Employing a nanny - advice needed

[Sheila]

I've recently become a single parent and have decided I need to return to full-time work (I work 2 days at the moment) so that I can be as financially independent as possible. To that end I start a new job in October that means a move out of London to Cambridge. Ds (aged 2) goes to nursery at the moment but I think since I'll be on my own and working full-time I'll need the flexibility of a daily nanny (no need to get him out of the house in the morning, less time off for sickness etc). BUT, I've always been very wary of employing a nanny, due to hearing horror stories of neglect, and from seeing some very disinterested nannies at 1 o clock clubs. I suspect I may be an anxious employer!

So, my questions are these: how have those of you with full-time nannies found the experience and do you have any tips for finding the right person? Has anyone had to make this transition (from part-time to full-time work, nursery to nanny) or anything like it? It's going to be a hard time for both of us I think. On a more practical note, can anyone recommend an agency in Cambridge?

Many, many thanks in advance for all info.

Sheila

I'm afraid I can't recomment but what may be a little comforting is that I have just started DD with a nanny and had her previously enrolled with a nursery. I decided to postpone the nursery thing because I wanted her to be looked after at home but previously had gone down the nursery route because I thought the same as you and safety in numbers etc.
However a friend of mine recommended her nanny who she found through an agency and who is great.
I think the only way to go is to interview them all when you can get her to spend time with DS and see how she is. Go and make a cup of tea and stuff and listen to how / if they talk to him.

Sheila

Ask the techies at mumsnet to give you my email, and we can talk about it more. I live in Cambridge, have employed several nannies over the years etc. You're not alone!

Bee and Tillysmummy - thank you both. I hope the small amount of replies to my question doesn't reflect the level of satisfaction Mumsnetters feel with their nannies!

Bee - I will be in touch off-line soon I hope.

I've only ever had 1 Nanny but I found her through placing an advert at the local college - the timing would allow for term to finish and for her to go on holiday! (You might have to do a bit more work yourself in obtaining references than if you used an agency)

Just spotted this Sheila. As Mumsnet regulars will know, our Nanny has been the source of much angst over the years!. In my view the key factors in employing a Nanny and having a successful relationsip are to be absolutely crystal clear from the outset as to what you expect of her, to maintain a relationship that is always professional, i.e. not too chummy and to make sure that both parties feel able to air grievances without any lasting grudges.

During interviews, as well as all the obvious questions about experience and so on, make sure you try and establish whether you are on the same wave length as to issues such as discipline, standards of behaviour, attitude to leaving young children to cry, food etc etc. Practical issues to focus on include whether she will be prepared to take her own holidays at the same time as you and how much advance notice of holidays she requires.

If you actually employ a nanny, I would recommend handing her a list of written house rules. Don't be afraid to go into detail even if it sounds petty. Remember this person will be in your home day in day out and if they get into the habit of say, using up food and not replacing it or not cleaning up after themsleves, it can be very irritating.

I do think nannies provide a very high level of childcare and all the nannies I know, love their little charges dearly. In all likelihood, any problems that do arise will relate to your relationship with a nany rather than your child's.

Does anyone know how to work out the gross pay of a nanny eg if the net pay is £6 an hour, how much would I expect to be out of pocket?

florenceuk, it depends on how many hours you are going to pay for, and if you are the only source of pay . I can give you details if you know how much you want to pay her net for larger sums. example-

Net Pay Tax Nanny Ni Gross Pay Emp NI Total cost to you!
£240 44.67 21.95 306.62 26.12 332,74
£300 64.03 30.75 394.78 36.59 421.61

If you want to see a full table go to

www.family-match.com/cl.htm

OOps that table didn't come out as I wrote it, hope you get the jist of it, the first and last figure arethe most important wht you pay her and what it cost you!

There's an excellent website called bestbear.co.uk who 'vet' nanny agencies. Site also has lots of good info on pay, conditions, what you can expect them to do etc. Hope this helps.

Florence UK, I had the same problem as you and found (much to my surprise) that the Inland Revenue were really helpful - their 'new employers' service gave me the figures over the phone and also sent me a written statement of how much NI and tax was due.

Sheila, in response to your original email, I too live in Cambridge and have some experience with nannies (although only temporary), so if you want any more information, I'd be happy to talk to you off-line.

I would appreciate some advice. We are generally very happy with our Nanny who has been with us for just over 2 years. She has a lot of nanny friends and their charges around to our place during the day which I am happy about. Often these Nannies turn up in the morning and then stay on until mid-afternoon. It has emerged though that when she goes to pick up my son from his 3 morning a week playgroup she leaves the visiting Nanny and children alone in our house. The round trip is around 35 minutes. I don?t know if I am over reacting in feeling uncomfortable about this but aside from the fact that we have quite a lot of valuables on display, I just feel unhappy that strangers are being left in our house alone and not at our invitation. We hardly ever have any problems so I am reluctant to raise an issue that some people might view as trivial.

