over to nanny and then have the nanny drop them back off at pick-up time.

5. You need to find a family who want 9am-3:30pm, 3 days a week, term-time only. I can't imagine this will be that easy! Doable, but I don't think there are loads of people with those childcare requirements.

6. You obviously need to think about all the normal nanny-share issues.

Ideally you need someone who doesn't work but wants some child-free time (or maybe someone who has huge flexibility/works from home). I think how likely you are to find this probably depends on what part of London you're in. Too wealthy and the yummy mummies can afford their own nanny, too poor and they can't afford £8.50ph on childcare to go to the gym/hairdressers.

oh I just thought of a 7)

7. nanny insurance (required by Ofsted) is usually only for 6 children I think? If she is looking after 2 others and then your 5 get sent home from school because of the snow, she'll be over her allowed numbers. Not sure what the outcome of that would be....

OUtraged makes good points.

I don't think you will find an au pair who can cope with five children on an ongoing basis unless your older ones are extremely independent.

I sympathise with wanting to reduce costs but if you have a good nanny who can keep all these plates in the air, I'd hang onto her. Honestly. We had an after school nanny until recently and it's only becoming clear to us now how much she was carrying the au pairs along.

Thank you so much for your replies they are really appreciated. I am partly worried that our nanny will get bored during the day when they are all at school - she really comes alive with younger children around. I think I will let her know that we want her to stay, although we'd ideally cut our costs a little, but be open to her suggestions about how it might work well for both of us.