No one can live on 15 hours of pay a week.

Keep her full time.

OP, I think your original post was reasonable but I didn’t read all the responses. I’m a SAHM had part time support in the mornings with my kids when they were little. So I think you try to look in your neighborhood for anyone who needs some morning support and see if your nanny is willing to work with another family. Most SAHPs won’t need 5 days a week but it will take some financial burden off you to have at least 2-3 mornings covered by another family. Then, your nanny can help with housework and errands on the other 1-2 days. Also there may be parents who work part time and need that coverage in the morning.

On listservs that I’m on, I’ve seen families try to do this… not sure how successful they are. The nanny has to be willing of course. You may have to incentivize this and be willing to pay her for any “overtime”.

Anonymous wrote:Keep her on with full salary when you need part time. Then lay her off and she can collect unemployment and then come back

This seems like the obvious solution. Or pay 3/4 salary for part time and let her find another family to fill that time if she can. Just work out something with her. Then she can take a break while you’re on mat leave, collect unemployment, and if it doesn’t quite come to her salary, you can make up the difference by paying her for occasional care and date nights. She comes back refreshed when your mat leave ends.

Keep her on with full salary when you need part time. Then lay her off and she can collect unemployment and then come back

It sounds like your job is going to suffer in the Fall without childcare, which will then make it more probable that you’ll just quit or be terminated after maternity leave. If you want to make it work, look into an au pair program, they are better for part time, split schedules, mothers helper, and multiple childcare pickups, if you have housing for them.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. After much thought, I've decided we will let her go when school starts this August. I will try to make it work on my own in the afternoons with work. When the baby gets here, I'll take care of all three on my own, knowing the big kids will be in school half the day. When it's time for me to go back to work next spring, I'll decide then what to do, whether daycare, scale back at work, or find a new nanny.

Everyone on this thread was snarky AF which really wasn't necessary and made awful assumptions about me for simply asking a question, but this helped me determine that I really don't need a nanny at this point in our family life, and I should stop trying to stand on my head figuring out how to keep her for 14 hours a week, for only a few months.

I think you could have just spoken to your nanny instead of us.

Good luck!

I'm a mom of three. Can't wait to check in on OP in September and see how this all works out for her.