Do you have a nanny?

[LovingLivingLife]

To everyone who has a nanny looking after kids, what is the benefit over nursery? We have both options open and I feel so conflicted.

I put baby 3 days a week in nursery and two days with nanny.

i feel like baby need a break from nursery. Just like adults feel tired to go office 5 days a week.

in nursery many kids so may compromise with quality of sleep.

when baby at home the nap is a lot longer and I feel more peaceful.

nursey also has tight timetable just making sure babies are occupied. Baby is more like following what’s going on.

nanny more personal and baby take the lead do his own thing and baby just being there . Making sure he is safe.

hope it helps
happy to share more !

I don’t have one now but we had one until our DC was around 3. We both worked full time in v demanding jobs and felt for us a nanny was a better option as didn’t have to stress if DC was ill, and the hours were better for us.

The nanny was amazing and was out all day doing things like classes, parks, and local library, and it was funny on weekends when people would coo over them because they knew them from the week activities.

At age 3 our job situation changed and then they went into Nursery as we could be more flexible with pick ups and illness. Also felt at that age was ready to start learning and have a more structured environment.

Nanny walks into our house in the morning and I don’t have to get the kids out in the car to belting them to a childminder or school.

when they are sick and need to come home from school etc. there is zero impact on my work (or Days but let’s be honest, it’s mine that would have taken a hit)

Her holidays mostly match ours so her time off when we need her is minimal.

She does housework too so she’s more like me in I was a SAHM than childcare.

my kids get to come home after school and are there well in time for dinner with their homework done, no rushing in the door to get dinner on and stress about homework at 5.30pm.

She does favours for my mum friends and builds ‘lifts’ currency on my behalf. She has a relationship with other mums and childminders and they help each other out.

A professional nanny shouldn't be doing housework. Nursery duties only kids cooking and laundry. And also your nanny should be allowed to choose her own holiday. 10 days you choose 10 she chooses.

Well aware of what nanny duties are previous poster😂 I hired an unqualified nanny 12 yrs ago, because she was great with the kids, super organised and experienced with fantastic references. Shes now a family member. She has freedom to pick her holidays anytime and does do different timings to ski and go on impromptu long weekends with her partner and a week in the sun when she feels the need but actually we often overlap just naturally. And when we don’t, it’s zero issue. She’s always gotten lots of extra full days for no reason (I give her random days off etc or we head to my family in London so she gets a day or two more and I gift her extra days around Christmas etc). From day one I tried to respect ‘nanny duties only’ but she said ‘that’s ridiculous, I’m here anyway’ so yeah, she’s now not a nanny but a nanny housekeeper. It’s been absolutely brilliant. She’s way more than a nanny, she’s me if I was a SAHM’.

So thank for pointing out what I ‘should’ have expected from her. Luckily she insisted on a much better role in our family.

I always find it so strange on mumsnet how people firstly like to put posters who want a nanny in their place. But if that fails, then become militant about what a nanny should do in their role. 100% fine for the nanny to draw a hard line in their contract but why does nanny housekeeper as a job get such resentment and belittling about it not being ‘pure nanny’.

It’s a professional SAH’M’. I don’t think there could possibly be a more important and useful role in the world.

@SherbetSweeties who are you to dictate to a stranger what their employee should and shouldn't do? Rather odd! Perhaps people are capable of determining a working relationship that suits them both.

More fool her. Its's nanny's like that who make life difficult for the ones of us who want to focus on childcare and not cleaning.

Because I've worked as a professional. Nanny for many years and I've seen a lot of nannies taken advantage of over my time. Anyway I'll leave it there.

I am a nanny so I definitely don't resent you having one. I just find it frustrating when families expect housework and to choose all the holdiays etc.

@SherbetSweeties not every nanny wants to do exactly what you do. You don't want to do cleaning. Plenty are more than willing to help out around the house, particularly when the kids are at school (as the OP's appear to be).

Insisting that everyone in your line of work should do only what you're prepared to do or they're "ruining it for the rest of us" is a stupidly reductive point of view.