Croppy I totally understand and agree. Your nanny may know these friends but the main thing is that you do not. You can never be too careful leaving your kids with strangers. I realize you were not aware of it happening at the time. People may seems like the nicest people and they even may truley be but you just can never tell. I do not feel you are overreacting because I would be the same exact way. Worrying about your valuables is bad enough but worrying about your children is even worse.

I'd be a bit concerned too. Several questions occur to me:
Do you know the parents of other children involved and would it help if you met them?
Would it cause a never to be healed rift with your nanny if you suggested that at least you ought to have met anyone who's left in the house alone?
Could the visits be timed so that they don't clash with pick up times? Why is another nanny bringing her charges round to your house while your son is out anyway? I mean, are they coming round to play with your son, or is the primary purpose of the visit for the grown ups to socialise?
What would happen if one of the guests electrocuted themselves while left alone? Would it be classed as an accident at work, as both nannies are on duty?
Another thing, does your nanny get to stay at other people's houses while they are out, or is it just a one way thing?

Croppy, unless I've misunderstood, the nanny hasn't been leaving your child with someone else, just leaving another nanny and their charge in your house while she goes to pick up your child?

If this is the case, IMO it's not that bad if the objective is that they are there for your ds to play with when he gets back. You say you don't have any problem with them being there while she's there, but I suppose if the above is the case she could hardly ask them to go for 35 minutes if they were coming back again to play, could she?

I think I'd probably assume that her judgement has got to be reasonably good since presumably, if you didn't think so you wouldn't be happy leaving your child with her.

Just my opinion, but I think in the same situation maybe I would decide that it's not worth falling out about if she's a great nanny. If nothing's gone missing then there's no harm been done so far. Would you be happier if you met these people perhaps? Maybe that's a middle way - you don't upset her and you feel reassured about her friends and judgement. Anyway, HTH, good luck.

Not sure whether I have misunderstood, re-reading your post. But if she is responsible for 2 of your children and isn't taking your other child with her to pick up ds2 then she should be IMO. She is responsible for your children at all times and shouldn't be leaving them with someone else.

Sorry Croppy I misread your situation and was thinking you left your child with the nanny and the nannies friends whom you did not know.

Thanks for the replies. To make it clear she goes off on her own to collect my son leaving the visiting Nanny and her charges alone in our house. Sml, she is definitely purely socialising with them in the morning but she does work very long hours so I don't begrudge it. I am worried about accidents though involving the visiting child and just have a vague sense of unease (our spare keys for example are hanging in a very obvious place). I think as a first step I will try and meet some of them.

Hi all,
This is our first request for contributions to the mumsnet book. We are a bit short on stuff about employing a nanny - are they a good idea/ how do you go about finding one/ what should you look for at interview? We'd be grateful for your thoughts on these questions and any other tips/ pointers you might have re the nanny process.
Many thanks,
Justine, Carrie and Rachel.

Having a nanny has worked out very well for me in terms of flexibilty. I like the fact that the children are cared for at home and I see them from time to time (I work from home) but they also have a huge network of friends and activities that they go out to. The best way to find a nanny is word of mouth - the nanny mafia I call it. I found mine through meeting another nanny at baby massage who had a friedn looking to move families. She started off doing some babysitting and then when I went back to work started with me. I was a bit naive negotiating the contract - it's very hard because you want to be nice and fair to this person who is looking after your little treasures, but on the other hand you don't want to be ripped off or left in the lurch, Apart from the obvious things to get sorted right from the start like holidays, overtime, pay etc I wish I'd asked about previous health conditions and clarified the situation regarding sick pay. Mine turned out to have a serious illness that required over the years a lot of time in hospital. Because I have flexible working hours and a helpful mother in law I survived but if I'd been working for an employer it would have been a disaster. A first aid certificate is also vital. Another nice touch is to ask them to keep a diary including nappies, food and especially things your child did and said, their mood etc. MAkes it easier to take over at the end of the day and keeps you in touch. It's also a lovely reminder further down the line of your child's development stages.

I've employed three nannies over 6 years (each for 2 years) and here are some of my tips:

• Introduce her to your friends at playgroup etc so she feels part of the local community and will help your children continue to mix with others

• Give her a small kitty for swimming, ice creams etc and don't ask for an itemised list of expenses. If you trust her with your children, how can you not trust her with a few pounds?

• Make sure she has a letter from you to the local GP, clearing the way for the GP to discuss the child's illnesses etc with her. Otherwise you may ask the nanny to take your child to the doctor eg for an eye infection or something and find the doctor refuses to give the nanny the prescription.

