Nanny Share advice needed

[MaggieW]

I'm looking at two-day per week nanny share for our 14 month old but have no experience of how they work or what issues I should be expecting/aware of. I've only spoken to one nanny so far and she can't start until 9.30am as she has to drop the other child off to nursery some miles away each morning. However, I always thought the idea was that if you were paying for certain days they were yours, or am I wrong? Can anyone with experience help please?

That would be the case if they work part of the week and are available to you the rest of the week. however, most nanny share cases are where they are looking after one child full-time and the employers want to halve the cost and share the nanny with someone else. My questions would be whose house are the children looked after and whose food do they eat etc.

I was at one time looking for a part-week nanny and found it nearly impossible, most of the applicants were nanny-share as in share the nanny with another child all the time which was unacceptable to me.

Good luck. It's a nightmare.

No experience I'm afraid but have been looking into this myself recently. I think there are two types of nanny-sharing. The first - which is what you want - is when the nanny works part of the week exclusively for you and the rest of the week exclusively for someone else. What the nanny you spoke to must be doing is the other type - where she is shared by two families on the same day - so not one-to-one care.

Have you tried the local agencies - they were very helpful when I called them ? Yellow Pages or Thomson's will have a list, or you could try a websearch for the nationals.

HTH ?

I could certainly find part-time nannies here through agencies without too much difficulty, but I wouldn't have described it as a nanny-share as such. I would have envisaged the latter to be a nanny looking after children in 2 families.

Quite often though nannies who are part-time have their own chiild, so even then they may not be exclusive, but I did interview one or two who did 3 days for one family and was looking for a family for the other two.

Well to explain (or defend myself to)MiriamW - I was told absolutely categorically by 4 agencies here that they could definitely get me a part-time nanny, but I would have to find another family who would have her for the rest of the week - as "part-time" nannies were rarer than rare. Hence they would class her as a nanny-share.

I had already stated that I did not want her to have any other charges - so maybe that's why I had ruled myself out of "part-time nanny" status ?

Anyway - hope original info was useful at least to MaggieW

Sorry Scatterbrain, I didn't think that I was contradicting you, just adding my experience. Areas probably vary widely as to what is available. Certainly I would have been very put off if I had to find someone who wanted a nanny for the remainder of the week!

Maggie, I have had experience of both types of nanny share. The first experience was when I had my first dd. I was going back to work three days a week. Initially I and a friend hired a nanny to look after the two girls at my house. The share broke down after six weeks due to my friend being unhappy about the standard of care the nanny was offering. I wanted to try for a bit longer but the situation was impossible so we had to sack the nanny. It was hard because I did not want to lose a friend but we both had different ideas about what we wanted from a nanny. After that another friends' nanny looked after my dd at her house. That worked out very well for two and a half years, I paid half her wages for the three day period, my friend bought the food - not very much extra for my little girl anyway. It was excellent having the extra flexibility of being able to work one or other of the extra days if necessary as well. Now I have a ds as well I have my own nanny for three days a week. She goes to another couple for the last two days. This has been fine, but if I need to go into work on the other days I have to make alternative arrangments as the nanny works in a totally different area for the two day period. Apart from that it is good having a nanny coming into my house, and she is very good at leaving the place tidy on my return. Downside is that it is costing me a lot of money.

My nanny looks after my ds one day in my house (Tuesday) and I take him to the other house for two days where he is looked after together with another little boy on Wednesday and Thursday. The other half of our share has the nanny Wednesday and Thursday when she looks after both children, and on Friday when she just looks after the other little boy. This way she works four days but we both only pay for one day exclusively and two days shared. It works very well. The boys are too young to play together but are interested in each other and smile when they see each other. I wouldn't be too quick to rule out a traditional nanny share (where the nanny has more than one charge) they can be really successful, particularly if the children are quite close in age, as they can entertain each other and become friends, plus, of course, it's cheaper (not half the cost of one-on-one as looking after two children is more work, but about 1/3 cheaper). My step-daughter had two nannyshares and enjoyed the social nature of the arrangement. It was arranged so the children spend one week at one house, and the next at the others so pickups/food/wear and tear on the house (!) were shared equally.
However, you may find a nanny who already has a three day week somewhere but would like another two days to add up to a full time job. If you can be flexible about your days it would help.

If you are in or near London I recommend The Register as a brilliant way to organise slightly unorthodox nanny arrangements - with no agency fee. It's a newsletter-type thing, with ads from nannies and parents.

I've been sharing the same nanny for 10 years now.Originally I shared her with an aquaintance, my ds at her house. Then over the years, with 3 or 4 other families for varying lenghts of time. Now share with one other person - usually at my house - and have been for the last 6 years. We are both her employers - we each pay tax and NI. When she went on maternity leave earlier this year, she was entitled to SMP from both of us. We pay her half of a full wage each. So the share isn't just by looking after the children ( my 2 are both at school and so is the other child, so at the moment it's mostly after school - suits her as her DD is almost 6 months old) but also a split down the middle as far as the money is concerned. I'm very good friends with the other person in the share, which helps, and she pays me some money each month towards the cost of food. Have had some dodgy moments with other families, opinion wise, but nothing too awful. Been VERY lucky, as my 2 ds's have had constant stability in their childcare - and brings me tremendous peace of mind!!!