Can I outsource meal prep for baby + light housekeeping?

[Anonymous]

Someone would definitely do this but be prepared to pay well. You’re not getting it for like $10/hour.

[Anonymous]

It's not hard to meal prep for a kid. Prepare and freeze. If you're wiped at night, do some prep over the weekend. Make some homemade pasta sauces - and for your kid, puree vegetables and add them to the sauce. Use the crockpot to make shredded chicken and soups. Soups can be frozen. Just buy smaller containers for your kid so you can freeze by portion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Baby is in daycare and we have someone come to do a deep clean 2x a month. I'm looking for more regular help - like the types of things a nanny might do around the house minus the childcare (I am happy with daycare and don't want to fix what's not broken). Is this a thing? Ideally would have someone come ~2x a week to do laundry, unload the dishwasher, maybe run the vacuum and, what I really want, is someone to cook for my 1 yr old so when we get home from daycare with like 30 minutes before bedtime I can give her something already prepped. Do people do this? If I can find someone I like/trust, what would the going rate be? I have no clue.

Why do lazy people like you have children.

I work 60 hours a week and would like to maximize free time to hang out with my kid/sleep.

I have started to look at my priorities. At this point, your 60-hour work week cuts into your kid time and leaves you exhausted. not worth it, imo, but your choice to keep on keeping on

Kids, however, will shake up your world. When they are old enough for activities, will you outsource or take time to bring them yourself (your or your spouse)? What happens when they face some issues? a kid who's having difficulty at school - either academically or emotionally? Some issues last a very long time! It gets really hard to handle them when you're working that many hours.

I would re-think your life. I know it sounds extreme - but many of us have been there.

You're clearly not lazy. You're overworked and tired - and scrambling to make your kid a priority over your work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not hard to meal prep for a kid. Prepare and freeze. If you're wiped at night, do some prep over the weekend. Make some homemade pasta sauces - and for your kid, puree vegetables and add them to the sauce. Use the crockpot to make shredded chicken and soups. Soups can be frozen. Just buy smaller containers for your kid so you can freeze by portion.

Why is this always suggested? Sauce is both the easiest and frankly most unimportant part of a potential meal.

[Anonymous]

OP, you said you live near a college, right? I'd start looking there for someone to come in and do the things you need done. You can be flexible with the hours since they aren't doing actual childcare.

For example, maybe a student wants a job but has classes till differing times on different days. It's hard to find regular jobs with that kind of flexibility, but for you it should work just fine. Put that in your job listing. Make it clear you want the baby's meal prep. When I was in school, I would have jumped at a gig like this!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any thoughts on going rate for this?

At least $20/hour if it's not full time work, more if it's less than 20 hours (so like 2-3 hours a day) multiple times a week.

[Anonymous]

I would suggest a housekeeper as well. It sounds like you really need to have most chores off your hands so you can spend all your free time with your baby. I would have loved to have this when I had an infant and a toddler. You are really lucky to have this as an option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get a housekeeper and one of those baby food delivery services.

Nannies do not clean or do any laundry beyond the child’s laundry. Not to mention you don’t have a nanny without a child!!

I swear, the reading comprehension skills of posters on this forum are really something else.

+1

Also, nannies DO clean or do laundry beyond the child's laundry. At least, the good ones can. We still pay our nanny full-time even though the kids are in school. Even with helping with cleaning (we still have a maid but she does clean certain stuff and also does all laundry) she doesn't work close to the 50 hours a week we pay her for. So it's a win-win. I know, it's shocking that someone could actually be a nanny who is willing to adapt when kids get older in order to keep a great job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:baby will be eating your dinner just smaller before you know it. Seems like a waste.

Because we’re crunched for time in the evening, we don’t cook for ourselves until she’s gone to bed.

Why don't you save a portion of your dinner and give it to baby the next night?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any thoughts on going rate for this?

At least $20/hour if it's not full time work, more if it's less than 20 hours (so like 2-3 hours a day) multiple times a week.

Thank you for answering my question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op we have something like this and you can totally find it. We have someone MWF. She does the dishes/kitchen, our laundry including the sheets, makes the beds, picks up the living areas and vacuums, and wipes down the bathrooms. She also cooks for us 2x per week. (Honestly, I think her true talent is cooking- she’s a VERY good cook). Search on care.com for housekeepers and narrow your search to people who also have cooking in their profile. This kind of help should be much easier to find than after school care- my lady, for example, drops her kids at school and comes over for a few hours. If you don’t need childcare during those key after-school hours, a lot of people are looking to make money while their kids are in school. You’ll easily find someone for $20/hr. Try to find someone in your neighborhood- it will make it a lot easier on you and them. You can drop your housecleaner down to 1x per month for deep cleaning.

NP- Oh my goodness- I would love to have this situation. How many hours per week about does it take her to do this? Am trying to see what we may need to budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op we have something like this and you can totally find it. We have someone MWF. She does the dishes/kitchen, our laundry including the sheets, makes the beds, picks up the living areas and vacuums, and wipes down the bathrooms. She also cooks for us 2x per week. (Honestly, I think her true talent is cooking- she’s a VERY good cook). Search on care.com for housekeepers and narrow your search to people who also have cooking in their profile. This kind of help should be much easier to find than after school care- my lady, for example, drops her kids at school and comes over for a few hours. If you don’t need childcare during those key after-school hours, a lot of people are looking to make money while their kids are in school. You’ll easily find someone for $20/hr. Try to find someone in your neighborhood- it will make it a lot easier on you and them. You can drop your housecleaner down to 1x per month for deep cleaning.

