How did you navigate childcare with two demanding careers?

[Amaze0707]

Congratulations on your pregnancy! I truly understand you concerns. I left my job until my LO was 3 y/o as I believe staying with her at that age was a significant task. I remember an article that reads, “The best social science researcher indicates that young children often suffer negative effects when they are separated from their mothers and placed in day care facilities or many hours each week. Babies, toddlers, and preschoolers need their mothers in order to thrive and become emotionally healthy….. Recent studies suggest that kids who spend their majority of their time in day care are often more aggressive and display poorer work habits when they enter school. To make matters worse, doctors have found that many children in day care have elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their bloodstreams.” If leaving your job is not an option, I’d suggest that you have a nanny and cut back your working hours for atleast a couple years. Your job is important, and your child’s welfare is important, too. Hope you figure out your best options soon. Praying for your little one’s safe arrival!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would try very hard to prioritize having a single provider during the first two years. You can find a nanny willing to work 11 hour days if you pay well. If you set those hours at, say 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. could you arrange things so one of you is always home by 7? Alternating late days or something?

I had my kid in daycare, and it was fine, but if you're talking about that long a day, it's exhausting. Napping at home, and a slightly quieter environment will make it worth the cost of a nanny.

After 2, I'd think about a 1/2 day preschool and an au pair. Arrange your schedules so you take turns having breakfast together, and taking the child to school, then the au pair picks up at noon, and the child can have a nice long nap at home. Arrange your schedule so that each of you is home for a nice bedtime routine a few days a week, and outsource everything you can to provide family time on the weekends.

An 11-12 hour day for child to be with nanny? People who do this shoudon't even have a goldfish.

[Anonymous]

Amaze0707 wrote:Congratulations on your pregnancy! I truly understand you concerns. I left my job until my LO was 3 y/o as I believe staying with her at that age was a significant task. I remember an article that reads, “The best social science researcher indicates that young children often suffer negative effects when they are separated from their mothers and placed in day care facilities or many hours each week. Babies, toddlers, and preschoolers need their mothers in order to thrive and become emotionally healthy….. Recent studies suggest that kids who spend their majority of their time in day care are often more aggressive and display poorer work habits when they enter school. To make matters worse, doctors have found that many children in day care have elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their bloodstreams.” If leaving your job is not an option, I’d suggest that you have a nanny and cut back your working hours for atleast a couple years. Your job is important, and your child’s welfare is important, too. Hope you figure out your best options soon. Praying for your little one’s safe arrival!

PP I know you are quoting some studies, but I just can't see it. My son is in daycare and before we put him in we thought we would see how it went but possibly have him go with grandparents when they retired or stay home with us a few days a week and work remotely but now, a year in, I'd NEVER take him out. He knows more, is better behaved, and is more adjusted to being with other kids than if he wasn't there. It is the BEST thing we have ever did for his development. He still has an amazing relationship with his whole family. I have also spoke with some friends and acquaintances that teach and they have said many things opposite to what you are. Please stop adding to the fallacy that daycare is bad and that people should do what you did and stay home. Not every parent has that option and by putting their child in to daycare they aren't harming them. I personally feel the opposite.

[Anonymous]

Attorney here married to a consultant. You need to do nanny. If your jobs don't support that financially I would seriously consider staying home. We have a lot of friends who also have two demanding jobs and from what I see the only way it works is with nanny. And no, we are not rich. Tons of loans, early in our careers but the nanny is non negotiable for so many reasons. 1) your child needs the love/stability of one continuous caretaker and in the infant stages i think its pretty insane we leave one adult to care for 3-4 infants. 1:1 is a much, much better ratio. as your child gets older the nanny can take her to playdates, classes, to see you during lunch, whatever you want. 2) nanny can help with some household tasks. our nanny does all of our DD's laundry and food prep and cleanup. She also will start dinner for DH and me and tee it up so if we are early we can eat with DD. 3) nanny is just more flexible with daycare. our nanny is at our house for 10 hours a day but has stayed longer in emergencies. she has also helped us on weekends where we are unexpectadlyslammed. She also stays 12 hours one day a week so we can both work late uninterrupted and stay on top of things in order to have more time with DD during weekend. I have no problem with our nanny running some of her own errands during the day bc I understand she is with my DD all day. She has taken DD to her own doctor appt, to drop her own car off to get serviced, to get groceries, etc. She has prepared food for her own party in our kitchen during naps. Its all fine with me. I like that my DD goes with her bc this is what I would do I was home. Its just part of life.

Honestly, its really hard even with a great nanny but its doable. We could never survive with daycare. Have a wonderful nanny also reduced the guilt I feel from leaving my DD for so many hours. I accept and support her very strong relationship with nanny. This can get so hard but I do believe its healthier for her to have a strong mother-like connection with nanny rather than deny her that bond by rotating, uninterested daycare workers. She knows I am her mother and we have a wonderful bond but lets face it, nanny is there for her for 11 out of the 12 hours she is awake M-F.

Also,you have to outsource. We get a lot of carryout, do instacart if we need, have a cleaning lady come 1x week.

We pay our nanny $20/hour plus benefits including 3 weeks paid vacation. We also feed her any meal she has at our home meaning we buy enough food for her or once a week she can take DD out to eat. She has use of a credit card for anything she buys for us to DD. I never ever have said anything about small transactions like starbucks which clearly are for her.

[Anonymous]

PP here. I'd also add I took 6 months maternity leave. Only 3 were paid but i knew we faced a lot of separation and this helped a lot. I also go into work on the 12 hour day so I can take DD to a music class.

