When to move on from nanny care?

[Anonymous]

We love our nanny of two-ish years. She has done a wonderful job with our two kids, 3 and 1, and I am so appreciative of what she's done for our family. She is in school part-time and is looking to transition to full-time in the fall of 2020, at which point my kids will be almost 4 and almost 2. At that point, we would either have to find a new nanny or look for a different arrangement. I know it's a long ways away, but I know from our initial childcare search that we need to figure out another plan now (or maybe... yesterday...) if we want to go the daycare route (and we are on some lists!).

Besides the fact that we love our nanny specifically, I do love having nanny care and the convenience/lack of illness/focused attention it brings. We also love our daughter's part-time preschool, which has no option to go full-time.

However, I'm worried that we will have a hard time finding another nanny as stellar as our current one, and my kids will be at an age where the transition to something more structured might make sense. Also, having a nanny is increasingly becoming a financial stretch for us since we have added on preschool and classes to keep everyone stimulated. It is a lot of money that we could use for other things (beefing up our savings, down payment for a forever home, college savings for the kids).

I'd love to hear feedback from other parents who have been there on what to do in this situation. Thanks a bunch!

[Anonymous]

If you’re going to transition to daycare, do it gradually. Nanny is with children for end of school year. Daycare starts with nanny taking child for preschool hours, then gradually increases. Last week will be full-time daycare hours with nanny doing drop off/pick up. Then you start doing drop off/pick up.

[Anonymous]

We just switched our 6 yr old to aftercare and -.5 yr old to daycare. It is so fricking hard! Two drop-offs and two pick-ups, the illnesses and countless school holidays. And this is beside having to do my kids laundry, grocery shopping, toy pick up and their meals made. My youngest is really happy in daycare but my older child doesn’t like aftercare.

If your new nanny can adequately socialize (story times, play dates and classes) for your little one, I would say absolutely go with another nanny. DH and I have no vacation or PTO left in our jobs for taking so many days when one of the kids were sick or holiday and I have parents who can only help with my older child (bad backs - neither can lift the toddler).