• If you don't give the nanny a car, make sure you agree any mileage payments. The same goes for mobile phones.

• Include a paragraph in the contract about the discipline procedure (I'll send you mine if you like). It starts out by saying - "we hope this section will never be needed" so the optimistic tone is set but it's there as a back-up

• Include a clause in the contract which forbids the nanny from discussing any personal or financial affairs of the family with anyone else, either during or after the employment period.

• Come to an agreement over holidays and who chooses them. We said we would always choose the summer holiday and Christmas, but the nanny could choose the final week herself. This may be different of course if children are at school.

• None of my nannies were ever ill for more than a couple of days but if they had been I'm not sure how we would have coped, either contractually or practically!

Just a few ideas - hope this is a help

Thoroughly endorse Bee's advice, some additional thoughts:

• if you advertise in The Lady you will get an enormous number of replies (we had over 100), many of them hopeless. It is a lot of work to sift them and quite stressful although we eventually got a dream nanny by doing this.
• we have also had an agency nanny. This is expensive because some of the agency fees are huge (eg a month's salary) and if your nanny returns to her home country after 6 months as ours did, you can end up feeling a bit cheated. It does save a lot of work, but you can get as good a nanny (or better) through advertising or networking.
• getting a departing nanny you trust to look around in the neighbourhood can be good - she will have seen the other nannies interacting with their charges.
• the best investment we made was paying for a crossover week between nannies so that outgoing nanny could show incoming nanny all the local facilities, introduce her to friends etc. We also paid for our two favourite candidates to spend a day each with the outgoing nanny so she could give us her views before we made a final decision (obviously some candidates might not agree to this).
• being very clear about contractual terms but as generous as you are reasonably able in relation to Christmas bonuses and birthday gifts seems to make for a good relationship.
• our best nanny brought an album showing her former charges and various birthday cakes she had made them to interview - this turned out to be an excellent sign. you are basically looking for someone who will love your child / children.
• nannies with reasonably calm personal lives are much more reliable than troubled nannies, so worth asking at interview in a tactful way about partners etc (or whether there are elderly / ill relatives abroad...)

Just a question re discipline procedures and appeals. In one of my books it states that the disciplinary process should have a right of appeal, so that a tribunal would agree that the process had been fair. But who would they appeal to? My nanny was hired through an advert, not an agency - and I don't have a solicitor. Do people think this is necessary or overkill? Examples of your contracts regarding disciplinary procedures would be appreciated. Hope it never gets used but want to get it right!

Our contract said that in the event if a disciplinary dispute, the nanny could nominate someone to act on her behalf. That left it open for her to choose who it would be that would support her and argue her case. It was never clear who she would actually appeal to, but we felt this would give her some additional support if it became necessary. In the end, I guess a nanny could take an employer to court for breach of contract or something but I'm not a lawyer so not sure. Sorry if this is no help!

Bea thanks for the advice - I will do the same.

Advice needed desperately, sorry if this is long - I have employed the same nanny for 18 months who started when ds was 9m old. At first we were thrilled with her, she was great with our son, very laid back and seemed to fit into our (slightly unconventional) household very well. However, since last autumn (about the same time that I sold my car - more in a moment) her attitude has been going down hill. Dh sometimes works from home and has often found her reading a magazine while ds plays on his own. One of the reasons why I wanted a nanny was so ds could build up his own circle of friends. However our nanny met another nanny who looks after another little boy of the same age, and they spend their whole time together - ie either in our house or their house, or going to the same playgroup etc etc. Before Christmas (when I gave her 5 weeks off to go home) we had a chat and I very politely pointed out I wasn't happy, and we agreed on a number of changes, for example, she would fill in a daily diary for me (which I still haven't seen despite a number of reminders). Last week she complained that ds had been 'a nightmare' kicking and biting etc (which he does not do with us). I asked what she had done with him that day and she replied that she had taken him to the park in the morning, and then the supermarket in the afternoon. It's not surprising that he was feeling frustrated really !

We are paying her top London rates ie £350 net per week, and I feel i am being short changed. We never got round to signing a contract (I know, I know, but it didn't seem necessary back in those early days!) and I am now thinking of giving her notice. Am I entitled to give her 4 weeks pay and ask her to leave immediately.

Re the car - she started using it almost all the time including weekends as I never used it and was happy to let her borrow it. However a substantial amount of damage was caused while in her care (once someone jumped on it at 1am outside her house so not her fault, the others I don't know), which cost me nearly £3,000. She has complained to the cleaner and my husband that she wouldn't have taken the job if there was no car. But she wasn't even insured on it until well after she started, and it was always my car. Sorry this has turned into a bit of a rant, but I would be interested in hearing what others think. She is my only experience of employing a nanny and I feel the relationship is breaking down (even though I do trust her with my son). Sorry for rambling question !