Your experiences and advice re live in and live out nanny housekeeper

[LadyPenelope]

We are considering increasing the amount of help we have at home and nanny housekeeper seems like good option. But trying to work out how this will work for our family and whether we will like it. I'd probably prefer live out but not sure if we will find someone easily and just not sure how I feel about live in. Would welcome some thoughts from parents and nannies about our situation and what has worked for you/how you arrange things. A bit of background so you understand our situation ....

We are semi rural in Surrey, an hour train ride from London and not close to station. Kids are 9 and 13 and in 2 separate schools 30 mins away. (Only DS needs transport to and from school, DD takes school bus)

I work FT close to kids schools and I can be away a few nights a month. Nature of my job means I can't always drop things to cover the unexpected. Currently DH around a lot but that will change over time but we don't know exactly how in terms of his hours, location, how much he'll work from home etc.

What I think I need is nanny housekeeper 7 - 7.30. Those would be the hours we might need but in reality, particularly over next 6 months and poss even longer there might be opportunities to start around 10 or 11 on many days. Babysitting couple of nights a week max.

For live in, accommodation would be small double size bed room (we could put single bed in to fit some other furniture and make it nice). Shared bathroom (but only shared with my DS 9 and occasional guests - could say that DS needs to use ou re suite but would make mornings more crazy for me!)

My main question is whether in our situation we will really have to go for live in? Given hours and location someone would need to live within 30 mins I guess and have own car. And if we do live in, how does that work? How do you go about living at close quarters and both having appropriate privacy but also friendly happy home. We are pretty easy going but we do enjoy our family time. What is normal re preparing and eating meals, watching TV etc?

We do have a TV room which kids use as well and we have a lounge too so it would be poss to escape if she wanted to!

This is getting too long !! Welcome your thoughts and anything we should consider.

TIA

How near is your nearest town?
I have had live out jobs in Rowledge, Bagshot, Nr Chertsey. Travelling 10 miles to a live-out job is not a problem in our County.
Live out I would think is possible in most of Surrey so I would initially look for live-out.

Within 10 miles of Guildford and Leatherhead. Bit more to Woking. Good to hear you think live out poss. I'm also aware that given our kis stage and schools bit further away, may not be most social job.

Plenty of nannies living around Leatherhead, Guildford, Woking areas. So I don't feel that live-out would be an issue.

Timing wise, the start time will depend to an extent on how far the nanny is travelling to work. I have had jobs at 7am, resulting in leaving home at 6:30. A 12 day is not unusual for a nanny/housekeeper role, though quite a lot of nannies these days work part-time, so are doing maybe 40-50 hours a week. Mon-Fri jobs seem to be quite rare these days so if a 5 day a week job may be attractive to some or may not be attractive to others who have got used to working less days.

Having days which start later is certainly possible. The key thing I would say would be to fix the working hours as much as possible, so nanny knows what hours they are working each week and so can plan the rest of their life. Avoid last minute changes, though many people can be flexible miss their pilates class

Don't include babysitting in the contract for a live-out nanny. They may well be prepared to do some but not on permanent basis. Nannies need to get work/life balance right.

I am now pretty much a nanny /housekeeper.I start work in tunbridge wells half an hour from my home at 6.45,the children then have a half hour school run .I finish at 6.30 ish
.I think Nick is right about the baby sitting I would not like to have two set nights for babysitting during the week ,If my employers need me to work late they just ask me as a normal baby sit.
I work three days at the moment and temp on another day as Nick says we work long days and a lotof my friends are on four day weeks.You'll find that most of us are also doing several different nights babysitting as well for varied families.
I think you you should be able to find someone to cover your hours,just make sure you give adequate petrol money my petrol costs are very big.
Try for live out it sounds to me that would be better for you.

Thanks for the thoughts and also input re babysitting. In fact I can't imagine going out mid week - would really just be the odd parents evening so baby sitting would be occasional Sat night I guess. Eurycantha - if you babysit for the family is that extra on top if your normal salary?

Agree re petrol - in our case as we are semi rural, petrol would definitely add up.

Yes if live out nanny babysitting is extra.

I agree, babysitting extra or time off in lieu (by prior agreement).

Consider how far away the nanny lives if you want them to do babysitting on nights when they are not working for you during the day. Whilst they may be your #1 choice for babysitting, try to have a backup local babysitter as nanny may not feel it's worth travelling to you if you only need a couple of hours babysitting.