Thoughts on our childcare situation?

[Anonymous]

Sorry for the cross-post. I posted this in the general parenting forum this morning, but the moderator locked the thread because it should have been in the nanny forum. I got some great suggestions before the thread was locked, so would love to hear other thoughts:

DH and I both work full-time, and we have one child, a 2 year-old son. He has had the same nanny since I went back to work from maternity leave (when he was about 5 months old). She is wonderful and he loves her. But about six months ago, he really started to get bored at home and appeared interested in meeting other children. So we snagged a last-minute spot at a cooperative preschool, where he goes two mornings/week. He loves it, and in the fall he can attend three mornings/week.

Because school starts so late in the morning, our nanny has to take him to school and pick him up. So we pay her for two mornings/week when she doesn't have to do anything (other than his laundry). Starting in the fall, this will be three mornings/week.

DH and I are both feds, so our income is fairly limited. We pay our nanny well, pay taxes, etc. With the cooperative preschool fees, this comes out to about $65k/year, at least. This is a substantial chunk of our take-home money. We decided to scrimp on stuff like going out to eat so we could keep him with his nanny, but it really is tight every month. We're holding off on many repairs to the house, clothes for us, etc.

If you were us, would you keep him with nanny and cooperative preschool? If so, for how long? What other options would you consider? Our house is large enough that we could have an au pair, but I haven't looked into that much. Should we just bite the bullet and send him to daycare?

Any thoughts/experiences are much appreciated!

[Anonymous]

Op, in this case I would recommend Au pair. You'll save tons of money, you'll have somebody at house to do light housekeeping and someone who can take the kid to the park, library etc. And you can still go on with the kindergarten. Way way cheaper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, in this case I would recommend Au pair. You'll save tons of money, you'll have somebody at house to do light housekeeping and someone who can take the kid to the park, library etc. And you can still go on with the kindergarten. Way way cheaper.

*school

[Anonymous]

For au pair and morning preschool we pay about half what you do (and that's paying her more than the required minimum and considering the agency fee). It's our first au pair but she's a wonderful match and we are very pleased. The nanny thing just went poorly for us and this is working so much better.

[Anonymous]

Investigate all your options until you find one you feel very confident about. Observe the daycares.

Did you discuss any of this with the nanny? She just might enjoy doing something like cooking during her free mornings.

[Anonymous]

Toilet train him, then au pair. You'll save on diapers AND nanny.

[Anonymous]

I would send him to a regular high quality preschool for 2 year olds

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, in this case I would recommend Au pair. You'll save tons of money, you'll have somebody at house to do light housekeeping and someone who can take the kid to the park, library etc. And you can still go on with the kindergarten. Way way cheaper.

Except au pairs are pretty young (how mature is the typical 20-24 year old), they live with you and you incur 8k-11k in agency fees, and you need to pay for her food, transportation (or add her to your insurance), give her time to take classes, and such on top of her weekly pay. I would way prefer OP's setup, even with the price difference, esp. since OP says she likes the nanny and preschool. I don't have an easy answer. I think something in between would be nice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would send him to a regular high quality preschool for 2 year olds

That is what I would do as well.

OP, I looked on the other thread and I see you are not planning to have more children. So . . if your little guy enjoys preschool, and your current situation is so financially draining that you are putting off needed home repairs, why are you hesitant about transitioning out of the nanny phase of your life for your family and putting him full time preschool / daycare? What is the payoff with the nanny situation that you feel makes that extra $40,000 a year worthwhile?

[Anonymous]

Do you plan to have another child? If so, what do you envision for that child? If you want to keep your nanny, ask her to take on more responsibility at the house. Organization of kid stuff, errand and grocery shopping for the family, shopping for kids clothes, meal prep, etc. If you keep her, make sure the relationship remains mutually beneficial.

[Anonymous]

I would keep him in 2 days a week for the next year too. Does your nanny go out and about with him? Why doesn't he see other kids when he's not at school?

[Anonymous]

I'd do the three day a week school and ask the nanny if she wants two days a week and find another family three days or put him in daycare the other times. It's the cooperative school full day or half day? If half day what is your plan for getting him to day care after school? I'm not sure au pairs really are all that cheap when it's all said and done but maybe part time nanny and part time preschool would be the right fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you plan to have another child? If so, what do you envision for that child? If you want to keep your nanny, ask her to take on more responsibility at the house. Organization of kid stuff, errand and grocery shopping for the family, shopping for kids clothes, meal prep, etc. If you keep her, make sure the relationship remains mutually beneficial.

OP here-no plans for another child.

[Anonymous]

Who goes in when it's the family's turn to work in the coop?

[Anonymous]

OP, we have twins, so a nanny was a bit more cost effective for us from the start (than full time care in other ways).

Our kids are now in a cooperative preschool 3 mornings a week. Next year it will be 5 mornings a week and we still plan to keep the nanny.

When we hired this nanny (just before the kids were going to be starting preschool) we included in the job description weekly food shopping for the household. So that's one morning a week that she uses for that.

We also ask her to plan some activities (outings, crafts, meals to cook together, etc...) during her down time, and she sometimes needs to be at the house to let in the cleaning service or repairmen or whatever.

In addition, our coop allows for a nanny to fill some of the parental requirements for in class time, and our nanny is happy to do that.

So she ends up w/ not a ton of unutilized time. Next year I expect she will have more down time, but we are willing to continue to pay for a full-time nanny for many reasons. We have someone there whenever there is an illness or a day when school is closed (which so far this winter has been significant!!) There is someone available to be at the house when our fridge dies and needs replacing, when the furnace needs servicing, when a parent has to travel and extra hands are helpful, etc...

There is also someone else helping us manage some of the already not insignificant school load (making valentines, prepping school bags and snacks, chaperoning trips, etc...)

Obviously you need to figure out what makes sense for your family (including financially) but for us, a bit of downtime for the nanny is well worth the peace of mind, level of care, and amount of backup support she offers us.