[Anonymous]

We were in that situation. I chose to stay at home as my hours + travel combined with my husbands weekly travel would have meant that we didn't get to see our children. That wasn't even close to being okay with us. I've been home for 9 years now and three kids and I've been thrilled with my decision.

[Anonymous]

NP here.

We did a combination of what the previous posters have said. Husband and I are both consultants, I travel 1-2x per month usually 1 to 3 nights per travel episode.

1. DH switched jobs into something less demanding. He was at a Top 5 consulting firm and there was no balance whatsoever. Career move has not been a step back professionally for him despite the naysayers.
2. We moved closer to family about 6 months after baby was born, this helped in 2 ways: obvious help when we are in a bind, and also just slower paced lifestyle than DC which has helped tremendously.
3. DH and I tightly coordinate our schedules. I start earlier, he ends later. So I'm with baby in the afternoons and he does mornings.
4. NANNY. Seriously, no brainer here. We pay overtime when I'm on travel and it's 1000% worth it.

[Anonymous]

I was in a similar situation. I traveled every other week for work and my husband also travels at least one week for work out of the country. Our families live out of town and my parents still work full-time. DH's parents are retired, but not reliable (his words).

We had a full-time nanny share for 50 hours a week. It was nice to have the nanny as she would also pick up extra hours if needed and could take our child home from the share or if it was at our house, stay later. We usually did not stay that late at work, but it was sometimes challenging as our nanny did not arrive until 8 am.

I decided to change my job to a job in my federal agency that didn't require travel and was a promotion. Now I do not have to travel. This year we transitioned to a f/t daycare within walking distance of our house and the Metro. It is open 7 am- 6 pm which works well for our schedule. We drop our child off at 7:30 and pick him up by 6. My DH does drop off and I do pick up. If one of us needs to stay late, we arrange to alternate schedules.

I have to say, my partner is incredibly involved in our child's life and does a lot of work around the house to make up for the extra hours I might have to take work home. DH doesn't have the option of taking work home .

[Anonymous]

I am at the finishing end (two teenagers now) of having worked in a demanding law firm job and raised my kids with my DH also in a demanding job. What we did was (1) both of us took maternity/paternity leave at the beginning so we had a parent at home for the first 6 months (highly recommend!!) (2) nanny for sure (3) both parents on board to make it work. That means that all decisions take into account both partners career situations throughout the process. If there is a problem with child care, for example, we would both check our schedules for that day and figure out who could more easily take off. If we both needed to be at the office, we would sometimes split the day (one go in super early and work 6-1 and the other go in for the afternoon/evening, for example). We were able to make it work well because neither one of us was trying to cover all the time off you need. Also, don't feel like you will never see your kid(s). We are a very close family (and have very high levels of coparenting).

[Anonymous]

I think you should work backwards from your pre-child logic as you try to answer this question. What do you want from your family life, and then how can your career work with that? It's a REALLY tough mental switch for us super-career-oriented folks, but the baby basically forces the question when he or she gets here, so you might as well ask it now.

So, is it important for you to see the baby every day? After those first few awful weeks, the baby will probably only be awake about 12 hours a day. How many of those hours do you want to be there? Do you care if you and your husband are with the baby together? Do you care if those hours are in the morning or evening? If you're planning on breastfeeding, do you anticipate caring about getting to feed a couple times a day (as opposed to pumping)? No right or wrong answers here, and you can certainly change your mind once the baby comes.

But if it's not important to you to see the baby awake every day (and plenty of people make that choice), then you can definitely go the nanny+ route, and get coverage for 12 hours a day. If you do want to spend some time with baby every day, then you should consider one of the staggering-your-schedules options. If you want family with the baby every day, but it doesn't matter if it's you, then you should bring in family somehow.

For me, I ended up scaling back in ways I never would have anticipated. But I've also capitalized on every ounce of flexibility my job allows--working in the morning before my now-toddler wakes up, working a short (7-8 hour) day while he's at daycare, and then working again in the evening. It means no free time, but I never had any before because I worked all the time.

So, there are lots of alternatives, but it really depends on your priorities--again, all of which are valid.

[Anonymous]

OP again--just wanted to say thanks for all the thoughtful responses here. It's helpful to hear that a lot of folks have navigated this successfully and the specifics on nanny hours, scheduling, etc have been particularly useful. Really appreciate the time all of you have taken.

[Anonymous]

One other configuration I saw with friends who both have high powered jobs, high salaries and a lot of travel was full-time daycare+a live-in nanny/aupair type of person.

[Anonymous]

Something's gotta give.

Unless you intend to hire multiple nannies for shifts (and rarely see your child), you and your husband need to make some adjustments.

We tag team it: I head to work super early while my husband handles the morning dropoffs, and I get home earlier than he does in the evening. We have four kids.

[Anonymous]

12:42, was your baby planned? Just really curious if this was the set up you wanted or something you came up with because of when you happened to get pregnant? It does seem like your nanny has a mother-like relationship with your child.

[Anonymous]

In this area, between demanding jobs and traffic I think a lot of people are in your same situation. We lucked out with an amazing nanny who watches our son 10 hours/day M-Th but I was also able (and very lucky) to change my work schedule to have every Friday off. It was a 20% paycut for me, but worth it for our family. My husband and I alternate pick-ups every day so we still both work more than 8 hours/day (which sadly is so typical around here...) but we make it work. If I had to go back to work on Fridays we'd probably have to find another nanny to help split the time, 50+ hours a week I think anyone would get burned out... I also travel for work (though not weekly...), but my MIL drives 4 hours to stay and help my husband when I have to go out of town.

How about an au pair that lives with you? I don't have any experience or know of anyone who does, but may be something to look into?