Nursery versus nanny

[redxlondon]

Nursery costs will be about £1,800 per month!! I just can’t comprehend this, and seems that a nanny / shared child minder service could be possible for less than this. Would love to hear experiences of deciding between nanny versus nursery, and any hidden costs or set backs associated with a nanny (or au pair).

Hi

Nanny here! ( also worked in a nursery)

My honest opinion is your child will benefit more from a 1 to 1 care basis. There are so many faults in a nursery setting, I would definitely promote having a nanny.
Just my opinion :-)

We could not stomach the costs of nursery (for the level of service and acceptance of illness!!) when our kids were really small. And we are not loaded so we juggled all the options!

We lived in Wandsworth when we had our first child and that particular council had a fabulous family department and childminder register. So we used childminders for the first 2 years. They were fabulous.
Draw backs are that

• if they are ill you cannot send your child and
• you have to take 2 weeks holiday when they say.

In practice this all worked out fine and wasn't the big showstopper we thought it might be. Benefits are a personal service and you can get very specific feedback from other parents when choosing a CM.

When our 2nd child was born we lived in another london borough and the family service was 💩 and the childminder register was out of date and there were very few in the area anyway.
We still didn't want nursery though. So we had a mix of au pairs, nannies and mothers of my other kid's classmates.
It's very hard to get au pairs in the U.K. now. However find a good one who is a little older and you can find some fabulous gems. (One of our friends has had 2 Spanish / South American au pairs over the last 7 years - both stayed for several years each!!)
Re nannies - think about budget. if you don't want to spend £1,800 a month then you will be getting a junior / beginner nanny. Many of whom are "flighty" and / or think they are worth much more because it's london.

A nanny share can work but hard to find one that suits IME.

Using local mums can be great to fill in gaps but you need to know when they are over it and don't want to do it anymore!

To fill in the odd gaps I was pleased we had an emergency dependents care service through work. One summer we used it a lot!!!

This meant that by the age of 26months my daughter had 9 different carers. Juggling that was hard. But it did work out.

Both kids started at full
Time outdoor nurseries just after they turned 2. Which was fabulous.

It was a juggle but As a result We avoided a lot of the protracted illness my friends had where their babies were in nursery from 10mo and parents had to take weeks off work to be home and worry about a sick child who cannot speak.

Good luck!!

There will be hidden costs for a nanny such as tax/ni and pension contributions, holiday and sick pay, increased household bills from being in the house more etc. A nanny is like to cost at least the same as nursery if not more.
The upside to that is a nanny won’t send your child home at the first sniffle or bit of a temperature like a nursery will. Nursery will also have a 48 hour sickness policy where any sign of vomiting or diarrhoea and they’ll send home and not accept back for 48 hrs.

How old are your dc and how many do you have? I'm guessing under or around 12 months if you're returning to work after mat leave? I don't think an au pair would be suitable if that's the case. If you can find one I think a nanny share would, in general be better than a nursery but it varies so much by area and other factors. How many dc, how old are they, how much childcare a week do you need, how flexible are your/your partners work?

A nanny works in your home, you have to adhere to all employer rule's including being responsible for their tax and ni. You have to pay at least minimum wage per hour, give at least 20 days plus 8 bank holidays annual leave, they are entitled to sick pay etc. it will cost considerably more than full time nursery (even if you managed to hire an 18 year old straight out of college).

A child minder looks after children in their home, this will cost you less than nursery typically but unlike nursery usually they have set holidays and if the child minder is sick you will need to find cover.

Basically if you have emergency child care available eg a relative, you can wfh at short notice then these can work, if you can't cope with your child care shutting use a nursery (though remember you then need to still cover your dc's sickness).

Best wishes op, it's not an easy choice

Used a childminder until children were 3 then they went to nursery. Like PP, I wanted my child going to known person everyday and forming attachment with them. I liked the small group and I really trusted them. Downsides are that I need to take time off when they went away. She was so reliable that I did not need to worry about illness - she had Covid once and that was the only episode in over 5 years between two children.

