Part time nanny for a SAHM

[Prufrock]

Before you all start telling me how lucky/lazy I am, I agree. Right - now that's cleared up....

Ds's (2y.o) nursery is soon to close (bloody proerty developers have offered the owner a huge sum of money to raze it and build executive houses - jsut what our village needs more of!) I am considering employing his key worker for 2 days a week (Mon/Fri). She has another nanny job Tues-Thurs. To start with this would be a temporary arrangement over the school holidays, looking after my ds and dd(4), though we may carry it on afterwards.

Does having a nanny working in your own home work if you are there as well? I will actually be using some/most of my child-free time to study - is it feasable for me to get anything done when the kids are still in the house? Will the nanny find it difficult to do her job with me hanging around and will I be able to not interfere constantly?

On a practical level, I understand that for a temporary contract I don't need to become an employer, but would instead pay the nanny a gross rate and she would sort out her own tax. How long can I get away with being on a temporary contract (from an IR pov), and if I then take her on permanently, will I just be able to ignore the previous time?

If I do have to become her employer, would it be normal for me to share the tax free allowance with the other employer, or do I have to pay BR because I got in there last?

Is it all worth it? Or should I just try looking after my own kids full time......

at the lucky/lazy comment!

...but you're not lazy if you plan to study.

anyway, I have what I guess would be called a nanny for 2 afternoons a week while I work in the house. She's the 4th one actually and is prob average in her ability to keep them out of my hair (they venture into the office at least once), but they get on really well with her and she's helping with their spanish so I forgive that.

re pay, IR etc. if an employee earns less than 70 quid a week then you don't have to register as an employer or get involved in any of that. now it culd be that technically you can only do that if you have the p45, but I don't think so.

ok just realised you said 2 days and not 2 mornings. in that case whenever I've had 2 jobs, the one with the p45 pays nowt and the other one pays emergency rate. that probably doesn't help. she doesn't fancy going self employed then?

ppps - none of my nannies have said they had a problem with me being there. but then all had other careers they eventually went on to.

Thanks SP - how do you keep from interfering if you hear WW3 going on outside your door?

I'm not sure nannies can be self-employed in the UK unfortunately - it would make many peoples lives a lot easier I'm sure.
Any other experiences?

I have a nanny 4 days per week. on 3 days i work (employed by big company) but based mainly at home. the 4th day is a wild luxury in which i spend some time for me (out of the house) ans some time with each child separately (elder has SN so it's tricky doing many things with both of them. TBH the 4th day is mainly to retain her services.

how does it work on the other days? i disappear into the office at start time, and don't come out till going home time. i try to avoid the children seeing me the rest of the time - popping to the kitchen for lunch when they are out. i've been quite strict with nanny and myself - when i'm at work, i'm at work whether in home office or away. given those, it works well. elder son (3) is pretty OK with me around, younger (18mo) does get upset if he sees me during the day, but it quickly passes. I have a lot of confidence in our nanny, and back her decisions.

it largely comes down to your discipline - I would find it much harder to study or even wrork for myself.

yes, like squeakycat says, i try to avoid being seen by ds and dd because that tends to be the start of ww3 (unless they see me because I'm getting the lollies out of the freezer that is). When my nanny was new i also went to help out with riots, but I think that only happened once: the novelty of a new person seems to make them behave.

also - anyone can be self employed if they have more than one employer. the restriction (which doesn't tend to stand up anyway I'm told) is on people who are self employed but only work for one client (like many nannies would)

personally I think

1. good for you

and

2. I'd far prefer to have my children out of the house than in it .. even with childcare around one would have to stay out of sight to avoid being roped into children's days

some of us do find it very hard not to stop work and start interfering in childcare when working from home. it does take some practice, actually i hate it and would try and find out-of-house childcare really. do you have a definite separate space you can retire to? preferably sound-proof so you don't hear the yells?

but maybe a great nanny would not have yelling children, ever?

I work from home 3.5 days while a nanny looks after my 2.
I love it.
As far as working at home goes, you definitely need a closed-off work space. If someone does sneak in (rare) I do quick return.
If I hear WW3 I know it's just a blip. I feel fine leaving it to the nanny. That's why I pay her. I know she can handle it.
I guess I must have hovered a bit to start with, but I do know that I tried very hard to hold back, out of respect for her. And before long I trusted her absolutely.