NP- Oh my goodness- I would love to have this situation. How many hours per week about does it take her to do this? Am trying to see what we may need to budget.

She stays for two hours when she does not cook, and three hours when she does cook. But, we have one kid, no pets, a small house, and DH does his own laundry. We have an upstairs guest suite with its own bathroom, and she never has to clean up there. It's completely life changing. This all came about when DH was sick and in the hospital. My mom can into town, and every day I would come home to a picked up house, clean laundry, and a meal. And I was like...this is awesome, how do I replicate this? I realized that I don't need someone deep cleaning once a week/every other week. I need lighter housekeeping, but more regular. So I cut our cleaners back to once a month and found a housekeeper with cooking skills. It's been a total blessing and worth every penny. OP - I highly recommend!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can still have mother’s helper. They usually help out with chores and do light cooking. They don’t take care of the kids, typically.

Mother's helpers are very young girls who entertain babies/young children while mothers do the work. They do not cook or clean.

This.
A mother's helper is the 11-13 year old girl down the street. She comes and plays with your kids while you are home. Basically it's a form of "paid training" so when she is an older teen she will be a great babysitter for you.

This is the pp. Is this a regional thing? That's not how people use the term around here.

Where are you from and what’s your definition? I’m from MD and live in NYC now and that’s my def of mother’s helper. I love having them, although our usual ones are aging out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op we have something like this and you can totally find it. We have someone MWF. She does the dishes/kitchen, our laundry including the sheets, makes the beds, picks up the living areas and vacuums, and wipes down the bathrooms. She also cooks for us 2x per week. (Honestly, I think her true talent is cooking- she’s a VERY good cook). Search on care.com for housekeepers and narrow your search to people who also have cooking in their profile. This kind of help should be much easier to find than after school care- my lady, for example, drops her kids at school and comes over for a few hours. If you don’t need childcare during those key after-school hours, a lot of people are looking to make money while their kids are in school. You’ll easily find someone for $20/hr. Try to find someone in your neighborhood- it will make it a lot easier on you and them. You can drop your housecleaner down to 1x per month for deep cleaning.

NP- Oh my goodness- I would love to have this situation. How many hours per week about does it take her to do this? Am trying to see what we may need to budget.

She stays for two hours when she does not cook, and three hours when she does cook. But, we have one kid, no pets, a small house, and DH does his own laundry. We have an upstairs guest suite with its own bathroom, and she never has to clean up there. It's completely life changing. This all came about when DH was sick and in the hospital. My mom can into town, and every day I would come home to a picked up house, clean laundry, and a meal. And I was like...this is awesome, how do I replicate this? I realized that I don't need someone deep cleaning once a week/every other week. I need lighter housekeeping, but more regular. So I cut our cleaners back to once a month and found a housekeeper with cooking skills. It's been a total blessing and worth every penny. OP - I highly recommend!

NP but this sounds awesome, and something I also might look into. Also, (not answering your question but hopefully helpful info from someone who has taken a less direct approach to outsourcing), I'd tell you we buy a lot of pre-made meals (Al Volo has great lasagna and fresh pasta and sauces you can freeze, quiche from the bakery freezes well, etc) and mastered quick grill dinners (minimal clean up and done in 15 minutes), and have our cleaners come once a week. We experimented with a cook who would come make a full week's worth of food at a time, but it was a bit more food than we needed (and obviously didn't address the light cleaning through the house). We also tend to make bigger meals so, if I cook 2-3x/week, that's 4-6 meals, usually 1 or 2 nights of pasta a week, maybe one night of takeout. It's hard with two working parents.

And also, the PP who is suggesting that people who outsource housework are lazy or shouldn't have kids is a troll. It's 2020. If I'm better at making money than I am at folding laundry, and I make enough money to hire someone else to do that, and I'd rather spend laundry folding time playing with my kid (or even if I want to spend that time connecting with friends, or my husband, or whatever!!), then that is okay!! It's not like there's a trophy at the end of life for folding socks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op we have something like this and you can totally find it. We have someone MWF. She does the dishes/kitchen, our laundry including the sheets, makes the beds, picks up the living areas and vacuums, and wipes down the bathrooms. She also cooks for us 2x per week. (Honestly, I think her true talent is cooking- she’s a VERY good cook). Search on care.com for housekeepers and narrow your search to people who also have cooking in their profile. This kind of help should be much easier to find than after school care- my lady, for example, drops her kids at school and comes over for a few hours. If you don’t need childcare during those key after-school hours, a lot of people are looking to make money while their kids are in school. You’ll easily find someone for $20/hr. Try to find someone in your neighborhood- it will make it a lot easier on you and them. You can drop your housecleaner down to 1x per month for deep cleaning.

NP- Oh my goodness- I would love to have this situation. How many hours per week about does it take her to do this? Am trying to see what we may need to budget.

She stays for two hours when she does not cook, and three hours when she does cook. But, we have one kid, no pets, a small house, and DH does his own laundry. We have an upstairs guest suite with its own bathroom, and she never has to clean up there. It's completely life changing. This all came about when DH was sick and in the hospital. My mom can into town, and every day I would come home to a picked up house, clean laundry, and a meal. And I was like...this is awesome, how do I replicate this? I realized that I don't need someone deep cleaning once a week/every other week. I need lighter housekeeping, but more regular. So I cut our cleaners back to once a month and found a housekeeper with cooking skills. It's been a total blessing and worth every penny. OP - I highly recommend!

PP- Thanks so much for this info! Very helpful. How does it work with her logistically as far as cooking? Do you meal plan and make sure she has all the ingredients she needs? Or does she come up with the recipe ideas? Details are appreciated!