Organising Nanny share from summer 2014 - any advice?

[Poppyjen]

We are moving to South London next summer with our two children (who will be 4 and 1). At the moment we have a fantastic full time live-out nanny who we hope will move with us, but come September 2014 our eldest will be in school full time, and youngest will be in nursery at least a couple of mornings a week.

So. ...we have been thinking about the possibility of a nanny share, if our nanny decides to make the move to London with us. Ideally I guess we would be looking for a family with one younger (baby) child who needs full time care, that way the nanny would spend the majority of the time with 2 little ones and just after school hours with 3.

Even if our nanny decides not to come, I think we would still like to do a nanny share.

Does anyone have any experience of this kind of arrangement? Any advice gratefully received especially around how the logistics of finding (1) another family to share with and (2) potentially finding a nanny as well. Also I am stressing about how much time we will need to leave ourselves to sort everything out - this all needs to be in place probably by August next year but we won't be moving until June or maybe July....help!!!

Thank you so much in advance for any replies - you will be helping one very stressed out mummy!

Anyone?

No experience of shares.

School holidays would be a concern as would need things to do for all 3 children and having baby may limit things a bit.

Coordinating your holiday with babies parents holiday and nannies holiday adds complication though if you all agree dates a long way in advance may work well, though babies parents may want holiday during term time as cheaper than school holiday time.

Thanks, yes it does seem to be a whole world of complication :)

Does anyone out there have any experience of full time nanny share working well, and if so - any tips on how to make it work?

Hi we had a nanny share for a year when DC1 was a baby and it worked really well for us. We shared with a family we had met at antenatal classes so the children were the same age and we recruited the nanny together. The children were always at my house as I worked longer hours than the other mum.

In a nanny share you might need extra Stuff - a double buggy, another high chair and car seat. All this Stuff lived at my house but we split the purchase costs. This was fine by me.

You also need to co-ordinate holidays- everyone goes on holiday at the same time. I think the only parents of pre-school children who take holiday in school holidays are teachers... that might work for you in terms of child care too, if you can find a teacher to share with! We let nanny pick 2 weeks and the employing family pick one week each. In practice it was never an issue.

Our share ended when I, the other mum and nanny all got PG at more or less the same time. We still see the other family and the DC1s have a spookily close bond 8 years later....