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[quote=Anonymous]OP here.  16:50--  you got it exactly.  We pay $20 an hour, plus taxes.  We average 15-20 hours per week.  Our set up is that we have a set schedule of 20 hours.  If we need more hours that week and the nanny can do it, great (and she usually can cover almost anytime between 7 am and 6 pm, which is awesome and will be hard to find in anyone else).  (If she can't, we have family and babysitters who can cover.)  If we need fewer than 20 hours, we give her the option-- work the 20 hours (and I'll use the extra time to take one kid to do something alone, or run errands, or clean the house) or work fewer hours and get paid for fewer hours.  We always round up and we don't count every minute.  (For example, if I get home an hour early, I tell her to go home and pay her for the hour.  If I have a quiet week and am done at noon instead of 4, I give her the option to stay and get paid or go home and not get paid.  She almost always goes home.)  She doesn't like to work evenings or weekends (which I understand).  But, as a result, we almost never go out or even both go to back to school night or things because we don't want to pay even more for a sitter.  An au pair would give us the flexibility to do that sometimes.  (Not often, but it probably comes up 6-8 times a year where we would like to both attend something or go out to dinner.)

My fear is that we will never find someone who wants to work this kind of schedule again.  I am a firm believer in paying the person caring for my children a fair amount.  But, what I also need is someone who can generally work the same 20 hours each week with flexibility to change or add to those hours as needed (knowing I'll give other hours off if I don't need them).  I can't see finding that in a nanny without paying for full time, which I think would be really expensive (especially with pre-school tuition and overtime to cover the occasional 7 am start or 6 pm end times).  While I would never use 45 hours a week with an au pair, it would be nice to have the option to have some 30 or 35 hour weeks without it costing a lot more money that month!

I know an au pair is not for everyone but, as I said, we had several au pairs when I was growing up.  We are still close to many of them.  Our plan has always been to switch to an au pair when our kids are all in school full time since we will always need that flexibility of before/after school hours and covering days off, kids mildly sick, etc.  So, while we know there are certainly cons to having an au pair, it has always been part of our plan.  We just hadn't been thinking of going to that yet but, if our nanny decides to move on, it may make sense to go ahead and try that.

Thanks to everyone who gave feedback.  It makes me feel better to know that we are not unreasonable to think that $1 a year is pretty fair.[/quote]

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