All the ways to throw money at making 2 little kids and 2 working parents easier
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Anonymous
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Nanny here. A good nanny can be a lifesaver.
My tasks: All kid laundry (towels and bedding too) Weekly grocery run Weekly dry cleaning run I prep all kid food (including homemade purees for the baby and leaving leftovers for the weekends) and I make family dinner 3 nights per week. I make sure there is always toilet paper and baby wipes and paper towels I manage all the random emails about school field trips, snack sign up, soccer games, ballet performances, etc. I keep the family calendar updated with important dates and set up kid appointments and make sure everyone has their vaccinations and dentist checkups and all that stuff. I manage the kids’ wardrobes. I shop off-season sales and rotate clothes each season and measure their feet and buy new shoes and winter coats and swim suits each year. Basically I take on as much as possible of the logistical/mental load of parenting. My employers come home to kids who are bathed and ready to sit down to a family dinner and do the bedtime routine. |
Anonymous
How do you get so much done with a baby?? Do you have hours you’re working but not caring for the kids? |
Anonymous
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I did not read other responses. 3 kids, 5, 3, and a baby. We have a nanny, a housekeeper (cleaner really), and a personal assistant/house manager. The housekeeper comes three evenings a week. We specifically asked for evenings so she could clean up after dinner and we could put the kids to bed and come down to a clean kitchen. I have to admit we save our messiest meal prep for the nights she is there. One night we have her come is Sunday because that is the only day we don’t work and we want to just relax as a family, maybe have friends over, and we go into the week having had a restful Sunday (our Sabbath). The house manager does all house-related tasks. Organizing (I am prone to clutter), scheduling deliveries, maintenance, taking stock of what we need and adding to an Amazon wishlist, helping with parties (we like to entertain). Unfortunately she isn’t great with online/computer tasks so now we have a virtual assistant and the house manager works less (her choice due to family circumstances).
When the baby was a newborn we also had a night nanny. I’m all about sleep training too. It doesn’t all work perfectly but most important to me is that it frees my husband up to spend more time with us. I also work but in a very flexible job from home. Cleaner and house manager found on care.com. Virtual assistant found through a national company. |
Anonymous
Oh my gosh - can I hire you?? Seriously this level of help sounds amazing. |
Anonymous
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What hours do you need? Hiring a nanny sounds nice, but if the hours are only evenings, most nannies will not want to do that. You may also run into full-time nannies not willing to do housekeeping duties on top of childcare. It can be very stressful to have to keep looking for nannies, because they will likely leave for a job with more pay, more hours, less work, etc.
I say either do daycare or a full-time nanny. If daycare is working for you, I would keep that and hire a night nurse. I would also hire a housekeeper and ask if she can cover family laundry and maybe some meal prep or cooking. You can also try services like Hello Fresh or Blue Apron. |
Anonymous
This is nice, but most nannies will not do all or half of this unless they are being paid like $30/hr. |
Anonymous
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simplifying meals by doing the same core 5ish things (and rotating others) really helps us— so, for example, Monday is usually baked salmon/roasted broccoli, taco Tuesday, etc. That really opens the door for grocery delivery because you can just reorder from prior weeks.
I still do laundry because I seem to be the only one who will check for stains and work to get them out, but our cleaning ladies fold which is an amazing time saver. Nanny tidies before she leaves, and we have one part of the basement we just allow to be a kid zone, so favorite block/magnatile buildings, wooden train tracks, etc can stay out there and the rest of the house still feels tidy. So part of our strategy is giving up a little bit on being perfectly clean |
Anonymous
Kids are kindergartener, 3yo and 6 month old. 3yo is in preschool 9 hours per week. I have a lot of experience with babies so 6mo is on a good schedule and naps regularly, so I do get some time most weeks when everyone is either asleep or at school. I take the baby on my grocery run after nap. Laundry is just about getting into a good routine (I put in the washer after bath then switch to the dryer after bed then fold while the baby plays and the 3yo has quiet time. Cooking we mostly do together, and I only make family dinner on the days when the 3yo has preschool so that’s manageable. The kids eat a lot of fresh fruit and veggies so it is mostly just washing and chopping and that keeps it simple for me. All the logistical/paperwork stuff isn’t super time-consuming, it is more about staying organized. I have a dedicated email just for kid-related stuff that I check regularly with a few minutes set aside and then immediately print out forms and fill them out and tape to the fridge for signatures. As soon as I pick kids up we go through their bag/backpack and their art goes into a bin to be sorted (and mostly tossed) once a month and the papers go into a file folder for signatures or for me to add to my calendar or whatever it requires in response. Takes 2 minutes but you just have to be consistent and do it daily and right away so that you can deal with it all when you have 15 minutes free a few times a week. For rotating clothes: In a spare closet downstairs I have a row of cheap pop-up laundry hampers labeled with different sizes so when I shop sales off-season I just toss the stuff into the correct bin for later, and of course some things are passed down. So when I rotate clothes it takes about an hour per kid per season to pull out things that are off-season and replace with appropriate stuff from the bin and then order online anything needed to fill the gap. I just did this yesterday for the 3yo and she needs pajamas and more waterproof mittens, so the preseason stock-up got me most of what I needed. I also work long hours (7-6:30), so there is always time to squeeze in a few minutes of random tasks somewhere. My current rate is $21 aince I have a lot of guaranteed overtime and 3 weeks’ vacation. |
Anonymous
Come work for me, I’ll pay you $30/hr for what you described! You sound exceptional. |
Anonymous
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A good nanny
Online grocery shopping Dry cleaning delivery service Online shopping for nearly everything Regular house cleaner |
Anonymous
| A night nurse would be my number one priority, one with training to get a baby to sleep through the night at the appropriate phase. Depending on the age of the baby, a sleep consultant. |
Anonymous
+1 Nanny, you are seriously underpaid for what you are doing. |
Anonymous
It sounds normal, shop, cook, clean for the kids. Manage a bit of paperwork for kids in school. She sounds amazing though. |
Anonymous
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OP, what's your childcare situation? We found that having a nanny made life so much easier because you weren't bringing stuff home from daycare that needs cleaning/putting away, you don't have to worry about packing anything for daycare, you aren't having to get kids ready in the morning along with yourself, you never worry about sick days or school holidays, etc. So many benefits. So, that's where I'd start.
Also, get a maid. And a gardener. Find a dry cleaning service that picks up and drops off at your house. Get a cook. And a house manager is great when your kids are still little (our nanny transitioned into that role as well once they were both in K). But I'd really consider starting with a nanny because that would help a lot. For what it's worth, I'm a total Type A perfectionist, so at first it was hard for me to conceive of letting someone else handle so many tasks, but then once I did it and realized the benefits it has been such a stress reliever. We have so much time to hang out together as a family, especially on the weekends, because we're not running around doing errands all day, etc. We get to pick and choose what we want to spend our time on and it's great. |
Anonymous
Care.com We also looked on Sittercity and saw some people that overlapped but we preferred the way Care was set up |