I don't know what childcare I need

[June2009]

I'm a first time mum so apologies for my ignorance about childcare... dd is 5 months old now and the more I look into childcare the more I am confused by it.

Dh and I run our own business and I work from home. I think I am looking for regular professional help, ie someone who could come over my house for two days a week in the afternoon maybe for 4 hours or so then I could get on with work. Friends or relatives ar not an option.

Does such a type of childcare exist? Are there "day" babysitters? What is the name for this kind of carer who comes to your home?
I have heard good things about "sitters.co.uk" on this forum but from what I understand they are evening sitters.

That would be a part time nanny

Part-Time, Live-Out nanny.

You may find that two afternoons suits someone, or you may want to consider 1 full day or 2 full days.

You may find working from home whilst in ear-shot of your DD is quite difficult. Can be hard to resist going to her if she cries, hard to isolate yourself completely so that she doesnot keep on seeing you as you pop to the kitchen for a cupper.
In summertime, your DD can spend a lot of time out and about, exploring the world around them... parks/playgrounds, feeding the ducks on the pond/river etc. Winter is harder though as nanny would be around at home more.

You may want to look at Childminders, to whom you would take your DD. You may find that is more productive for your work. Plus would probably be quite a bit cheaper... as a nanny to care for one child is quite expensive - £10 gross per hour is not unusual, higher in London.

agree with nick that as you only want a few hours a cm would be cheaper and prob more convieneant as you both work from home

I was in a very similar position a year ago so I think I might be able to help.

When my DS was 5 months old we needed some kind of help for about 12-15 hours a week so that I could work for home. We found a part-time nanny who initially worked those hours & gradually worked up to 20 hours a week. I believe having a nanny in the situation you describe can be a very good option, it worked very well for us. But there are pluses & minuses to consider.

Here's some things to think about / ask yourself:

1. How many hours do you need to work per week? I would suggest, to be on the safe side, you overestimate rather than underestimate the hours you need. I started thinking I needed 12 hours & ended up finding out I needed 20 hours. This made a big difference in the type of nanny we recruited. If we had known from the start we needed 20 hours we would have found someone more experienced. For 12 hours its really hard to find someone good.

2. Also, it's easier to find someone for, say, one full day a week (at least 8 hours) than for, say, 2 afternoons. Not sure if one long day or 2 long days would suit you, but I'm just mentioning what I've discovered.

3. You need to discuss very thoroughly with your nanny how the arrangement would work. You might find at the beginning that it's fine for you to work at home & for the baby to be in the other room with the nanny. However, when your baby becomes a toddler & goes through separation anxiety etc, she may find it very hard to see you around & not have you available ifswIm. In which case it might be best for you to work from a library etc, or to disappear in another room & literally not go out until the nanny leaves.

Anyway, just my thoughts. It worked very well for us but there are some things that I wish I'd known from the start.

Thank you very much,

maria do you remember how much it cost you roughly? (and are you in london).
I can see already that when dh is working from home dd is unsettled as she'll start playing and then he'll walk in and pick her up to give her a kiss then go back to his office etc.
I'm not sure how many hours I need, 2 full days would certainly help.

Someone suggested looking for someone else's au-pair, she could mind the baby while the children she looks after are at shcool. It sounds great but the more I think about it the more I realise that she probably won't have the experience I want/dd needs.

dh really doesn't want dd to go to nursery yet.
Someone else suggested asking the children centre as they may have contacts for daycare.
Or asking a student, but then again I would really prefer someone with experience.

You can always find a small number of au pairs experienced and/or qualified to help look after your 5 month old.. If someone has come to the UK to work as an au pair it doesn't mean they automatically lack these qualifications or skills. It may be that their English skills aren't so good but they are still very good with babies and young infants.

Agencies generally will not make a recommendation of an au pair for sole charge of an infant, usually down to drawing a line on sole charge of 2 year old and younger.

But IF YOU ARE SARISFIED YOURSELF that their skills/experience are good enough and they have the common sense to know if to disturb you in any emergency then there is no reason why you should not contemplate this. The fact that you work from home means that you are there anyway if anyone needs help in a situation they are concerned about.

I know a lot of Mums who have gone back to work from a home office who have young pre-school infants who have au pairs.

I would find a SAHM who has an au pair as an extra pair of hands, whose au pair has been with them for some time and Mum is confident they are comfortable with periods of sole charge. The Mum can see if the au pair might be interested in working two afternoons.. Most SAHMs with au pairs generally will be able to give the au pair some time off most days i.e. for English classes etc so I would have though two afternoons per week were do-able - and most au pairs would be keen to earn some extra money.

