Please help to resolve dispute with DH - child care costs

[ChangePlease]

This is long and complicated , apologies.

Both DH and I have very full on jobs, long and can be unpredictable hours and for me some international travel. DC are almost 3 and 5. They are in private school / nursery. Local set of grandparents have a lot going on, so not able to commit to much extra help.

We have a nanny who used to be pretty much full time, however when eldest started reception we cut her hours down to just pick ups and evenings a few days a week. She then needed to get another job to supplement income, so we now have very limited flex from her for extra cover, emergencies etc and she does the bare minimum hours to look after the children, so no help with general child-related tasks that we had before. This arrangement also means we are struggling in school holidays. She has recently shared that she is struggling to balance going between several employers and wants to look for one full time - ish job.

I want to reshuffle some other costs to give her enough hours so she can just work for us again. This would then give us the flexibility for help if e.g. I am travelling, DC off school sick etc. It would make things very tight financially, but I’m honestly getting so stressed with the current situation I’d sacrifice some luxuries for peace of mind that this is taken care of. I’d use the extra hours when DC at school for housekeeping and cut the current cleaners hours slightly. She is wonderful with the children and they adore her, she is very safe and responsible and I can leave her in sole charge feeling completely comfortable with my precious DC.

Issue is DH is really against the idea, says we can’t afford it and it’s not needed. This is making me increasingly frustrated, as it’s generally me who has to sort out any emergency or issue and my work suffers and I get even more stressed. He thinks we should just hire a new nanny to do the same hours, however 1. this doesn’t help with school holidays or emergencies etc and 2. we live very rurally so it’s not exactly easy to find staff. We are not able to offer a live in position.

How can we move past this deadlock? What are our options? I feel like I’m more and more frequently getting close to breaking point, and getting frustrated with DH.

thanks for reading if you made it this far

Yep....this.

Also for 500pm i would 💯 be doing it.

You just need to suck up the cost of a nanny for the next few years to facilitate your career progress, look after your mental health and give the kids security and continuity.

You need to ask if she will do a nanny housekeeper role and cut the cleaner out or cut out nursery and move to preschool 9-3 or half days form 3 years.

..most of our social circle having a stay at home mother set up where everything is taken care of by the wife..

Well exactly.
You both need a someone to do the stay at home. The nanny and cleaner are that person. It costs. It is worth it. It is not forever.

Issue is DH is really against the idea, says we can’t afford it and it’s not needed

Cool. Dump the whole thing in his lap to sort out and tell him to let you know when he's sorted it.

@TemuSpecialBuy I have an overseas trip coming up too…thing is I hate to think of the kids not being well organised etc. of course he will look after them and their wellbeing, but they may well have wrong kit , empty reading record, scuffed shoes, generally give off an air of being mini vagrants 🤣

I guess you tell him that you are at high risk of burn out. Which matters more your mental health or paying for the amazing nanny?

Also any chance of a local nanny share so you are your main employer but keep an eye out for a part time child to help reduce the financial pressure?

I'd tempted to add on a couple of extra days of being away to your overseas trip so he has to do a full week.

@RandomMess I struggle having them myself for long periods to be honest, I’m not sure I’d have much a leg to stand on. I keep everything ship shape and organised but it’s to the detriment of sleep , relaxation and my mental health. He is very good at preserving these things no matter what state the house is in!

Well yes he preserves because you are doing on the prep.

Drop the rope before you go, just enough so he feels the impact. Leave a list of stuff he needs to do whilst you are away that would you usually cover in advance somehow.

The way I would look at this situation is how many months do you need her for? say 18 months? That’s 9k. It’s not too bad.

I would over rule him

I got to the bit where you had reduced the nanny's hours and I thought "what? How are they going to manage that?"

These years don't last forever and in my experience you have to throw money at the problem if you want two full-on jobs. It is an investment in your career and future earning capacity as well as an investment in your children's happiness and your own mental health.

I make him pick up the slack rather than let it all fall on me. Sure I’m wfh but my husband has to take a day off anyway - I don’t actually get much work done while parenting a sick child. He doesn’t get to say no he can’t do it today- next time he tries that say well I can’t either, it’s a busy day, and I did the last one. You vetoed the extra nanny hours, because you thought I’d just run myself into the ground covering. Find a plan for tomorrow - I’m not superhuman and I’m not doing it.

