Advice on childcare options for newcomer family

[coralsand]

Hi,
I have recently moved to the UK and have 2 young children under 4 + a baby on the way. Both of us are working full time, long hours, and will be regularly traveling.

I have been researching available options for childcare and looking for advice:

• Part-time nursery for my youngest - morning sessions. What do you think about nurseries vs. childminders? (I was surprised to see that costs are more or less the same[

• Live-in nanny/housekeeper - so I can get help with household chores while my eldest is at school and my youngest is napping. I also believe that the fact she would be live-in makes it more convenient in case of travels or overtime?

I would also need somebody who has experience with newborns, for after the baby arrives; do you think it is easy to find someone matching these criteria?

Happy to hear what you think about this organisation, and any advice you may have.

I have read quite a lot about Norland nannies, and they sound great. I think I wouldn't mind paying slightly more for the right person, if the rates are reasonable of course. However I am not sure how involved these nannies can be in the household chores?

My previous and only experience, overseas, was with a great full time nanny, who was very much involved in the kids development and activities, but who did not do anything unrelated to the kids, so no cooking except for the kids' meals from Monday to Friday, no laundry, no cleaning. And it resulted in an overwhelming amount of chores for myself, too exhausting for a pregnant mum of 2 kids, working 60hrs+ per week. As a result of this experience, I decided to get as much help as I can from now on, hence the live-in nanny/housekeeper idea.

If you have advice on good agencies or websites that you could recommend for assisting me in the search process, that would be great.

In terms of rates, how much do you think rates are for nanny-housekeepers in London? From my research it can go from minimum wage for live-in, so 11/hr, up to 20... Is it reasonable to offer minimum wage when you want someone at least a little bit experienced? I've read that young Norland nannies are paid from 14-15/hr; are they as good as an experienced non-Norland one?

Thank you so much in advance for taking the time to share your advice.

A mum who is kind of lost, and has to rethink her whole household organisation in a very short amount of time... :-/

If you can afford it then a live-in nanny/housekeeper would be your best option but be realistic - you're not going to get much housekeeping done with 2/3 under 4s! Nanny/housekeeper set ups work best when the children are older and at school or nursery for a big chunk of the day so the nanny can fill 9am-3pm with housekeeping.

You could expect the nanny/housekeeper to run the hoover round and maybe put on a load of family laundry or cook extra for the whole family, but if you want cleaning done you will need a cleaner too.

A Norland nanny is very unlikely to agree to do any housekeeping tasks.

I think you'd be looking at a salary of around £40k in London plus your other costs on top - NI, payroll, pension, activity costs.

Thanks for the very helpful advice.
Indeed I could either extend the hours of the nanny-housekeeper so she can do more while my kids are at school and at the nursery, in the morning, and/or hire a housekeeper to come once or twice a week, especially after the baby is born.

But if the nanny housekeeper can at least do the family laundry, cooking, run and empty the dishwasher, and keep everything tidy in the house, that's already going to be a lot of help.

If you want a good exp nanny with newborns plus capable of looking after 3 kids

They are unlikely to want to clean

So many famillies now want to have nanny /hk

Works well when have at school kids

Not when have toddlers /newborns

Yes indeed it's probably going to be more challenging with the newborn, but I know will be around a lot, as I will be breastfeeding for a few months. I breastfed my two kids for 6 months each.
And my two other kids are going to nursery and school. So that leaves a lot of free time.

In my previous experience, our nanny had about 3 hours of free time every day while the kids were napping, and they didn't even go to nursery. And this time was not employed to do household duties at all, because it was not part of the job, sadly. I was just her "break time". So I ended up doing a lot by myself, at night or during the weekend, even though I was working 60+ hours.
Hence my need of a nanny / housekeeper, who is able to juggle both.

Of course, if it turns out the housekeeping is not as well done as it should be, for lack of time, I would consider hiring a housekeeper for a few hours a week.

I suppose the reason so many parents want a nanny housekeeper, as you said, is that they are, like myself, mindful of costs. Not everyone can afford a fully staffed house unfortunately.

You need a good nanny and a good cleaner. Not one person.

A nanny will be better value than nursery for 3 kids. But nursery is good for school prep.

Professional nanny unlikely to do housekeeping too.

They will do tasks related to the children (inc laundry, food etc) but not for the adults.

You will need a clear too.

As above professional nannies aren't cleaners

It's like your boss saying to you ok no work this afternoon in the office but come to my house and wash the kitchen floor and bleach my toilet

You reply would be ??????

You need a nanny and a cleaner /hk

Yes you are about at the moment but you will go back to worn and the nanny has all of them but that her job - looking after children

So nanny-housekeepers exist in the UK but are often not "qualified" nannies. They are more akin to the helper/amah system in Asia. I have friends who use them but largely for older (school age kids) where there's less focus on child development/ constant supervision and it's more school pick ups/ taking to activities/ making them dinner/ telling them to do HW etc. My friends who have them often have them from 1pm-7pm or 2pm-8pm. They do laundry, tidy toys and push the hoover round/ clear up from dinner/put away a grocery delivery but they wouldn't be expected to deep clean a bathroom or kitchen for example- it's more just having a wipe round.

Also, even with live in nannies, they will have set hours and there are likely to be limits to how much overtime they will do. You couldn't (for example) both travel at the same time and expect the nanny to look after the kids 24/7 for the duration. Sorry if this is obvious - I'm just saying this as depending on where you're from, that might be normal there- I lived in HK and could do this, for example.

Also note that nannies in the UK often quote their rate "net" which is different to basically any other profession- this means if they cite15ph they mean they expect to get 15ph, after tax, so you need to gross it up both for employee tax and NI and employers NI.

HTH

Professional nannies quote gross I find 😉

Nanny and weekly cleaner. It’s impossible to look after three kids properly and do all the cleaning. They wouldn’t be doing their nanny job properly - it’s a separate job. I’m sure she’ll do the odd jobs and clean up around her as best she can.