Nanny has had a breakdown

[Stuffragette]

Looking for any advice really. Our fabulous, brilliant, amazing, very treasured nanny has had a breakdown. I've always known she has suffered with depression. I'm bipolar myself so we chat a lot about it. Things have come to a head over Christmas where she became suicidal.

We spoke over whatsapp about it (btw that is our normal way of speaking) and she was going to try and come in today but I told her to stay home for the rest of the week.

I am so sad for her. She really doesn't deserve this. I'm just sending her little messages of thinking of you etc.

Unfortunately I'm now stuck a bit for childcare. She did after school for me. My husband is covering this week but after that not sure.

Having had a breakdown myself I know the misery of it, but I don't want to put any pressure on her. She really is part of the family.

Not really sure what to do. Will obviously continue to pay her as normal. Has anyone had any experience of a situation like this? And what did you do for temp childcare?

Is there any after school clubs at school you can rely on? Or another mum temporarily. You sound very understanding and that's lovely. Im a childminder and we usually just get 'when will you be back' and 'can you refund me asap' when we're on our death bed lol.

Where are you based? You might find a local childcarer on here can help

We had an experience sort of similar - our Nanny's father died while she was employed with us and her mother had already died about 4 years earlier. She went to be with her father for about 6 weeks before he died then took another 2 or 3 afterwards to deal with family stuff/grieve.

It seemed a humane thing to do to let her be with her father and take the necessary time off although I did find it very stressful (I never told her obviously!)

In the interim we used an agency and managed to find a teacher who was between jobs - she wasn't a great nanny but we wanted to keep the job open for our regular nanny so used her as a temporary measure.

Years later, I am glad that we did what we did, we paid our nanny for all of her time missed (as well as paying for her cover) and she continued to work for us for several more years and is still a close part of our family and occasionally looks after the DCs.

It was expensive and stressful but worth it to keep a much valued nanny.

No but your kindness will mean so much to her.

Can you give her few weeks to sort self out - possibly on sick pay and get a temp nanny in or call on other mums for favours for tea dates

You sound like lovely employers, are there any other nannies local or who look after children at your children's school? If so could you offer to pay half their nanny wages to do a temp nanny share? Slightly cheaper and could work?