I'd really recommend a nanny share! We're doing it, and it's fantastic.
Obviously, the children get the lovely personal care from someone who they love - which is always the advantage of a nanny over nursery. Depending on how many days a week you're working, you might find that a nanny share isn't much more expensive than a nursery
And I think that sharing has some very definite advantages (over and above the financial) over hiring a nanny individually:
- the main thing is that the children have a companion to play with every day, which they really, really love. They get very excited when they see each other, and are absolutely lovely with each other. I think they believe they are cousins or something!
- they also have each others' toys to play with! This is obviously better if you alternate houses - could you do that?
- you have a friend with whom to share the whole journey of finding a nanny/figuring out contracts/being an employer! I've found that makes the whole thing much less intimidating
- if you're able to alternate houses (or use the second house when necessary), then that really frees you from the constraint of the house being needed every day for the children, particularly useful if one of you moves house, or does major renovations.
Extra equipment you need:
- cot, but one of you probably has a travel cot, which is fine
- double buggy
- second high chair (Ikea antilop chairs are not only really inexpensive and easy to clean, but they stack - which is very useful. I was surprised at how much extra space all the extra equipment takes up!)
- consider a play pen, since the nanny will need to be able to leave the children safely for short periods (e.g. when she goes to the toilet - she won't be able to carry both up the stairs at the same time; also when she settles them for naps, she'll have to do one at a time)
- stairgates which you might not put in for a single child who you could watch all the time also become more important when the nanny might leave one child downstairs while she settles the other (although cbeebies is great for that!)
Payroll and contract is per family. Definitely worth getting the contract drawn up by a paye company for a nanny share, since it's quite complicated to make it work individually and together (e.g. the contracts reference each other, and you divide the pay in a slightly asymetrical way because of the way NI/tax allowances work). Salary/NI costings are quite complicated to figure out on a share - I did all the research to calculate it before we went ahead, but we were still surprised when the paye company figured out the gross amount. We'd over-estimated slightly, but honestly it was so complicated that it could probably go either way.
The other one I can think of is fees to find a nanny. If you use an agency, it can be quite a lot. But even if you just use the websites, you'll need membership for a few months while you're looking for someone (you can contact someone if either you or they are a member, and nannies don't tend to become members so as an employer you do need to)
Consider that even if your contract doesn't include paid sick leave above SSP (which is probably sensible), if all goes well then you'll probably still pay your nanny's sick days if she needs them - because you will think she is wonderful, and it feels mean not to pay her sick days when she genuinely needs them and isn't taking advantage.
Also, if your child is ill in a nastily contagious way (e.g. D&V), you might decide with the other family not to expose the other child to it, so you may have extra sick days for that (which you would also have with a nursery, but wouldn't have with a non-shared nanny, since an adult can be careful with personal hygiene to avoid contagion). An advantage of a nanny over nursery is that with other illnesses, you can still go to work. We had chicken pox, which would have meant several weeks off work with a nursery, but just agreed with the other family to allow the exposure for the other child.