Our daughter goes to a fantastic nursery and I think she thrives there. Yes the sickness was a nightmare in the first few months but it got better, and hopefully will mean we don't have such a rough time when she starts school. Her development has rocketed, they are so imaginative with what they do with them and she has such a variety of activities that I highly doubt would get offered at home by a nanny. They follow the routine we have at home for her and the meals/food are great. She seems very happy there and I think it's great she has the opportunity to develop bonds with lots of different carers rather than only one at a time. It's interesting that she gravitates to different staff at different times and I see this as a positive too, that she wouldn't get in a one carer setting.

I have no complaints at all and it is a relief not having to ever worry about them being sick and unable to take her, or all the admin associated with having a nanny. I think it's a very individual decision, but for us nursery has been great.

Depends on a child and circumstances.

I have a very social child (now 18 months) who started nursery at 12 months. She loves it!
She needs and loves to be around other children especially as we don't have friends with babies.
I won't be happy with a nanny/child minder as I don't see a point to go from me to an other person. Going though illnesses, learning to be social in nurseries is a very good preparation for school for later on, in my opinion. She learns so much from nursery just by copying other children!

At nursery, she gets much more stimulation which a nanny/child minder won't be able to give her, regardless how many toddler groups they would take her.

If you have a big social life, where your child constantly exposed to other children (friends, cousins etc) nanny can be a cheaper option.
But for me and my little girl, the answer is nursery!

Thank you for all of the detailed thoughts, I can see merits of both options so it’s just figuring out the best choice for everyone.

Hi, Nanny here I describe what I do as Boutique childcare, a good Nanny doesn't need you to have friends with children we will make them when we leave the house and do activities with your child.
What I love about one to one is that I can discover what interests and fascinates your child and then develop this, sometimes the parents haven't realised this or at other times I'm validating what they already know.

Our DD is 13 months and goes to nursery 3 days a week. She's sociable sort but it's been bumpy for everyone.

The biggest pro for me is interaction with other children, particularly the kids who are a handful of months older. She's a bit young yet for this to be crucial to her development (and 1:1 interaction with adults at this stage actually IS important), but we've definitely noticed her beginning to interact with other children positively. Things like handing toys back and forth, negotiating arguments over toys, and 'talking' to the other kids. She's also come on leaps and bounds with speech development and gross motor skills since she started. Probably a bit of coincidence in there, but I think it must help to watch the older kids.

Though it seems nuts, I also like exposing her to a few bugs before she gets to school/pre-school when it really does matter that she attends as often as possible.

The cons for nursery are fairly obvious: exorbitant cost, nursery closures, sickness rate is pretty alarming, lack of dedicated 1:1 attention, though she has bonded strongly to a staff member there, which I'm really grateful for, but has caused some operational issues for the staff.

On the whole, though, our nursery is pretty good I think. They're communicative, their app is helpful, and I feel that she's generally safe while there. She eats well and sleeps well there too, which is a sign things are fine for now. Ultimately I just didn't trust the options for childminders in our area. We actually started her at one, which was the kind of set up with more kids and lots of assistants, but it was a disaster. She's registered at a Montessori pre-school already so we might move her there when the time comes, or stick with the nursery pre-school.

I was just saying to DP this morning that my ideal childcare scenario would be a small group of 3-4 nannies doing 1:1 care for children together. Same nannies and kids in the same home setting for a few afternoons per week, while each nanny does a baby class or whatever with their charge in the mornings. Expensive, fantasy-land bliss! I wonder if rich folk do facilitate setups like this?! 😂

Hi @redxlondon we are going through the same predicament.

Au Pairs are the cheapest option, but are virtually impossible to find now post-Brexit (they can’t work as an au pair in the UK on a tourist visa). But you can take girls on from Canada, Oz and NZ for up to two years.

I’ve discovered that if you hire a nanny you must register as an employer with HMRC, and you are responsible for paying her:

hourly rate
pension
holiday pay
NI contributions
Tax
sick pay

So no, a nanny isn’t cheaper, unless you have more than one child in her care. But, in my opinion, the financial cost of a nanny is worth the extra. Plus, as we are rural, we have very few choices of nursery/child minder anyway