What to pay nanny for 5 kids?

[Anonymous]

What should I expect to pay a nanny for this scenario? I have 5 kids. One 1 year old, two preschoolers, two school-aged. The older preschooler is gone at preschool for nanny's entire workday, as is the middle schooler. The younger preschooler (age 3) is in preschool two days a week. The elementary aged child is home for one hour at the end of her workday. 40 hour week; I work from home. Obviously with 5 kids there are 1/2 school days and sick days sometimes. I would like the nanny to be very focused on childcare, prepare meals for the children during the day, but not dinner for the family or anything like that and do a load of dishes (in the dishwasher) during her workday if possible. I'd also like it if she could do one load of the children's laundry daily, if there is enough time.

What would you suggest as a fair salary? I'm looking for someone with at least 3 years experience as a nanny, with infant experience, who has cared for at least 3 children. I'm in Anne Arundel County.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, I wouldn't even consider a job like this unless it was for $30+an hour. You have quite a few cons 1. You're at home all day, so the nanny needs to be comfortable with that

[Anonymous]

Honestly, I wouldn't even consider a job like this unless it was for $30+an hour. You have quite a few cons 1. You're at home all day, so the nanny needs to be comfortable with that. 2. All five children will be home during holidays and summer break. 3. You expect laundry to be done everyday (that's insane with that many children) 4. Outings will be difficult with all the different schedules and age ranges.

Overall, it's just not to appealing especially for someone who can make $20 an hour with just two children and would have an easy routine.

[Anonymous]

Find someone you want, and ask.

[Anonymous]

I would say the range should be $20-25 an hour, if you want someone to do more than childcare, expect to be paying at least $25, if not more.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, I would never consider a job like this. I have taken care of 4 and believe me, it is hard. Really hard. I am a great nanny, and can handle a lot of kids, but doing it last summer wore me out.

[Anonymous]

If you can find after school care for the older kids and center the job around the 1 year old and younger preschooler, you may be able to find someone in the $15-20 range who would also be able to keep up on the housework that you are requesting. You will get better candidates and have a wider selection. Otherwise, you are looking at at least $25 an hour with a very reduced applicant pool.

It seems like a ton of juggling and, as one PP pointed out, most people would rather take a slightly lower rate for WAY less work.

[Anonymous]

Most of my jobs have been with multiples or larger sibling sets.

I did work for a family with 5 kids and one on the way.
The ages were 2 yr old twins, 5 year old, 6 year old and a 14 year old.
I started in the summer so all were out of school. We also traveled 4 weeks out of the summer.

I made $30/ hr & while travelling I was paid my rate with ot plus an extra $1000/week. Yes this is not normal, but I also worked A LOT those 4 weeks and had the younger kids with my almost all day.

Once school started of course the older ones went. The Twins went to preschool part time and the baby was born. I got a $2 raise.

[Anonymous]

You don't see $30 a hour rates in Anne Arundel County. OP you are probably closer to $18-$20 which is very high for your area. You should make sure that you hire someone who is comfortable with multiple ages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don't see $30 a hour rates in Anne Arundel County. OP you are probably closer to $18-$20 which is very high for your area. You should make sure that you hire someone who is comfortable with multiple ages.

No one qualified to care for 5 kids is going to accept less than $20 an hour, I don't care where you are located.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, anyone who's qualified will not take the job because I am sure from your point of view and you're home all day will not be willing to pay someone at least $25/hour. To be brutally honest, you may need to hire 2 nannies. Someone who will work from 7/8am to 2pm and you can pay her $16-18/hour and hire an after-school sitter from 2/3 to 5pm and pay her $20/hour since she's working very minimum hours. Overall, this will save you about ~ $125/week

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks so much for the feedback. I appreciate it. Some good ideas and perspective here.

[Anonymous]

I'm someone the PP would consider "qualified" to care for five kids. I make $20/hr for one child; I can't imagine increasing my workload by so much for less than $30/hr...

[Anonymous]

I'm an MB and generally think nannies are undervalued...but $25-30 an hour seems really high to me. That is the hourly wage I made working as a bachelors-prepared ICU nurse.

Granted, taking care of 5 kids is hard but not a ratio that seems crazy since the ratio for kids in a daycare is around that. It also doesn't sound like there many hours that the nanny would have all 5 kids at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm an MB and generally think nannies are undervalued...but $25-30 an hour seems really high to me. That is the hourly wage I made working as a bachelors-prepared ICU nurse.

Granted, taking care of 5 kids is hard but not a ratio that seems crazy since the ratio for kids in a daycare is around that. It also doesn't sound like there many hours that the nanny would have all 5 kids at the same time.

$25/hr is not an outrageous rate for a nanny-share with only three children in it, though, so although it is a large expense for one family to pay it isn't a crazy range in this field.

And if you took the time to compare the cost of daycare, after-school care, and transportation of the five kids vs. this higher hourly rate for a nanny...I bet you'd find that $25-$30/hr was actually a VERY cost effective alternative.