Anonymous wrote:If you want your nanny to be available for those four hours when your child has a holiday or is sick (which will be all the time when she starts school), then you happily pay her.

Exactly. The cost is worth it to high-income parents with demanding jobs who can't stay home all the time.

Before you get too caught up in the idea that you are paying for so much time that you aren't using, do some math:
52 weeks per year

12 weeks of summer
2 weeks winter break
1 week spring break
2 weeks' worth of miscellanious holidays (teacher work days, columbus day, etc.)
1 week worth of sick days

52-18=34

So there will only be 34 weeks per year that you are actually not using those hours directly for childcare.

Now let's talk about how you can use those hours indirectly: many nannies are open to some non-child-specific tasks, like grocery shopping, dry-cleaning pick-up, and starting dinner. Let's say your nanny wants to stick with kid-related tasks only: staying on top of DC's laundry, packing lunches, prepping healthy breakfasts or afterschool snacks, rotating DC's wardrobe and buying things like clothes, shoes, gear needed for each season, researching and prepping for afterschool activities, etc. I would say between all that and drive time to-and-from, your nanny could easily fill up half of her empty time just doing kid-related tasks only.

So let's say you came up with only a short list of tasks and you feel that she will still have half the time (2 hours per day) free. We are looking at 34 weeks X 10 hours per week that nanny is paid for "nothing." So 340 hours per year (and this is really a maximum). But if you let nanny go or resuce her to afternoons only, you will still need care those 18 weeks per year when school is out or you kid is sick. On thise occasions, instead of paying your nanny her standard rate, you will have to cobble together backup care from a variety of sources, many of which will cost more than a standard nanny hourly rate.

If you want your nanny to be available for those four hours when your child has a holiday or is sick (which will be all the time when she starts school), then you happily pay her.

We still have our nanny from when we hired her when the kids were in preschool and now my kids are both in middle school. Every year, we have a meeting and re-assign her tasks for the day time when the kids are at school. It's worth it to me because we still have her for sick days,(one of my kids is sick today) and no school days and driving them around in the afternoon so we love it. Yes, it's costly, but today, for example, she is taking my car to get an oil change. She is happy to have a full time job (i assume) and I'm happy to have full time care.

NP here. We kept our nanny FT during preschool years and then transitioned to PT once our DD was in full day school.

That said, once we transitioned to PT, all bets were off on her availability if DD was sick, or there was a snow day, or whatever. We did not ever assume she would work those days as she now has a PT job.

What we have worked out is that if there is a teacher conference, sick day, or whatever, we call her first. IF she is interested and IF she is available, she gets the rights of first refusal. If she doesn't want the hours, it's on me to find child care.

So far, it works, in part because she has been our sole nanny since DD was born and we have evolved an honest communication. Sometimes, she says yes to the extra hours, sometimes she says no. No problem for either of us.

We would have loved to retain her FT during DD's school hours, but there wasn't enough for her to do, although she was willing to take on extra work. Now, she has the option of taking other jobs, and classes, and doing as she wishes.

It's working for us.

Anonymous wrote:This is 17:27, I babysat for people during school hours but those people all knew that I may have to cancel last minute of one of my NF kids were sick or off last minute. Most of them were friends of the NF or knew me through the NF kids.

And what happens when the child gets sick at school? I've picked up charges who seemed fine in the morning but were vomiting by lunchtime.

This is 17:27, I babysat for people during school hours but those people all knew that I may have to cancel last minute of one of my NF kids were sick or off last minute. Most of them were friends of the NF or knew me through the NF kids.

Anonymous wrote:I had a job like this. I started when the kids were 1 and 3 and left when they were 9 and 11.
They paid me when the kids were in school because I was still available for their kids. If one was sick, or school was closed they werent scrambling for childcare. They know they had me available all day even if i had a lot of free time.
What I did a couple of days a week was babysit for stay at home Moms (id met thru my kids) who had toddler or babies and just wanted a few hours to get things done.
They knew that my job came first though. It was nice for me to make extra money and them to have time to run errands by themselves.

Either I'm being paid by the primary NF so that I'm available at a moment's notice in case a child gets sick (which means no babysitting during school hours) and I'm paid 75-100% of my rate for those hours, or I'm not available during school hours, I schedule babysitting anytime I want when I don't have my primary charges, and the family is welcome to call me and pay my babysitting rate if I'm available (it's happened, and my babysitting rate is higher than my nanny rate because it's last minute).

I had a job like this. I started when the kids were 1 and 3 and left when they were 9 and 11.
They paid me when the kids were in school because I was still available for their kids. If one was sick, or school was closed they werent scrambling for childcare. They know they had me available all day even if i had a lot of free time.
What I did a couple of days a week was babysit for stay at home Moms (id met thru my kids) who had toddler or babies and just wanted a few hours to get things done.
They knew that my job came first though. It was nice for me to make extra money and them to have time to run errands by themselves.

I'm not paid during school hours

DH and me take turns dropping kid off at preschool and nanny does pick up. She comes in a bit early to clean up, prep food etc. We pay nanny the same as she has been with us since infant. We do a few date nights in exchange for reduced hours. With a new nanny I would feel its a bit too much and not needed (esp. if your child will have lunch provided at school)

We will be in the same situation soon and not sure what to do. I LOVE our nanny and am considering keeping her and perhaps seeing if she would go PT or if she wanted to do a share.

I had a family with your situation before. Honestly, I loved it. I had time to meal prep, do my charges laundry, clean toys, update games, research fun activates and run any errands they needed.

As a Nanny, I wouldn't mind continuing a position like this as long as I was being paid for the four hours in school. I would also stay if you switched me from full- to part-time.

It all just depends on the person.

Yes, you will by paying for an extra twenty hour per week which isn't exciting to you.

However if you want your Nanny to be fully available should your child fall ill or his school is closed, etc., then you also must be willing to compensate her for setting aside these hours for you strictly.

Remember, she cannot take another position since technically she is yours for those four hours per day.

My 3.5 year old just started a 5 day a week preschool program from 9am-1pm. DH and I both work full time, so we have a nanny who drops her at school, picks her up and then stays until early evening when we get home. We don't yet have a second child and not sure if we will, and truly love our nanny so we want her to stay with us and be happy, of course.

Just curious to know - do most people just keep their nanny full time in this situation? We don't love paying her for 4 hrs each day that she isn't really working but mostly I am worried she will be bored over time and want a job with more child interaction, especially since DD's school days will continue to get even longer. She has offered to help with house work, cooking, etc. but that doesn't even fill up all of her time.

Some friends just have afternoon sitters, but that really isn't ideal for us because we don't have a ton of flexibility and there are a ton of holidays, parent teacher conference days, sick days, etc.

For any nannies on here - would you stay in a situation like this assuming you're getting paid fairly, or does it get old at some point?