DH wants to hire a nanny even tho it means stretching our budget

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who would do new baby care if don't look for a nanny?

My mom offered to come over every day and take care of the baby for a year or two. She did that for my daughter until we sent her to daycare at 2. But she only does the minimum -- feeding napping crayons and playground -- it's ok in a pinch. She won't do library or play groups or actively engaged with child's toys. She's got a very set way about child care.

Perfect. This is all you need and it saves money. The "minimum" is what a baby needs- not playgroups and toys.
For centuries that's all babies had and it is fine.
My Grandma was my babysitter until Kindergarten, and I went to top 20 schools and am now an Executive. All tots need is love and the basics.

I do not agree. A baby needs stimulation and engagement to maximize brain development. The bare minimum isn’t close to enough.

Stimulation is going for a walk outside, watching the world go by.
Stimulation is watching parent or Grandma cook and do dishes and normal household chores.
Stimulation is playing with normal household items- pots, pans, spoons.
You don't need to complicate it to have a baby/toddler learn and develop

A baby would be better off in daycare than this nothing existence.

[Anonymous]

Why don't you consider a nanny share? That will cost a little less and still be a nanny.

[Anonymous]

The most important stimulation a baby needs is a caregiver who will talk and sing to them. OP mentioned Grandma won’t go to the library or playgroups or play with toys. I don’t think any of this matters so long as Grandma will hold baby, smile, talk, sing, coo etc at baby and give it lots of love. If Grandma won’t do all that, then I would also go with the compromised approach of part-time nanny and Grandma or a nanny share.

[Anonymous]

I Grandma loving and responsive? Does she hold baby? Talk to baby? Play with baby? Read to baby? If she just doesn’t do outings but does all the above that is good enough for the first year, but doesn’t address your DH’s concern. Especially with a newborn in the house it can be really hard having DD bring home constant illness from school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who would do new baby care if don't look for a nanny?

My mom offered to come over every day and take care of the baby for a year or two. She did that for my daughter until we sent her to daycare at 2. But she only does the minimum -- feeding napping crayons and playground -- it's ok in a pinch. She won't do library or play groups or actively engaged with child's toys. She's got a very set way about child care.

Perfect. This is all you need and it saves money. The "minimum" is what a baby needs- not playgroups and toys.
For centuries that's all babies had and it is fine.
My Grandma was my babysitter until Kindergarten, and I went to top 20 schools and am now an Executive. All tots need is love and the basics.

I do not agree. A baby needs stimulation and engagement to maximize brain development. The bare minimum isn’t close to enough.

Stimulation is going for a walk outside, watching the world go by.
Stimulation is watching parent or Grandma cook and do dishes and normal household chores.
Stimulation is playing with normal household items- pots, pans, spoons.
You don't need to complicate it to have a baby/toddler learn and develop

A baby would be better off in daycare than this nothing existence.

So are SAHMs worthless? Is being home with a loving relative who also needs to do all the housework and organization a terrible thing for a baby? That's ridiculous

[Anonymous]

My vote is also for the nanny share + grandma (if grandma interacts with the baby - that's very important). Then you can inherit the nanny when your son "graduates" to jr. k. She may also be interested in picking up a few extra hours here and there and might love sitting the baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who would do new baby care if don't look for a nanny?

My mom offered to come over every day and take care of the baby for a year or two. She did that for my daughter until we sent her to daycare at 2. But she only does the minimum -- feeding napping crayons and playground -- it's ok in a pinch. She won't do library or play groups or actively engaged with child's toys. She's got a very set way about child care.

Perfect. This is all you need and it saves money. The "minimum" is what a baby needs- not playgroups and toys.
For centuries that's all babies had and it is fine.
My Grandma was my babysitter until Kindergarten, and I went to top 20 schools and am now an Executive. All tots need is love and the basics.

I do not agree. A baby needs stimulation and engagement to maximize brain development. The bare minimum isn’t close to enough.

Stimulation is going for a walk outside, watching the world go by.
Stimulation is watching parent or Grandma cook and do dishes and normal household chores.
Stimulation is playing with normal household items- pots, pans, spoons.
You don't need to complicate it to have a baby/toddler learn and develop

A baby would be better off in daycare than this nothing existence.

So are SAHMs worthless? Is being home with a loving relative who also needs to do all the housework and organization a terrible thing for a baby? That's ridiculous

Babies need engagement and stimulation. This is proven science. Why do you think there are all these PSAs about talking to, singing to and reading to your baby?!

Yeah, if a SAHM is going to plop the baby in a bouncy seat and clean the house and feed while watching TV, the baby would be better off in daycare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our daughter who just turned 3 is in daycare that costs $16k annually and we have a new baby. I don't feel like we can afford to switch to a nanny but DH is really pushing for it cuz he is tired of our toddler being sick literally every other week from daycare and also coming home exhausted physically and emotionally every day. We both work FT and make $200k combined and I'm estimating that a FT nanny will cost something like $50k a year including taxes and insurance? plus we'll have to find a little preschool program that could be another $5k a year. So I suppose we can technically afford it but I just feel like it's a lot. he really thinks it would be worth it tho. Help me think it through...

Yes the nanny will be $50k. Your older kid will be fine without preschool this year, and you can look for an inexpensive church program for pre-k next year. If you can make it work, I think it is worth it. I switched from PT nanny to full time daycare at age 3 and had huge regrets. We had no quality time with DD because we were hustling her to and from daycare every day, and she was always tired and exhausted and had meltdowns at 5 pm every day. We are back to a PT school schedule and she is back to normal and happy.

[Anonymous]

YMMV but nanny share has not worked for us. I think it's hard to make it work with another family and it's a lot of investment for it to fail. Our first share try, the other family's older kids were constantly bringing home illnesses from preschool, and they had a big extended family who were coming and going from the house spreading colds all winter long. Our second share, the mom was sending the nanny and kids on farflung "enrichment experiences" every day (like DC museums, Natl Zoo, and we live in the burbs, and the kids are under 2) and not notifying ahead of time. When we asked her to limit these activities/distances she fired us from the share. So... it's not always easy with shares.