Youngest of 3 is off to school - advice on a flexible alternative to full time nanny

[wincompoop]

Hi,

I am new to Mumsnet so appologies for any clumsiness.
We have three boys 8,7,4 and little one is starting school next week.
We have had nannies for the last 6 years (and the cost has been killing us). We dont need this now as they will all be at school 9.00-3.00
We both have some flex in our working hours.
But we need reliable childcare to do pick ups and maybe some drop offs.
And we want to cover school holidays. Ideally in our home.

I know this is probably not an uncommon wishlist - but it is probably hard to find the right care.

Please can anyone offer advice or share experience on how they approached this?

Many thanks

You have to remember that as well as school holidays you also need to cover INSET days, half days at end of term, random pick-ups from late returning school trips and sports activities, and the illness of three children which never seems to overlap. Add to that you want holiday care to be in your home ideally and you are probably looking at keeping the nanny for at least the first year.

However, if you are prepared to mix and match, does your school have before/after school club? I imagine it might be too late to get three places for this year though.

For INSET etc do you have friends who will cover those days in return for you covering some of their working days (so you both end up taking half the amount of annual leave)? Or family who can step in?

Holidays - you can often find nursery nurses, TAs, students who are happy to do holiday time nannying. It doesn't tend to be seamless though as they usually want some time off themselves which won't necessarily tie in with your time off. These arrangements also tend to be made late on in term when people decide what they are doing for their own holidays so you may well end up having arranged your own holiday and then finding that all the people who are interested in nannying for you want the following two weeks off!

Thanks for the reply, Unexpected
As you probably gathered i am looking for the holy grail where the cost goes down to reflect less hours but the consistency and flexibility that our nannies have provided is maintained.
As you rightly point out, this may be unrealistic :)

Just thought i would ask as i guess this is a common dilemma and there may be some new emerging child care model aimed at addressing it.

Thanks again.

Most people I know who are looking for this have moved to having au pairs or students studying at local college to help out with pick ups/drop offs and relying on holiday clubs in half term/holidays.

Childminder. Usually v reliable as its their full time job. Happy to be flexible. Have used students etc for holidays but its a lot of hassle finding them and they can change their plans at drop of hat.

We now use a childminder and have 100% peace of mind.

I have 3 boys similar ages and sadly the holy grail doesn't exist yet. we muddle by fairly well now with:

Nursery until school
Childminder for after school until old enough to go to after school club/ holiday clubs
After school club / holiday clubs from about y1/2

A Childminder that just wants to do school pick ups is the best balance of cost-effective and flexibility I think

Maybe a beford/after school nanny as with 3 children your costs of having all 3 with a childminder may be similar.

Split holiday time between your annual leave, dh annual leave, grandparents (if available), holiday clubs, cub camp.

Do you have other 'staff'? I ask because I'm a nanny in this situation, whereby my 4 yr old has just started school.

My bosses offered me a housekeeping/admin role so that I keep my job. I spend my days filing, bookkeeping and cleaning now, and it means I keep my job, and they are now only paying one wage.

It's not for every nanny though, some are not interested in housekeeping at all, but if financially viable it might be worth looking into.

Or maybe you could find a term time nannyshare, so she looks after another child whilst your children are at school, reducing your childcare costs?

Maybe a nanny with own child would be interested in this job either as a term time only before/after school role or as it is ie to Inc school hols. Remember although a nanny with own child is cheaper generally due to nature of hours I think you will have to pay going rate to entice someone. What will you do regards nanny annual leave will you stipulate in contract all must be taken during school hols?

Some childminders cover after school and holidays,

Childminders in my neighbourhood charge 8£ per hour (per child!) so for 3 it would be WAY more expensive than a nanny if you could find one who would just do 3:30-6. I tend to think that 20£ per child is a LOT for what they seem to offer in my experience (very small space due to local housing being expensive, TV on, after school period doesn't suit activities/trips out, so not much going on for DC collected from school, etc).

However for 10-ish per hour there seem to be a lot of people advertising as babysitters, many of whom are ofsted registered or could become so quite easily (eg ex-teachers, ex-childminders, students studying childcare-related qualifications, etc). It would work out to effectively an 'after school nanny' and would be much less cost than a childminder for 3 DC. Good luck with it. I hope our costs go down and convenience up when DD2 starts school next year ...

I think an au pair with before school care could work.

So mornings either you/ husband sort and drop off, or drop at before school breakfast club for an hour or so. Then au pair picks up and does 3-6pm daily.
They usually do 25ish hrs max a week so if you did 15hrs term time, they might be happy to do a few long days in holidays. Ie they do mon,tues and wed full time in holidays, and you send either to holiday club or take one day holiday each for summer to cover. So you could take 6 days holiday and cover every fri for 6weeks and dh every Thursday

Really though a nanny will probably be easiest, and more helpful as can also do other child related stuff ie cooking/ homework/ bedrooms etc