Please tell me what you would do in my situation because I am at a loss (childcare)

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05/10/2022 23:29

Subject: Please tell me what you would do in my situation because I am at a loss (childcare)

quote

Anonymous

A couple issues at hand.

I took Humira throughout my pregnancy and my son could not receive live vaccines for the first year of life. He was not able to have rotavirus vaccine and is more susceptible to infection. His pediatrician discouraged us from daycare saying that was likely the only place he would pick up rotavirus and he would likely get very ill and need to be hospitalized. I took a paycut and a completely remote job so I could be close to my son if needed.

We went through 8 nannies in the first two years. A couple issues were our fault - we would hire without a contact or clear duties. We now have a nanny and have had her on/off for over a year. We pay her $20/hr for 40 hours/week plus sick and vacation leave. The issue is she is constantly late and shows up with coffee in hand. She feeds our son convenience meals that we keep for treats, (like frozen pizza, chicken nuggets), she will rarely prepare fresh food for him and if she does it's pickles or bananas. I have to constantly remind her to take him for a walk or to the park. I try to encourage her to take him to stimulating activities like the library or toddler classes but she just doesn't. The house is constantly a mess, I have to ask her every single day to clean up his toys at the end of the day. I have reminded and asked her multiple times to do what's in her contact, (please take Larlo to the park today, please wipe down Larlo's highchair, please don't feed him fruit snacks all day or let him just let him watch TV).

Do I throw out the chicken nuggets? Do I pull the plug on the TV so she can't turn it on during the day? I've been a little lax on the TV and letting the nanny let my son watch a bit of TV while she prepares lunch, but my son will just end up watching TV for 45+ minutes while he's supposedly "eating lunch."

We actually gave our nanny 2 paid days off last week to trial a new nanny but she caught COVID and will not be able to return for 2-3 weeks. We've looked at the pool of candidates for nannies and the pay is just out of our reach at $25-30/hr. The nannies we have interviewed at $20/hr seem barely better than our current nanny and do not come with CPR, First Aid proof of vaccination or 3 references.

We have also looked at nanny shares, the families we have encountered usually have at least 2 kids, want to host at their home and split the costs 50/50. That really doesn't work for me. The two daycares in our area have long waitlists. Our next best hope is part-time preschool.

At this point i'm kind of at a loss. I can't afford to hire a nanny at $25-30/hr. I earn 6K/month after taxes and am paying 4K/month for childcare right now and am SO RESENTFUL to be giving up 2/3rds of my salary for someone to just keep my son alive and do the absolute bare minimum. We are not able to contribute as much as we'd like to savings or college funds because of childcare costs. I can't keep my son with a nanny who offers no stimulating fun for him and leaves me huge messes to clean up at the end of the day. I can't find a small, in-home daycare that can take him. My only other thought is maybe an au pair or quit my job. The issue is we have a small 3bedroom house and if we hired an au pair we would not have any privacy. We would likely need to sell our house and find a house with a basement bedroom and en-suite. I feel like I am in an impossible situation and maybe need to take a leave of absence from work to find childcare.