More personalised care, better sleep ime. And yes, our nannies did / do some amount of housework - the previous one was a hugely energetic woman who couldn't sit still and would find jobs for herself around the house unless we stopped her; the current one is much more sedate but manages all the laundry while the kids are napping.

The main downsides are cost (but I have twins, so actually the cost difference is marginal), and the fact that it's care based in your home so if you WFH you'll need to either leave or make yourself very scarce. Few nannies would be happy working with a parent somewhere in the house I think.

Ok well we'll agree to disagree.

@SherbetSweeties

A professional nanny shouldn't be doing housework. Nursery duties only kids cooking and laundry. And also your nanny should be allowed to choose her own holiday. 10 days you choose 10 she chooses.
Ffs the OP says holidays mostly match so obviously they aren't dictating
And some nannies do some housework. Tidying the kids rooms, tidying the playroom, doing their laundry etc is all housework and standard for a nanny. Sometimes god forbid they'll wipe down the kitchen too.

@SherbetSweeties

More fool her. Its's nanny's like that who make life difficult for the ones of us who want to focus on childcare and not cleaning.
What do you do between 8:30 and 3:30 when they are at school?
I've known many people who keep their nanny on when the kids are at school. They do a few hours around the house.

They get paid VERY well and are more than happy with the arrangement

@SherbetSweeties
You have a very limited understanding of what other nannies want to do.

Often they choose to stay with a family way past the stage the dc are needing intense care. They choose to adapt to a role of nanny/housekeeper and then housekeeper/PA.

If the nanny prefers to evolve and stay with the family then what possible right do you have to dictate to them what they should or shouldn't do. Your situation is of precisely zero interest to them.

In other words: it's not all about you

I look after babies under 2 so I'm busy all day with the baby. Obviously I keep the areas I'm using clean and tidy.

Believe me i don't 😆 I know a lot of Nannies. Anyway if she's happy that's fine isn't it.

My DC are a bit older now, but used a nanny when we had childcare.
I just felt the home environment with one adult was much better for them. They went out every day to groups and/or the park, so got lots of socialisation, but also had 1:1 time.
I felt being in a nursery all day would be too much of a sensory overload for mine.

We had a nanny when dd1 was 4 and dd2 was 1 because the nanny did school pickups for dd1 and nursery didn't. Both girls went to nursery full time before that.

@SherbetSweeties

I look after babies under 2 so I'm busy all day with the baby. Obviously I keep the areas I'm using clean and tidy.
Fantastic.
Not all nannies work with exclusively under 2s.
Once again it's. It all about you.

Nanny walks in and takes over from however far we got in the morning with breakfast and getting dressed etc. Absolutely no pressure on anyone to be ready. Much more relaxed atmosphere. Individual attention and care. Modelling of good behaviour and can agree with the parents how to manage development leaps and any challenges. Keeping on top of their laundry and toy rotation. Longer naps until about a year after my friends with nursery children. Avoids exposure to poor behaviour or language at nursery especially important from age 3/4 when they really do listen and learn.

Finding the nanny to fit with our family took three goes. Never looked back.

Thanks everyone for your insights.

We are actually at that point of no longer needing full time nanny duties as our youngest will start preschool. The debate on whether to do full days at preschool and go without a nanny; or whether to do mornings only and retain our nanny has been an ongoing discussion. Little one is still napping 2+hrs so that's around 4-5 hours a day we would be paying for without having childcare needs.

I was wondering about approaching her to discuss a change in role to a more housekeeping set up but given all the comments above I'm not sure now.

The thing that makes me nervous about nursery is managing the multiple drop offs/ pick ups, sick days, activities and somehow managing not to impact my job more than is already happening. They've been very flexible with working hours but I still need to get my work done.

Your so angry at me for some reason 😆 calm down.

I mean, you did come on this thread to get in a huff about other nannies doing housework because you don't. Maybe you should calm down about things that don't actually affect you.