Nannyshare or nanny with own child?

[Maria2007loveshersleep]

Hello again wise MNetters

As some of you may know (I've already posted about what's been happening here & here) our nanny left unexpectedly so we're now frantically looking for a new part-time nanny (3 days a week).

I've done my calculations & it seems either a nannyshare (hopefully with someone close by) or a nanny with her own child is the way to go. For the part-time position we've advertised we've received many responses for very experienced nannies with their own child (who they want to bring along to work). They've all said they're happy to work for 8£ net per hour, and we're talking about nannies with fantastic CVs.

I wanted your opinions about the pluses & minuses of nannyshare versus nanny with own child.

About nannyshare:
How important do you think is distance between where the 2 families live?

About nanny with her own child:

One question in particular that I have, which is VERY politically incorrect & which I wouldn't even think of asking a potential nanny, is- what if a nanny with her own child (the candidates who've applied mostly have babies) have another baby sometime soon? Would I then have to pay maternity leave? And how much would that be? And what would be the logistics of having a nanny (if she were to come back to work) with 2 young children, along with mine?

About both options:
Do you think these 2 options have the potential to be long-term solutions? Or are they doomed to be temporary arrangements?

Anything that comes to your minds, I'm all ears...

When I was last looking, I had DS1 5 and DS2 3. I was quite happy with a younger child. DS1 loves babies and I thought it would do DS2 good to learn that smaller people sometimes has to come first - he has a very happy spot as the baby of our household. And as others have said, if it's similar to the usual sibling gaps of 2 - 3 years there's no reason why it shouldn't work with the ups and downs and compromises of any sibling relationship.

I'm thinking that another positive with a nanny who has her own child is that she might agree to be slightly more flexible about hours. We want more or less 27-28 hours per week, and this could either be over 3 days (long hours) or over 4 days (shorter hours). I prefer the second option as that could give me time in the afternoons with DS... but I've advertised for 3 full days just because I know most nannies prefer that. However, now that I think of it, perhaps a nanny with her own child may see it as an advantage if the hours are shorter, over 4 days: that way she can get home earlier with her baby...

Do you think I'm right in thinking this?

Maria - I think it's likely that 4 short days would appeal as one of the issues with our ex-nanny with child was that she wanted to leave early constantly (ie. before the end of her contracted hours - I am not the type to ask for overtime).
Other issues were that she didn't like to wake baby in the morning to bring him to work so she would leave him at home with her partner, come to work, take ds to school then drive dd the 30 mins back to her house to pick up her baby then drive dd back to our house so our dd spent 1 hour in the car unecessarily. Also we had reports that her partner was coming into our house during her working hours (ds mentioned that he was coming in and sleeping on the sofa!) which was to do with picking up the baby to take him places - it turned out that her partner had a criminal record so was definitely not the kind of person I wanted hanging round my house or children!
Also nanny's idea of what she wanted to feed her ds didn't match our ideas of healthy eating so our children were exposed(well, fed) to foods which we didn't want available (e.g. daily sweets, sausage rolls, chicken satay - our children are Vegetarian!).
Nanny took 2 seperate days off 'sick' because she had been up in the night with the baby and so she was 'tired'.
Nanny's baby once he was a toddler broke quite a lot of our things which nanny gave him to play with e.g. cordless phones, remote controls) which we then had to replace (this is in a baby-proof house with a playroom full of toys for all ages, no need to give him the phone to play with!).
As the employment went on it became more and more that looking after our children was something she did around her child's 'needs' i.e. during school holidays she would take them off to her house and meet up with her friends who wanted to see her baby and my children were left watching cartoons in her mum's house.
To me, one of the benefits of having a nanny rather than any other form of childcare is that you get more input into what the children do (play in their own home/local area), eat (vegetarian food) and are exposed to...this was not the case with this particular nanny.

As for nanny-sharing - biggest issues we had were to do with booking holiday so that both families and nanny knew who was on holiday when! This gets more complicated if both families don't need nanny for 5 days i.e. if one uses Mon-Thur and the other Tue-Fri and nanny likes to take Fridays off then one family is bearing the brunt of nanny's holiday. Otherwise as long as issues like discipline, food, attitudes towards breakages in each others homes, and sick children are sorted out before-hand then it can work really well.

hi maria

i think a nanny with own child is easier than a nannyshare but if you do go down this route then find a family thats near by and if that family did stop/not want the share anymore then you will have to find another family to help with costs

anyone (female-sorry nick) under 45/50 could have a baby that you employ - worry about it when it happens and yes if has a baby then hopefully the nanny wont think about no 2 for a few years, and if she did get pregant then you dont have to offer job back with nanny coming back with 2

I take my Ds, 18mths, to work. Originally I did 4 short days but have now changed to 3 long days ( 8-6 ) as my boss wanted to spend more time at home with her Dc. I actually prefer the 3 long days as we can get more done instead of rushing back for 3pm for Mum boss to be home. My Ds fits in with whatever suits the family and he's pretty laid back with it. Occassionally my mum boss is late but she's a GP so emergancies come up. It doesn't worry me in the slightest as I find give and take is essential in any nanny job. She's always so desparately apologetic but it really doesn't bother me. If she's major late then I just bath my Ds with her Dc and he's all ready for bed when we go home. I have had employers who have gone to the Mall at 2pm and spent the afternoon shopping and rung up at 5 to 7 to say they are stuck in traffic. That used to irritate me especialy as they were sahm's and could have gone earlier!