If you do find someone willing to share their au pair and the au pair has the right childcare and common sense skills the other problem is that they will be speaking accented english at best (and often not very good english) which is not great for a child who is learning to talk...but you might get away with 2 afternoons a week.
(We have an au pair but we mostly need her from 3.30, and most of her friends work from 3pm or 3.30 - they tend to have free time between 10am and 3pm rather than whole afternoons off.)

To add my two peneth (sp?)

Be careful about other people's au pairs. Ours has friend who started to get a regular babysitting gig (evening) with another local family and the family has started finding that this has cut into the time they need her and saying 'no.' They feel they have first dibs because they are paying for her food and lodging etc. So, I would just want to feel really comfortable that they aren't likely to change their mind at an awkward moment for you. For example, if they're free during the day would that change if the kids are sick/on school holidays. A SAHM mother may work, but again I don't think it's the same as sharing a carer who lives out for both the families.

That's a good point Harriet - Our more competent au pairs have been able to look after the kids if the school is closed (the snow-days last year) etc and the routine changes during school holidays. Working round their college courses is ok but I would be a bit if I had to find alternative childcare because the au pair living in our family was looking after someone else's children.

You can find students who are experienced, sometimes very experienced, with children. When I was doing my music degree I regularly did a couple of afternoons a week with one family who had a 9 month old, emergency childcare for all sorts of ages and some odd bits of night/maternity nannying with very tiny babies. I am, admittedly, unusual but not extremely so and the bulk of my actual experience was gained doing shared charge/mother at home jobs during vacations and that's not unusual for a student. You may find someone who was an au pair in their gap year, or a qualified nanny who is now doing an early years or teaching degree. Excellent choice is you can be a bit flexible about hours to fit around lectures.

ok thank you all very much this is all very instructive.

The language would be a problem unless the au pair is french in which case that is fine as this is my mother tongue and what I talk to dd. but that is quite specific (could you specify that you want a french au-pair or is that discriminating? If you wanted one full time I mean.)

My hours are flexible so I could work around whatever time is suitable for them, 10 to 3 would be ok I think.
It's a good ponit that if we wanted to go out we'd ask the same au pair and her family might not allow that.
When I was an au pair I was expected to cook eat with the family and clear up.
At the moment I don't see us needing a regular babysitting evening but that can change.

I had thought about the holiday in an au-pair situation and that is a problem unless I could just do less hours that week/couple of weeks. I could in theory ask sil to come and look after dd during the holiday as she works in a college, but she is very unreliable and will leave if one of her friends suggests going shopping instead.

Now where do you find au au-pair/student/cm?
I know word of mouth would be great but I don't know that many people here.
Put an add at uni maybe for a student? or in a supermarket on the adds board possibly?
I'm going to start asking around for the au-pairs, would an agency put me in touch with any of the families? It's not in their interest is it.

I take it they'd be self employed and we have a written agreement and pay them in cash and it's up to them to sort their taxes?

Which brings another question, when you go through an agency (ie like sitters) and you pay them a fee to find the babysitter, do you need a written agreement with the babysitter? sounds long winded if they send you someone different each time, what do people do?

sorry for the bombardment of questions...

If someone is working in your home, caring for your child, then HMRC are likely to consider that to be of Employee Status - as you would have a lot of control over what that person did, when they they do it, how they do it.
If paying under £700 a month, then you may be able to use Simplified PAYE]

HMRC has some additional things to do with Students - Students: Working during Holidays
Student Employment & Tax Codes
And also Temporary Workers

If you pay less than £95 a week AND the person does not have another job, then you don't need to operate PAYE - See PAYE Intro: Basics

UK Employment legislation requires that within the first 2 months of employment you provide your employee with a Written Statement which details things like working hours, holiday entitlement, duties. ACAS: Advisory Handbook

Depending on where you are your local uni may have a jobs board (and I may know their sabbatical team from NUS trainings!). Gumree, netmums, newsagents, local paper and supermarkets are all valid methods of recruitment!

You could specifiy a French MT level au pair. It wouldn't be discimination if it was a job requirement but you would have to accept someone with native level French even if they weren't French IYSWIM.

nick has covered the employment side of things but to clarify - anyone working full time is entitled to 28 days holiday which can include bank holidays. You can specify that this holiday is taken at certain times of year, or that you will dictate all of their holiday but this isn't likely to be a popular arrangement and some flexibility might be needed e.g. with students and exam time or during uni vacations.