How does a nanny share usually work?

[Anonymous]

Is the benefit just reduced cost? Where do the kids stay? I have a toddler in daycare right now and I am days away from giving birth to my next child. I've thought it would be better to have a nanny for both beginning late spring (after maternity leave) instead of putting both in daycare. Would nanny share need to be with another family that has same number of kids and ages? What if other family requires family for different hours?

[Anonymous]

Nanny shares are for your one baby and another baby close in age. You aren’t going to find a nanny share for your two kids (if that’s what you’re asking).

One family hosts both babies all day. The nanny’s hourly salary I’d divided 50/50. Both families have to agree on hours, vacations, schedule and benefits.

[Anonymous]

You would hire the nanny for both your kids, OP. 3-4 kids of different ages is too many for a share.

[Anonymous]

We were in a nanny share for awhile where our kid was close in age to the younger of the other two siblings, so there were three total for the nanny. That worked fine but I wouldn't want to have more, certainly, and it also worked well because the nanny had been with the other family since the first kid's infancy so they already had strong relationships and just had to absorb our kid into that framework.

Hour-wise, you are probably best off establishing set hours that both families and the nanny agree to. We did a nanny share for awhile where our child only needed part-time care and the other family needed full-time care and that worked fine too (our hours were within the nanny's normal working hours and we were careful to work around things like nap and lunch time so as not to disrupt the other kids'/nanny's overall schedule). With you having two kids in the mix, you might look for a situation like that. It could be easier on the nanny to only have 3 kids part of the time, although of course then you'll be on the hook for her full pay when it's only your kids - but that can still help with costs.

As to your question about where the kids would stay, it would be either your house or the other parents' house. I guess you could switch it up between the two if your nanny wanted to, but in the shares I've been in there's always been one default house that had a good setup for the kids, with the other house just being used when the normal host parents were away or something.