Can I hire someone to look after my child when ill?

[AmberHollow]

I’m probably being really silly but we’re just coming out the other end of a really nasty virus that my poor toddler has been suffering with. So pretty tired and frazzled! We are wondering if there’s such a think as an ad hoc nanny, basically.

My husband is a small business owner so it’s not easy for him to take time off at short notice. I’m a manager in the corporate world for a big org that has decent policies, but in reality it’s an incredibly busy time and I have a very heavy workload and will be letting lots of people down with unplanned absences.

We have limited family support and all of my friends work.

Am I missing out on some amazing trove of childcare for those days when they’re too unwell to go to nursery but missing work is not an option? Or will cause major issues?

Agency Nannie’s. When I was in London my company had a childcare scheme where I could book an emergency nanny for just this kind of thing- I had to book by 8pm and they’d be there by 7:30am. I’d work from home since they were a complete stranger, but made a huge difference. Wonderful scheme.

Even when slightly ill and being looked after by my mum my daughter always wanted me/dad.

I was fortunate that my work let me continue working whilst looking after her and I let them know at the end of the day what proportion of the day I had worked and how I wanted to make up the rest of the time.

Usually it would be something 3h of work over 6h and then my partner would come home early around 5 which allows me to do another 2h and then I would catch up the rest of the time over the week. I only worked 4 days which meant I had a day where I could catch up with some hours. The second day of an illness we would swap and my partner would stay at home with her and I would go to work. My partners work was more flexible than mine and he is pretty much his own boss the only issue we had was he left for work at 6.30 usually before we discovered that she was too ill for nursery.

First thing in the morning was usually worse for feeling rough so I'd often keep her at home from breakfast and then assess how she was after that. More often than not she would perk up enough to go in.

My work offer the bright horizons thing but I’ve not used it. I would assume in London there’d be a nanny agency offering this service?

This! Surely your mum can understand you wouldn’t be able to do this for anyone else?!