Nanny requesting less hours and more pay

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you really spend over 4,000 a month for the nanny? You are paying over $200 a day. Since she is on the books you also pay her social security? Are you then paying 5,000 a month?

Do you find this unreasonable? I am an adult career nanny, specializing in twins, and need to make a living wage. If you want a cheap sitter, you’ll have to hire someone with far less experience. Nannies are a luxury, not a common childcare choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you really spend over 4,000 a month for the nanny? You are paying over $200 a day. Since she is on the books you also pay her social security? Are you then paying 5,000 a month?

Two infants in a center full time actually comes in close to that in most big cities.

[Anonymous]

Seems reasonable. I paid my nanny $25/hr with a 2 y/o and 4 y/o in school. She was experienced and wonderful. I wanted to keep her happy and it was 100% worth it. I only make $50/hr FWIW, it's your children and I've seen so many bad-mediocre nannies that I wanted to keep her. Think about your life trying to live off of $22/hr in this area. Also think about the cost to you of saying no and then having to replace her. Also, contrary to these a'holes, think about yourself asking for a raise. Nothing wrong with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you really spend over 4,000 a month for the nanny? You are paying over $200 a day. Since she is on the books you also pay her social security? Are you then paying 5,000 a month?

My guess is you make at least twice 5k/mo. Now imagine living a regular life on ~4k/mo. You get what you pay for, people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to talk to an employment lawyer.

Why? OP presumably made a contract for a certain set of hours and days. Nanny doesn't want to do it anymore. That's just cause to terminate the contract. It's unreasonable for the nanny to only want to work 4 hours a day for 8 hours when she agreed otherwise at the time of hiring.

Because she's stiffing her nanny on OT! OT is time and a half, not an extra $3/hr.

FWIW, we paid our nanny a base rate of $20/hr for the same schedule in a share 7 years ago, including actual overtime ($30/hr.) So OP's pay doesn't seem in line with that.

[Anonymous]

Personally I would get a second nanny and schedule them to both to work less. Schedule the first nanny for 8:30-6 three days a week so 28.5 hours per week. Then schedule the second nanny to come in and work 8:30-6 the other two days per week. You can pay each $23/hr and you'll still come out ahead ($1092) of what you should be paying ($22/hr * 40 + $33 * 7.5 = $1127.50) since you won't be paying either one overtime for over 40 hours/wk. You would pay more for a second healthcare policy, but this way you have built in back-up for each. Each could take vacations and you would pay ($23*40 + $34.50*7.5 = 1178.75) or only about $100 more for the week that they go away. Also, each could take a day here or there like for doctor's appointments or going to their own child's school event, etc and your weekly rate wouldn't change as you still wouldn't be going over 40 hours/week, so no overtime. You just tell them that they can work/cover for each other as long as neither one works over 40 hours in a week. If one needs to work over 40 hours to accommodate the other, they have to clear it with you before hand (so you know that it is a special case and not a regular thing). I've seen more than one household use something similar to this model.

[Anonymous]

^^ we did this. The overtime would have sunk us

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ we did this. The overtime would have sunk us

sounds good in theory, but it's hard to find part-time nannies, let alone part-time nannies responsible enough to coordinate with another nanny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you really spend over 4,000 a month for the nanny? You are paying over $200 a day. Since she is on the books you also pay her social security? Are you then paying 5,000 a month?

The full time job for the nanny is being a nanny. It's not like hiring a teen or a college student who is still living with their parents and the sitter;s parents are taking care of the mortgage payment, the water bill, etc. A nanny is out there living a grownup life, with rent to pay, electric bill to pay, car payments to make, groceries, etc.

Having a nanny is a "top of the line" type of childcare arrangement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Personally I would get a second nanny and schedule them to both to work less. Schedule the first nanny for 8:30-6 three days a week so 28.5 hours per week. Then schedule the second nanny to come in and work 8:30-6 the other two days per week. You can pay each $23/hr and you'll still come out ahead ($1092) of what you should be paying ($22/hr * 40 + $33 * 7.5 = $1127.50) since you won't be paying either one overtime for over 40 hours/wk. You would pay more for a second healthcare policy, but this way you have built in back-up for each. Each could take vacations and you would pay ($23*40 + $34.50*7.5 = 1178.75) or only about $100 more for the week that they go away. Also, each could take a day here or there like for doctor's appointments or going to their own child's school event, etc and your weekly rate wouldn't change as you still wouldn't be going over 40 hours/week, so no overtime. You just tell them that they can work/cover for each other as long as neither one works over 40 hours in a week. If one needs to work over 40 hours to accommodate the other, they have to clear it with you before hand (so you know that it is a special case and not a regular thing). I've seen more than one household use something similar to this model.

Most PT nannies won’t do this. Nanny A works m-w for you, but she’s also going to work th-f for someone else. She’s not going to be able to cover for nanny B on th-f. Nanny B is less likely than nanny A to be able to cover. And unless you’re paying for availability for all 5 days, they’re under no obligation to be a available either.

[Anonymous]

Second “nanny” was more like s babysitter. But it was fine because not so much needed to be done. Whatever it took to avoid so many hours. After a certain number of hours with our sickly twins the nanny needed a break anyway Then we used preschool.

[Anonymous]

We had someone who just came on Fridays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you really spend over 4,000 a month for the nanny? You are paying over $200 a day. Since she is on the books you also pay her social security? Are you then paying 5,000 a month?

The full time job for the nanny is being a nanny. It's not like hiring a teen or a college student who is still living with their parents and the sitter;s parents are taking care of the mortgage payment, the water bill, etc. A nanny is out there living a grownup life, with rent to pay, electric bill to pay, car payments to make, groceries, etc.

Having a nanny is a "top of the line" type of childcare arrangement.

A REAL professional nanny is a top of the line arrangement.

A cheap nanny or au pair by parents who somehow feel all nannies/au pair are better than daycare but don't want to pay real nanny wages and end up with some flaky inexperienced nanny who is using their kid as practice for when they have kids of their own and doesn't really care for kids is a crap arrangement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ we did this. The overtime would have sunk us

sounds good in theory, but it's hard to find part-time nannies, let alone part-time nannies responsible enough to coordinate with another nanny.

+1. We had friends who had a M-Th nanny for 40 hours and another nanny for Friday to avoid OT. The Friday nannies were always quitting. A 1-day a week jobis not a priority.

[Anonymous]

You need to be paying $33 per hour for overtime.