Anonymous wrote:You should have thought about these situations before hsvi g children. You have no problems. Now, if you had a premie in NICU and two small children at home then all of your neighbors pitch in to help. Be grateful for a healthy family and stop whining.

Shut up.

We travel with our friends. We rent a big house together and parents rotate nights out/days free. It's always great. So DH and I will have a free day to explore then sit at home that night while the kids sleep and other adults go out. Next day we do something fun with a the kids and then put ours to bed and we get the night out.

Seriously is a wonderful time. Perfect balance of family time, friend time, and couple time. We do moms night out, dads night out, etc.

Personally I wouldn’t leave my children with someone other than family - unless it was someone like a sitter used for a long period that I trusted and I were in driving distance.

We travel without the kids using family and even then I have a signed and notarized medical power of attorney - just in case. It’s hard to think about, but you have to be prepared in case there was an emergency and you are a flight away, and of course you have to be prepared in case something happens to you (including delays in returning).

We have also traveled kid free during sleep away camp, but make sure a relative is in driving distance of camp in case anything were to happen. I’ve known families who had to return to pick up early, whether for homesickness or accidents or sudden illness, and you don’t want to be on a safari in Africa if that happened unless you have some back up.

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Anonymous wrote:Ask your nanny if she’ll do an overnight for $$$ and get a local hotel room.

The nanny has kids of her own. The answer is no.

What if her kids could crash at your house? What if you went over the summer (no school issues for her kids/your kids)? What if you paid her time and a half or a $1k bonus?

Or what if OP just found a new nanny who available on weekends?

Sometimes the easiest and simplest solution is the best one. Done.

Nobody wants to work 24/7 for regular pay.

Actually, I am open to 24/7. (Not rota! I don’t want to deal with what another nanny leaves...) Most states allow for employers of live-in nannies to not pay overtime, so I just negotiate salary for up to 24/5 or up to 24/7. However, I’m out of budget for the majority of families. My salary starts at $1000 for 24/5 with 1 child at home all day or all kids in school 3+ hours per day.

What does this mean? What are your rates in English?

That means that I make $1000+ for 24/5. The more children and other things to handle, the higher my rate is.

You should have thought about these situations before hsvi g children. You have no problems. Now, if you had a premie in NICU and two small children at home then all of your neighbors pitch in to help. Be grateful for a healthy family and stop whining.

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Anonymous wrote:Ask your nanny if she’ll do an overnight for $$$ and get a local hotel room.

The nanny has kids of her own. The answer is no.

What if her kids could crash at your house? What if you went over the summer (no school issues for her kids/your kids)? What if you paid her time and a half or a $1k bonus?

Or what if OP just found a new nanny who available on weekends?

Sometimes the easiest and simplest solution is the best one. Done.

Nobody wants to work 24/7 for regular pay.

Actually, I am open to 24/7. (Not rota! I don’t want to deal with what another nanny leaves...) Most states allow for employers of live-in nannies to not pay overtime, so I just negotiate salary for up to 24/5 or up to 24/7. However, I’m out of budget for the majority of families. My salary starts at $1000 for 24/5 with 1 child at home all day or all kids in school 3+ hours per day.

What does this mean? What are your rates in English?

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask your nanny if she’ll do an overnight for $$$ and get a local hotel room.

The nanny has kids of her own. The answer is no.

What if her kids could crash at your house? What if you went over the summer (no school issues for her kids/your kids)? What if you paid her time and a half or a $1k bonus?

Or what if OP just found a new nanny who available on weekends?

Sometimes the easiest and simplest solution is the best one. Done.

Nobody wants to work 24/7 for regular pay.

Actually, I am open to 24/7. (Not rota! I don’t want to deal with what another nanny leaves...) Most states allow for employers of live-in nannies to not pay overtime, so I just negotiate salary for up to 24/5 or up to 24/7. However, I’m out of budget for the majority of families. My salary starts at $1000 for 24/5 with 1 child at home all day or all kids in school 3+ hours per day.

Some of these comments are really judgmental.

OP, I worked in private child care for 10 years and did plenty of overnighter. Usually for families who I started off providing date night care for. This helped me so much financially as I was helping my parents with their monthly expenses and overnight care was great.
I suggest you ask one of your date night sitters if they'd ever be interested in overnight care or if you really don't feel like they could handle it, check out other sitters and start using so kids can get acclimated then have for overnight care. It really isn't a big deal and nothing wrong with it. Not everyone has family or friends in the area to help out and we're all allowed to go out, yes even overnight, without kids.

I’ll take your kids for a weekend and you can take ours in return!

I feel your pain, OP. It is hard.

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Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't leave my kids with someone they don't know well, especially since they are slow to warm up. Go somewhere with a kid club.

Another option is you fly in family to watch kids for a weekend and also hire sitter to help out during the day

That’s what we did, flew family in to watch our kids. Just once for a special event.

That assumes there is family that is willing and able.

Anonymous wrote:Our solution has been resorts with kids clubs

Resorts and cruises offer kids programs that can give you some time. Check the cruise lines and details before you go. Some Disney and some Royal Caribbean cruises offer the nursery for children ages 6-36 months and kids clubs for older children by age groups.

We also have no family within 1000 miles of us. We have taken cruises with the kids and gotten were able to have a vacation where we had some time with the kids and some time without the kids. It was a great compromise for us. And our kids loved the kids club so they ended up asking to go more often than we originally planned. We still had a lot of family time but we got more breaks than we expected and it was very nice.

Do day trips during the day, while your nanny is watching the kids. You can get a hotel room, or ask the nanny to bring the kids out of the house for a couple hours. (It's amazing how luxurious it is to be home, but without the kids there.)

In a couple years, you can bring your kids on vacation with you, and it'll be fun, if you make the effort. We haven't had a vacation alone since the first child was born, 10 years ago, but we try to do daytime dates from time to time, and it's way less pressure/more relaxing and still fun. We will resume traveling when the kids get older.

We could have looked for a nanny or babysitter that did overnights, but I just don't think couple-only vacations are crucial, and paying for overnight childcare plus travel expenses adds up fast, so a lot of pressure for it to be perfect. I'm sure it works for some people, but too much trouble for me.

Welcome to life for most people. You'll be okay if you don't take romantic vacations. I promise.

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Anonymous wrote:Do any of your friends have nannies? If so, use their nanny. Have them babysit first, of course, but that's better than someone who is just a "sitter." Seriously, you can figure it out. We always have.

So, her friend's nanny should drop everything and stay for a weekend with OP's kufsy! In case you don't know, nannies are not servants to be passed around to your friends. They have free choice.

Are you really this dumb or are you just pretending to be? Where did I say that OP should use her friend's nanny without asking or paying her? My nanny has babysat for our friends because she wanted some extra money during times we weren't using her (i.e. at night or on the weekends). It's not that hard to understand this.

Our kids were almost 4 and almost 7 when it was out 10 year anniversary. Our inlaws live 5 minutes away but he thought his parents could not handle the evening routine, getting them to bed, and just overall caring for them for a full 2-3 days. They are ages 68 and 73.


I would have left the kids with our former nanny whom I trust completely, either at her house or had her sleep over at our two guestrooms, and with her 10 year old if she didn't want to leave her kid back home with the dad. My kids love the former nanny and get excited when she comes over to babysit. BUT. My DH said my 3 years 11 month old child was too young to be left alone overnight. So we deferred any kind of overnight trip to an indefinite future. I think my DH worries too much but hey, both parents have to agree on this topic.