Nanny with own child, would you hire?

[Annie105]

Hi all I registered my baby son with a local nursery but their next available start date is 8 weeks after my return to work! So now I am looking for an alternative solution. The other local nursery isn't ideal and I got a bad feel for it when I was there.

I've put a few ads up recently for a nanny share and out of all the contacts I've had one has really stood out. She is a married woman a few years younger than me but a highly experienced nanny. She has a young daughter who is 3.5 months younger than my son.

In a nutshell we have spoken and emailed a lot and she sounds great but my husband is concerned she won't prioritise our sons needs as she will have her own baby with her.. Although if he was at nursery this would happen too if a key work had 2/3 charges to look after?

Has anyone any experience of a nanny bringing her own baby to work? Am I crazy go consider this? Financially she is looking for 12 per hour gross (London) which is still quite a lot but I guess her experience is relative. We haven't gone as far as discussing buggies and sharing costs for that sort of thing etc as we have agreed to get to know each others parenting goals as well as the employee/employer side over a coffee first this weekend.

She does sound great, she would literally be like gold dust were it not for the fact she has her own baby. She admitted not many employers unless looking for after school care are overly keen. My son will
Be an only child (IVF miracle) and I think maybe it would be quite nice for him to develop alongside a child of a very similar age??

Any thoughts or advice welcome as we are all new to this and it's hard too to think of the pros and cons clearly as any sort of childcare feels wrong but I have to go back to work When he is 9 months. (Nannys baby would be 5.5 months and she is still hoping to be breastfeeding at this stage)

Thanks in advance for input ladies

Sounds wonderful, a friend for your son and you're supporting a working mother. This could be something really special, I hope it works out for you.

I personally wouldn't. I think the children need to be on an equal footing. The worst thing would be when children get into tassels with each other and both are upset. Even if the nanny does everything she possibly can to be impartial and fair, one child will have their own mother there and one child won't. Yours will be the child hearing "she's not your mammy, she's my mammy".

That would bother me. I can't see how it could be avoided.

I wouldn't, I agree that the children in a nanny's care should be equal. I'd be worried mine was coming second all the time.

I think it could be really great
I understand what your DH says, but I really don't imagine it would happen. Certainly less than nursery!

I agree with fee first response, it sounds great.

How old is your son? 9 months would be very different to 3 years! Basically, the older the kids the less this will be a problem I think.

I'm sure if she is as experienced as you say she is, she will have professional strategies to make sure she treats them as equally as possible.

Also, when you have a coffee with her why don't you just ask her and raise this as a concern? That's how this would be approached in any other job interview.

Hope it works out.

the whole point of nanny bringing child is it's a deal for both of you. She isn't paying all salary to nursery and you get a discount too. Dosnt sound much of a deal for you at all. You could get someone else for sale price and 100% attention.

I would consider for the short term before nursery could take but it's no deal for you

Ah sorry, u just saw you mentioned the age.
That makes it a little more difficult but I think he will still end up getting more one on one attention than if he went to a nursery at that age.

Meet her. You will probably be able to follow your gut instinct after that.

My only reservation would be, how does she envisage being able to look after 2 babies so close in age whilst she is breastfeeding one of them?
Is it her first baby? I ask because the logistics might prove difficult unless she is an experienced mother, not just an experienced nanny.
Lots of people I know found it really hard to deal with breastfeeding a second baby while looking after a toddler, but doing it while looking after another baby would be more difficult. If she's used to breastfeeding and has it well-established then maybe she could manage, but I think it's something to consider and discuss.

Sounds brilliant to me. Both kids at similar ages so doing activities together and an instant playmate. Perhaps have a couple of trial sessions to make sure kids get on ok. tricky to anticipate if they are only a few months old though but equally they would grow up together.
Mine went to a childminder who had her own kids and she was great.

I wouldn't. I've been the Childminder in this situation and I found it incredibly difficult to be even handed, especially in relation to discipline or if both kids wanted one toy. To the extent that I stopped childminding.

Absolutely not. No. everyone whom I have ever known to do it (3) have found it does not end well.

I always took my children to work with me when they were younger.
Worked really well and no different to a childminder.

The minded child always came first and my children had to fit in because that what nannying is about

The minded child always came first and my children had to fit in because that what nannying is about

How do you explain that to a breastfed baby?

I'd also consider nanny share would cost you 50% you are nanny sharing with her and you are paying 100%.
Childminders charge a lot less per hour to reflect the fact they have other or own children there.

I would say for older children that would be fine as they would play together. At 9 months and 5.5 months I think the nanny would struggle to care for them both well. She's probably being very optimistic but a 9 month old could be on the move and then it would be very difficult to meet both their needs. Her child would need weaning whilst caring for your DS and if her baby cried whilst she was working it would be very hard for her to not want to just hold her own child (obviously) but then what happens if your DS wants or needs carrying or holding. It would be hard for her. Not impossible but very challenging.

