Nanny sharing: is it the right way to go?

[Libra]

Our wonderful childminder has decided to stop childminding. She was 'the only childminder in the village' so we are now completely stuck.

We are making tentative noises to one of the other families who used our childminder about the idea of a nanny share. When DS2 was younger we did have a nanny for a year and a half, which worked well but crippled us financially. He is now about to start school, so we would only be looking for after and before school care plus the dreaded holidays. Our friend has a younger boy, so would pick up the day-time slack, if you see what I mean.

Does anyone have any advice about successful nanny sharing?

I've shared a nanny with 2 families (one after the other) - my chidren were school/nursery age and theirs were younger. It works well but you have to agree on a lot of things before you begin, to keep up the communication both between families and between each family and nanny once you're in it, and be as laid back as possible with regards to problems that may occur.
I have been running a nanny share database for a local parenting group for the last 3 years (have just handed it on to someone else) and so I have spoken to countless people who want to share a nanny. A lot of them have ideas that I can't see would work in practice eg. wanting to share a nanny for a couple of hours a couple of days a week - just not worth the hassle for the tiny decrease in expense of nanny salary.
Things that (in my opinion) you need to discuss and either be compatible or find a compromise are

1. breakdown of salary (I always paid 50% of the cost of the nanny salary even though I 'used' a lot less hours since I work part-time and my children were in school/nursery in termtime) 2)what to do about nanny holidays/sick days (if you know the other family well would you look after their kids if nanny sick so only one family needs to take time off work). Who chooses nanny holiday - how to make sure that both families know which days nanny has off.
2. Which house is nanny based in or will you change each week to even out the wear and tear - if so, who is responsible for stocking up on food for kids/nanny and will other family pay towards food etc. 4)If nanny is in your house have you got the right type of baby equipment/toys (we have 2 highchairs, double buggy, baby toys, etc and my kids are over 3!) but we prefer to have kids start day in our house as it makes school run easier. 5)Will nanny use own car/your car - think about car seats - will you need extra, who will buy them. How will you split the car expenses/who will pay increase in car insurance. 6)How much will you pay towards nanny's 'float' for expences, will he/she have to keep money seperate from the two families (since your ds will be at school then I expect that he/she won't need much float for entertainment etc, but will need more for a pre-schooler)
3. Who will pay for nanny's training (surestart registration/first aid cert etc)
4. And if it all goes wrong how much notice do you need to give the other family to split up the share.

Thank you so much for responding with so much helpful information! Sorry it took me this long to get back to the thread (childcare problems...)

It looks like there is a lot to discuss, but your helpful post can be a starting point. Nothing strikes me as a deal-breaker at the moment, at any rate.

We shared a nanny for a bit. The only things I'd add to this great list are

• you have to agree on discipline and approach. for example, are the children allowed crisps or biscuits for their snacks, or is it rice cakes and fruit?

-We found meeting up (with wine!) regularly helped us stop issues from becoming problems.

• tax can be complicated (as well as dull) so you might want to factor in the cost of using a nanny payroll company
• get the holiday issue sorted out in advance, if you want your sharing family with pre-school children to be doomed to take holidays in school holiday time earlier than they had expected

Thanks for that!

I am hoping that we might have a lot of these problems already dealt with because we are used to sharing a childminder. So the children know each other well and we are happy with the childminder's ethos and would want the nanny to continue with this sort of style of childcare. With 3 out of 4 of us parents working at local universities I am hoping that some of the holiday issues will be easier to timetable as well.