I think it is important that you and any nanny have the same views on routine, discipline and feeding etc whether they have a child or not.

With regards to illness etc, I look after their Dc when they're ill and I bring my Ds to work if he's poorly as long as he's not contagious. I'm talking coughs and colds rather than D&V! I figure that if the children are in close contact that they will get things together anyway. If my Ds was ill, my DP would take time off as he can work from home.

It takes a couple of weeks to settle into a routine that works for both nanny and charges and nannies child. They all have to adapt but an experienced nanny would deal with it professionally. Most nannies I know tend to put their own childrens needs second. I did to start but my boss was very insistant that I treated them both equally. My Ds adores their Dc and her name is normally the first thing he says when I get him up in the mornings. The job is ending soon but they live close enough that we will meet up weekly to keep the childrens friendship going.

Good luck with your nanny search.

Millarkie- your experience doesn't sound great Having said that, those kinds of things could happen with nannies with or without their own child. It's never a given how things will turn out in an employer-nanny relationship.

Ebb- your experience sounds great! Especially the last bit, wanting to keep the friendship between the children going (which would be one of my main concerns).

Maria - I don't think the same problems would arise if nanny didn't have her own child as the mixture of the job with looking after her own child was the main thing which instigated the problems ie. she wouldn't have to drive home to pick up her own child or have any excuse for her boyfriend to come to our house if she hadn't had a child to begin with.
But she was a problematic nanny in many other ways as well.
I think that a very clear discussion of expectations before she started working for us would've helped but I had no idea that she would find it reasonable to behave the way that she did (she was qualified with 10 years childcare experience).

Hi,

A few months ago we took on a nanny with her own baby and, unfortunately, it didn't work out. Although we employed her for a few months, eventually her child (who was 1 when she left) proved too much with my 2 (DS1 DD2.5). The main issues of contention were illness (if mine were ill, she didn't want to come in, and if her's was ill, she wouldn't leave him with anyone else). Also it proved very hard to look after my 2 as her little one was starting to walk and crawl which took up alot of her time and attention. Having said all that, the nanny was brilliant and we mutually agreed that the situation wasn't going to improve...

For the foreseeable future, I won't employ a nanny with her own child.

HTH and good luck!

Lemitta, sorry to hear it didn't work for you. Its all giving me food for thought though. I think the illness issue seems to be the biggest challenge in the nanny-with-own-child arrangement. However, yesterday I met a really lovely nanny with her own child who was completely aware of this problem & committed to find ways around it. So I'm hoping that it might be something that doesn't work in some cases, but may work in others.

Having said that, I'm still torn between the possibility of nannyshare versus nanny with own child. At the moment there are 2 real possibilities of either one or the other, both look promising, so it'll come down to what works on most levels.

We've even had an offer to take on a nanny with her own child PLUS to do a nannyshare with another family who lives a minute's walk away, so the nanny would have 3 children under 2 (including her own) . I think this arrangement sounds a bit mad tbh on many levels but for some strange reason the other mum seemed to love the idea .

I'm trying to look at all this objectively & to think it through but it all seems so confusing!

You may run into problems with OFSTED with that arrangement, and also any insurers, because the nanny would technically be caring for children from 3 families, albeit one of her own, which OFSTED see as childminding even though it isn't in her home IYSWIM.

Apart from the legal problems, I just think it's a mad idea. We're talking about 3 children under 18 months. I'm not even going to go there.

Maria, I think I can help you , I have messaged you on the other thread that you have. Please contact me on [email protected] and we can have a chat.

OK I thought I'd update everyone about what's been happening in our search. It seems we have 2 good possibilities at the moment. Not sure if any of the 2 will work out but hopefully one of the 2 will! Let me know which one you feel sounds better (I'd love your thoughts).

1. Nanny with her own child. The nanny is the loveliest ever, she has loads of experience (more than 12 years), lots of qualifications, and just the best temperament / character. She & I clicked from the beginning & I feel we're on the same wavelength. We've already met twice, once alone & once with my DS & hers. She has the same misgivings as I do. Her own DS is 6 months, mine is 16 months. She worries whether she's ready to go back to work, worries also about whether she'll end up being too focused on my DS & will overcompensate in an effort not to favour her DS. We agreed we'd do a trial period if we were to work together.

2. Nannyshare. We found a family in our area, literally down the street from us. They have a 13 month DD (as I said, our son is 16 months). They possibly want a nannyshare for 3 full days a week. 2 of our days will overlap, and the other 2 days will be sole charge with each child. THe nannyshare will be based at my home. The family seems lovely on the phone, we're meeting this week to discuss the details. Only problem is, their first option is still a CM & they'll let us know beginning of january...

Anyway. Hope that soon I'll know what's happening, it seems the whole thing is dragging on a bit.