Nanny v nursery

[3isthemagicnumberrr]

Help! Our nanny left with no notice yesterday. She’s the second nanny to leave which sounds terrible (first one went to set up her own business, this one doesn’t want to work an additional hour in the morning when I finish mat leave) and I’m almost embarrassed to advertise again.

Has anyone moved from having a nanny to nursery and been happier? I know the pros and cons of both but feel really nervous about putting a just turned 1 year old in nursery. I know lots of people do, but for personal reasons (we lost dd1 a few years ago) I’m very nervous..

I think you’ve completely misunderstood my point here, which was that in general people who use nannies have the luxury of being picky. Most people who nurseries sadly do not.

If you literally have no other choice than to use a nursery then you’re not going to go out of your way to find fault with it and then tell all your friends about it. You see this time and time again on here when people talk about the benefits of socialisation and interaction of nursery for babies and toddlers. You want to think this is true because that’s the choice you’ve made for your child.

Whereas if your nanny does something you don’t like you can get another one. Or indeed send your child to a nursery.

My point is that in my demographic of friends those using nursery could have and in many cases did also have at least one nanny. I’m in a very affluent area (although we are definitely bottom
of the income pile), most of the pony club kids (and therefore the parents that are in my circle) are privately educated with parents well able to afford a choice. The nannies have largely not fared well.
Most have opted for nursery by the time they are 2 as the nannies were rude, unreliable, untrustworthy or just didn’t last as the good ones get poached.

We were one of the few that would have found a nanny a financial stretch- DH originally wanted one as he had one. FIL was raised with a governess. But nursery actually worked out well for us and DH has definitely changed his views having heard about endless nanny issues from his friends.

My friends could equally moan about nursery but have surprisingly very little negative to say about it, other than the limitations of having fixed opening hours.

Great nannies are amazing but very hard to source around here but good nurseries are actually fairly prolific. There’s only 2 I don’t rate out of about 7.

Yes indeed. It’s just quite odd to go around policing other’s (completely innocuous) turn of phrase, given that none of us know each other 🤷🏻‍♀️

So I think you’re saying that a good nursery is better than a bad nanny? Im
absolutely sure that’s right and completely agree.

But it’s neither here nor there really since I’m assuming the OP isn’t contemplating employing a bad nanny. And in general parents have a lot more oversight of their nannies than they do their nurseries.

All the parents who sent kids to the nurseries near me which recently got terrible ofsteds absolutely raved about them beforehand. And had no idea about the failings identified by Ofsted (which ranged from pretty minor to quite serious).

It’s true that finding and hiring a nanny and then employing them is a lot more work and admin for the parent then just signing up to a nursery. But at least you have some control over who you hire as opposed to a nursery where you get no say whatsoever about who is looking after your child day to day. And compared to a nanny they are much more likely to be younger and less qualified with less experience.