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[quote=Anonymous]Hi all, like many (many) others, we have been working from home while our 3 girls are home from daycare/school.  We're lucky to be able to work at home, but it's been very tough to watch 2 very busy toddlers plus engage our 1st grader while trying to work.

Our daycare opens back up next week, but the rules are MUCH stricter about illness, as they should be.  The new rules are basically if ANYONE in the ENTIRE HOUSEHOLD (parents included) has ANY symptoms of illness (including runny nose!  congestion!), the girls cannot go to daycare until several days have passed with no symptoms.  Obviously, this is going to be an issue for our family as kids ALWAYS have runny noses, etc in the fall/winter, to say nothing of snow days, etc.  We do not wish to pull them out of daycare altogether because it's run by family and an excellent program (my daughter was reading at 4, etc.).  But we know that we need dependable, long-term backup. Just last year, I used at least 1-2 vacation days each week from Dec-Feb due to colds/stomach bugs, etc.  I cannot imagine how many days I'll need to use this year when ANY of us have the slighted symptom. We had been wanting to get a Spanish-speaking au pair (our family is S. American) but obviously that option is out now due to visa restrictions.

It would seem we have a few options for backup care for the next year or five:  
1). use care.com or a service on days/weeks that we need it and hope for the best
2). hire and pay someone who is available full-time (as if they were our sole provider) but only utilize them when illness/closings occur, which could be no days per week or full weeks and any variable in between. Emphasizing we would pay no matter if we needed them or not.  
3). Hire someone with a guaranteed number of hours per week, but the schedule and max hours would adjust according to illness/closures?  For example, we would guarantee pay for 30 hours but one week it would be M-F 9-3 on days they cannot go to school/daycare but the next week it would be evenings after school or maybe a date night (can't remember the last time we had one of those).

Nannies, would options 2 or 3 be appealing to you?  2 seems like it would be ideal for you, but then would you get "bored" on weeks we needed you little or at all?  3 might work best for our family but the lack of consistency could be daunting for the nanny.  What would you expect in terms of salary or hourly rate?  Would there be any variance on days you worked versus being "on call?"

Parents, option 1 isn't doable, right?  Or not without stressing out almost every week?  Have you had any similar experience with options 2 or 3 or some other variation?

Thanks for your insight. [/quote]

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