how on earth do I find an afterschool nanny?

[bumbleandbumble]

I cant seem to find anyone to do a 3-7pm shift, 4 days a week! plus school holidays full day.

all the nannies I have interviewed want more hours and I cant afford more hours.

I cant do after school club because my younger child is only 3 and they wont take them that young. help!

my job starts next week and I have no one

Childminder instead?

Well, if you live in east devon I'll be your nanny! That is pretty much the hours I'm looking for, but can't find anyone to employ me! Not very helpful.

Also try "like my mum"

Childminder, advertise on local noticeboards, advertise on Gumtree, childcare.co.uk or nannyjob.co.uk? Do you have a local college, maybe you could advertise there for a student?

I feel your pain, it's a nightmare. I have a friend going through the same thing at the moment - she's asking any after school nannies she comes across if they know of anyone and is also happy for potential nannies to bring along their babies (not ideal, but she's desperate).

Do you know anyone willing to share their after school nanny? Our nanny and I have offered to help my friend out for a bit.

We "inherited" another family's after school nanny when they moved away, so were very lucky. She's not Mary Poppins, but I'm holding onto her for as long as possible!

Good luck.

We had the same problem. It's a nightmare and one of the reasons I can't work out of school hours.
Childminders here only do until 6pm and I'd need until 7:30-8pm.

Childminder?

Unfortunately not many people can live on 4 hours a days wages.

As your youngest child is 3, what are they doing during the rest of the day? As a nanny, the problem is the lack of hours during term time.

The pay would have to be high to cover my bills. So it's a money issue for many people I expect. Are you offering an hourly salary or an annual salary? Annual salary could be split over 12 months so making the nannies income during term time higher than it would be if just paying for the hours worked. It would of course reduce what they get during school holidays but cash flow wise for them and also probably for you, it would work better than paying on a work done basis.

Would a student cut it or do you need someone more highly experienced/qualified? If not, then advertise at your local college/uni

To be truthful I looked at after school nannying jobs and felt that too much was being asked for me to want to do it. Many parents wanted all homework completed, meal cooked for the whole family and some ironing etc as well. Do you think you might be doing this, I kept seeing the same jobs being re advertised again and again so obviously they weren't appealing to anyone else.

I couldn't find anyone reliable to do those hours either, so ended up with an au pair.

No I am not asking too much. No cleaning, just collect from school, bath and dinner for kids only.

I cant do childminder because we dont get home till 7pm and my younger one is at one nursery and my older at another school a bus ride away. Childminders have offered to take my older from her school but cant go pick up my younger at her nursery...or vice versa.

Local uni? I am in London...dont have time to go to all the uni/colleges.
I have advertised on all those websites. People keep coming for interviews and then when they get here they say "I want more hours/money" even though I was clear about the hours on the adverts! People have even said yes, then called back to say they found something better, i.e more hours!

Well, I'm in London and there are a couple of unis only a mile or two away, do you not have time at the weekend just to nip down and stick an ad on a notice board? Plus in local shops etc. This has been my best after-school recruitment in the past. Only students or a local woman looking for pin money are going to realistically want those hours.

I did those hours in London but worked at a call centre in the day and had a partner who earns a good wage - hence I could afford to take that job. I couldn't have done full time in the holidays though because of my other job, of course.

I mean to add that I think you need to think about who would be able to afford to only work 4 hours a day yet be at your beck and call/not have any other commitment to ramp up to full-time work every 6 weeks (school holidays). A PP's idea above of annual salary rather than hourly might make those hours more feasible.

We live in London and have an after school nanny. Found her through an agency. It cost a fortune, but was the only place we got reliable people who actually wanted the job.

We pay our nanny an annualised salary, so she gets the same pay for 10 months of the year. The exception is July and August, because she effectively works full time for those two months. I found she preferred getting higher pay those months because of the extra work, and I prefer it as if she leaves part way through the year I don't effectively pay twice for the most expensive months.

It is hard to find people who want these jobs, but I've found it appeals to someone who is studying (nearly hired someone doing their teaching degree who wanted work with school age children for some experience), an older lady who wants extra money or a nanny with her own child. We've had 2 nannies with own child as after school nannies, and interviewed v good people in the other 2 categories.

It works really well for us, but most other children in my DDs classes who have working parents use au pairs for school age.

As another option, could you take your 3 year old out of day nursery and have a full time nanny? When my DD1 started school DD2 started nursery at our local primary school (i.e. 20 free hours). We kept our old nanny on as nursery wasn't costing us anything. So we had full time cover and DD2 still got the benefit of going to nursery at 3.

Good luck finding someone!