Many of us have to sacrifice something. I went part time. Yes, took a hit on my pension. DH was full on running a business and it wasn’t from home. Having it all is sadly unrealistic. DH earnt a lot more than me but lots of people amend their work patterns. We had no grandparents and had to do it ourselves with a part time nanny when I worked.

When your 3 year old is at school you should be able to get after school care at school. Hopefully your private school has this. So you have 2 years of nanny help and then you need to find another solution. At our school some dc went to after school child minders and they collected them from school. Mostly high flying dads were not seen. Many worked in the City or were business owners or CEOs. They just didn’t do the school run! Ever. It’s simply the norm for high earners. Inevitably there must be give and take somewhere, you need to work out where.

I'm a nanny/childminder. I'm self employed so flit between the two roles as suits me. I now won't take nanny jobs where there has been a few nannies, it's unsettling for the kids. Maybe they are difficult kids which is why the childcare changes frequently or maybe they become difficult due to the change. You will find some nannies will want a reference from your old nanny for this reason.

Your nanny has been honest they want one main role so you should be honest back and say you can't afford it really but would hire her back if she would take on housekeeping duties. It's very common for this to happen when kids start school. But it's also very common for a nanny to not want to do this. We are childcare professionals not housekeeps but for a good family it's different.

You say your cleaner is brilliant. And I do agree a good cleaner is worth keeping as they can be hard to find but the same is true of your childcare and your kids don't suffer if you loose the cleaner.

Next childcare crisis let dh sort it out. As others have said this may change his tune. I've only ever worked for one family where mum and dad had equality in the home and it was the only family dad was actively involved in the interview hiring part and organising my rota etc. Dump some of your responsibility on your partner so he can see the reality of being a working parent

So you had a fab nanny. You cut her hours

She found other work

You now want her for more hours but she can't do them

You managed to afford her before so tell dh you will again

A fab nanny is worth her/his weight in gold as makes your life as a working parent easier

As you have found out cutting her hours means you Struggle with holidays and sickness

2yr doesn't need to be at school. Wait till 15hrs kick in

Most nannies and myself included dont clean

We trained at college for years - not to scrub someone loo

Saying that cleaners are worth their weight in gold

So keep the cleaner and maybe nanny do some batch cooking /food shopping

Equally stop the youngest going to nursery school and nanny will have a child to care for

no don’t do this, you have already ( i assume ) taken some time off after you gave birth. It’s your husbands turn to do this now.

Your DH is ignoring the fact that any nanny he (and it should be him) hires will have the same issue with split roles and will likely up sticks with short notice when something with more hours comes along.

This has happened several times to a colleague of mine and she has to patch together a student covering a couple of months here and a friend doing a morning or two there to make it work, then the merry go round starts again.

I bet both of you would prefer a job for one nice employer than a patchwork of roles and Personalities and keeping track of tax etc etc. Nannies will too.

Hire her back.

So you have the perfect opportunity to just walk away and leave it all to him. So put on you big girl pants and do just that. The kids will survive and so will he but if you make it easier for him then you only have yourself to blame.

😂 This might make him change his mind.

Issue is DH is really against the idea, says we can’t afford it and it’s not needed. This is making me increasingly frustrated, as it’s generally me who has to sort out any emergency or issue and my work suffers and I get even more stressed

hmmmm stop fucking doing it then

What would happen if the nanny phoned in sick whilst you were away?

Maybe you need a mothers helper type person rather than a nanny?

Plenty of stay at home mothers would enjoy a few paid hours doing childcare - especially when they get older.

Yes to this. If they go to school scruffy etc, think of it as a long term gain (nanny) for short term pain

One option might be to increase term hours a bit (as you suggest ) and holiday hours to full days but spread her pay (and cost for you) evenly across each month. That helped our nanny make the transition when our youngest started school as it was consistent.

When we worked out the cost of wrap around care, holiday clubs, etc it wasn't a huge premium to keep our lovely nanny instead.

Plus in our area after school nannies are difficult to find and tend to stay only short term, eg a term or two while studying.

But often genuinely cant

parenting isn’t a choice occupation 🤷‍♀️ He genuinely needs to be parenting 50% of the time & not picking the bits he can do around work