Not sure hiring a nanny is a good idea any more...

[Jenny79]

Oh my God.
This morning I was SO enthusiastic about hiring a nanny to share with one other mom. Now I have read all these threads about nanny contracts, sick pay, holidays, terminating employment etc etc and I just feel this is too difficult to take on.. You have to draft your own contract, sort out their tax, remain calm when they're lazy and 'terminate' them in compliance with contract and employment law...

Can someone convience me please that having a nanny is much better than nursery? Pros and cons anyone?

confused

Because the other site tends to be more free with sharing of personal information IME. MN tends to be more anonymous.

I wasn't criticising you. I was merely pointing out that you are very identifiable with your current names and the details that you've given but as long as you're comfortable with that then that's fine.

still confused sorry ....why are you worried about going on more than one site.

I'm not worried - plenty of us do it. I was merely trying to point out to you that MN is a big place and there are crossover members with another site where you can be identified without a great leap of the imagination. It's content is wideranging, freely accessible and googleable and that your particular name links you very easily. Personally I post on many different sections on here about things I wouldn't necessarily want casually linked. It was out of concern for your personal safety than any particular worry about visiting more than one site on the internet, which would be an extremely concern to have as it would be very boring if people only ever went on one site. It doesn't particularly matter, which is why it was an addendum to my post further up the thread rather than a main point or a separate post, I just wanted to make sure that you were aware of it. I would have CATed you rather than make a public issue out of it but you don't have CAT enabled.

Anyway I've made my point, I was only trying to be helpful, but I hope you enjoy MN where you do seem to get a better class of nanny And I'm not being offensive saying that - it's a bit of a running joke!

Or even an extremely odd concern.

OP - sorry for the hijack. Hopefully it's over now!

Many of us are identifiable though, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you need to post about something where you don't want to be identified, you just change your name (Mumsnet has a change name facility) then change back to your usual self again.

Jenny - Childminders in your area seem to charge varying amounts, £60 per day seems typical looking at Childcare.co.uk
You can get a list of childminders in your area from LBHF Family Information Service - they may also be able to give you a guide as to costs.

8am-6pm is quite usual for hours... some childminders will be able to start earlier and/or finish later.

Many providers won't be that happy if you arrive late to pick up on a regular basis, nurseries will charge high fees for late pickup, I've known £10 per 10 minutes you are late. Childminders can be a bit more flexible though if you feel you will often be later, book the childcare till a later finish time... then arrive early to collect.

Childminders provide care at their home, rather than at your home. Childminders care for various children of varying ages. This is like a family as in most families with several children, the children are different ages.

If your child is ill, you will need to take time off work to care for them... though don't forget that daddy (if around) has responsibilities as well... he could take time off work. Children when they first start in any form of childcare often pick up bugs going around. It's often quite a challenge at first. While a nanny may seem a better solution for that, as nannies are more likely to care for a mildly ill child, an ill child will still want Mum or Dad, not someone else.

I employed 1 childminder for 3 weeks, employed 2 nannies in shares for just over 4 years, and have done a placement in a nursery. I'm extremely biased and will say right out that I would have given up work rather than put ds into most of the nurseries I have visited. This is not meant to diss people who choose otherwise, it is meant to show how irrational I am on the subject.

I will base the pros and cons on a full nannyshare outside your own house - i.e. you are taking your child somewhere else to be looked after with another child(ren).

Pro:
Nanny can set as much, or as little, of a routine as suits them and the children.
Nannies are expensive - because they are only looking after a few children (2 in my case, my ds and the child of the share parent). I employed a wonderful childminder briefly, but she had what felt to me like a huge range of children she was looking after - before school, after school, different ones each day etc. As I say, she was wonderful herself, but I found it unsettling to continually be meeting new children - and some of them were not interested in being nice to small ones like ds .
Nannies are expensive and you have a full employer/employment relationship. It may seem odd to put this as a pro, but where my child is concerned I like to be able to call the shots within reason. OK I'm now sounding like a nightmare employer, truly I'm not. But because I was the full employer, the nanny's employee relationship was explicit and ds was our joint priority, I could make the rules I felt were important without having to consider other chidren and their needs much.

Con:
Sickness. Both the nannies I employed needed quite a lot of sick leave - one had to take a month off to recuperate from an operation. In my experience, the nanny WILL need to take at least one day off in the first week you go back to work, when it feels like a catastrophe! You need backup, and where is it going to come from? Not easy. In our case, grandparents, and I also just had to take time off. DH was too ill at that time to be able to offer much backup. You may want to look into sick leave/maternity leave insurance. It's really important to accept this if you do want to employ a nanny, because sickness can and does happen to anyone.