I have done this and I wouldn't recommend it I'm afraid.

Our nanny brought her child with her after returning from her maternity leave so we had a clear 'before and after' experience.

Lots of issues came up despite the children getting on really well. The wear and tear on our house/toys/equipment was significant - especially as the nanny's child wasn't careful with my children's belongings. The nanny's child was very different to my kids and we had to make many changes to our home to keep them safe. The nanny didn't have time to do any light housework which meant I had to do it when I got home which left me shattered and putting away laundry at midnight every night after work etc.

My kids activities and play dates were limited by the nanny's child being around. The nanny's child was always ill and this affected her willingness to take the kids out to the park etc. My kids also had to get taken along to their many drs appointments. The nanny's child was a fussy eater and my children's diet became quite limited as the nanny was gradually only catering for her child's preferences.

In the end we had to sack her despite her being a great nanny. If she would come back to us without her child in tow I would hire her like a shot.

I considered this but wrote it off for a number of reasons.

1. I don't think a nanny will form as strong a bond with my child if her own is the same age and right there (different if she had school age kids)

2. my DD was/is not an easy child. I worried that if the nanny's child was easy, mine would look worse because of the comparison, and if the nanny's child was also difficult, she would struggle to cope (this applied to any nannyshare not just NWOC)

3. I wanted a long term nanny and worried about the higher chance of a nanny with a baby having another soon or stopping work (in fact the NWOC I interviewed told me she wanted another soon )

4. I wanted my dd to do various activities and a nanny would probably not have been able to afford those so I would have had to pay for her child too or let dd miss out

Audrey I wouldn't have wanted my child to always come first and the nanny's child fit in - gives my child the wrong idea of what's fair

OP a couple of other points 1) the rate she is offering is not the usual NWOC discount as far as I'm aware and 2) I really cannot see how this would work well with her BF.

Breastfed babies are so portable, not sure how anyone could think that's a downside. Presumably bottle fed babies need the adult to sit with them to feed them too, how is a breastfed baby going to be harder? They're proven to be calmer as they're less prone to colic, and they don't need sterilisers/bottles preparing. We've got to stop spreading the myth that breastfeeding is hard work.

OP There's the added benefit that anyone breastfeeding at nearly 6 months is likely to lean towards AP, you might find she's a sling user too in which case her baby will most likely be in a sling a lot so she can chase the older child about.

I've breast fed 3 babies myself as I'm sure many other people in this thread have

Perhaps my DCs are spectacularly badly behaved but I would have real trouble explaining to them as breastfed babies that they needed to just "fit in"

I have 13 months between the 3 and 2 year olds and that was hard enough. You cannot give the level of care commensurate with a £12 an hour salary whilst breastfeeding (or bottle feeding) your own child, given the age gaps.

Nope, never. Ive now done it 3 times and its never ended well. Even though i have a 'if your kids wreck my house, you fix it', sometimes its impossible to fix,eg, permanent markers on carpets. Also sometimes kids do not want to share their toys and house with another kid. Also ive had nannys kids who are ill,food allergies,very young and that tends to shape and determine whether she comes to work and what my kids eat.

You could give it a trial run and see how it goes?

Moo I'm a big BF fan but from 6ish months many bottle fed babies can hold their own bottles which means they can be fed in the buggy en route somewhere, or while sitting in a bouncy chair while the nanny tends to the other child/laundry/cooking.

By the by, it's not a myth that BF is hard work. Loads of women find it bloody difficult because they aren't given the right support and help (or any help). Denying it's hard undermines attempts to fight for more support and help for BFing women. (Not relevant to this nanny who will be over the hard but by now). Tangent over...

We didn't it, and sadly it wasn't a success for us. The nanny in question left because she wouldn't take our daughter to nursery in the afternoons as it wouldn't fit with her child's schedule. She also left my then just two year old in the living room for 45 minutes one morning while settling her child to sleep upstairs. It just wasn't ideal which was a shame as in paper we had the same parenting styles. I think she underestimated how hard it would be to give her own child less than perfect care in order to look after another child. As did we.

We had a nanny share before that, which was brilliant so if there's any way of doing that with another local family, that would be my choice.

minipie I agree establishing breastfeeding is hard and the support is shocking; the baby will be nearly 6 months though and by then it's all benefits, no costs.

It's irresponsible to stick a bottle in a baby's mouth and leave them unsupervised, I doubt any nanny would do that.

In theory BF is easy by 6 months but mine were both very distractible (sp?) at that age so feeds took a lot longer than they needed to and were tricky in public ... and I certainly couldn't feed them while pushing them in the buggy... (is it really irresponsible to give a bottle to a baby in a buggy, I see that all the time?) Anyway, this is a massive tangent! I think the BF is the least of the issues tbh.