Reply to When did you hire your nanny to start work. (Age of child)

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[quote=Anonymous]Hi OP,

What is the best/most comfortable solution varies from family to family - so you should do whatever seems right for you and your husband.

Given that, here are my two cents:

- in the first few weeks you will be sleep deprived and that is hard.  A night nanny (or night nurse) would be a terrific use of some money (IMO), especially if you plan to do a mix of formula/breast/pumping - then you could just sleep and the overnight person can do feedings.  This would be a huge sanity saver.

- I don't think you'd be likely to find a nanny who would start part-time and phase into full-time.  If someone is looking for a full-time position they won't necessarily want (or be able) to take a part time position for weeks or months.

- if you have the baby in May and expect to go back to work in August or September you will be searching for a nanny at around the same time lots of families will be letting their nannies go because the kids will be going to school full-time.  That should be great for you in terms of the search.

- I didn't start the search for a nanny until after I'd had my twins.  My maternity leave schedule was similar to yours and I started looking when the kids were a couple of weeks old.  I didn't think that many months lead time would be right for a nanny search - I think those positions turn over with just a handful of weeks and nannies (like all of us) don't like to be out of work.  So I wanted to find someone who would be available within a few weeks, not hire someone and hope they would wait a few months.

- I wanted a nanny to start while I was still on maternity leave so I could overlap w/ him/her, build some trust, phase back into work, etc...   In reality, I overlapped for one full day and a couple of half days and it was more than enough.  By the time the nanny started the babies were in a solid routine and I had a handle on things.

So my advice is to line up a night nurse for the first few weeks - maybe 3 nights a week (or more if you can afford it), hire/schedule housecleaners to take that off your plate, and then just wait and see.  Meet your baby.  Get a sense of how you're doing, how you and your husband are coping, what your baby is like, etc... and then start the search.  In the meantime, start talking w/ neighbors, putting the word out on neighborhood listservs (or other social networks you have) that you'll be looking for a nanny, talk with other newer moms about how they handled it, etc...

Congrats on the baby![/quote]

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