Please give me some advice about this childcare combo I'm thinking of - sorry long

[HarrietTheSpy]

Have just had DD2, DD1 is in nursery from 8.40 to noon, could do full days from January.

When I go back to work in Jan/Feb, am thinking of putting DD2 into a nursery which is on the way to DD1's school, and then looking at a housekeeper/au pair type person for the few hours we need childcare when that finishes until we get home. Basically the person would pick up the DDs and look after them for (max) three hours a day at our house. I will be working from home at least one day per week.

We have used both nurseries and nannies, as well as a combination of both.

The main negatives I see are: inconvenience with the schleping to the various locations; COULD work out quite expensive; might be hard, but maybe not impossible, to find someone to do the late afternoon shift for us. Oh, and sickness cover.

Positives: The nanny upheaval we have had in the past year has been unbelievable, it's brought us a lot of stress. The last two have been lovely as individuals but I don't think I can deal with any more personal (health, unstable living environemnt, family matters etc) problems which affect their work and leave us having to scramble for full time childcare. We are not in the position to recruit at the really top end of the market for nannies - as it is, with tax and NI the gumtree types we have hired stretch us to the max financially.

However, is looking at the au pair market crazy if I'm seeking to avoid this??? At least there wouldn't be so many hours to cover if things went awry, i'm thinking though.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I can't really comment on using au-pairs as I have never used them. I wonder if they would be happy doing only a few hours each day, as when I looked into a mother's help they were keener to do full days.

But we did a similar thing with a childminder when my ds1 was part-time at nursery school and my ds2 was about 18 months old, and spending a little bit of time in a day nursery. It's quite hard to get a place with a childminder in our area, but the ones that are around are good, and most of them do school/nursery pickups. I found it more flexible than other arrangements, as I could sometimes ask her to look after the boys for longer, and easier in a practical sense as I was working from home most of the time and I find it really hard to work in the house if either of my kids are there, even if someone else is meant to be looking after them. She only lived down the road from us, and both school and nursery were a few minutes from either house, so no-one had to do too much schleping around! I think the cost per hour was similar to employing an aupair, as she gave me a discount for the second child.

Hope that helps

I've used nannies and AP's and nurseries in any number of combinations.

For what you want I would seriously think about a childminder. Looking after two children including a baby is too much sole care for an AP.

And of course you get the same stresses (if not more) with an AP as you had wiht your nanny.

Unless you get a dream ap, I would think this would probably be a bit much for them. Lovely girl that our last ap was, I wouldn't have trusted somebody with only basic English with a 6m old baby and a toddler. Also, I'd think those are the hardest hours of the day in terms of the demands of the kids.

Agree with mummypig, I think you need a childminder.

I think a childminder might be a good idea. I will need to start looking pretty much now, though as there is something of a shortage in our area. And as I don't drive, it is possible it would be less convenient to get them there in the morning than the nursery (DD2) and Pre-school (sorry called it nursery above) DD1 which are both walking distance from our house and on the same street.

I didn't think au pairs could work full days? I thought it was 20-25 hours a week. So the three hours a day, with a bit more when I'm working from home, would have come to aroudn that.

But I agree re baby experience. Quite possibly too scary to contemplate.

Look for a CM on the Children information services (CIS) website. All the CM's on there will be registered.