My nanny is only 4 days a week but works 40 hours so she doesn't care that she's only 4 days.

How much do you care about stability, OP? If you care a lot, start looking now. Ask family and friends if they might know someone who would consider helping you.

Tell them you'll offer an exceptional compensation package to make it worthwhile to an exceptional person. Please do not settle for "average". That's not good enough.

Your child requires:
1. Stability
2. Competence
3. Love

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not that hard. 3 days might be tougher than 4 but we've done both.

I agree with the above poster that you need to start by figuring out your schedule. If you truly have flexibility, you may be able to hire a student but our first experience with this did not work out AT ALL. We eventually found an older student (in her mid-30s) who really only wanted 3 days/week. We were able to change days based on her semester which helped.

We now have a 4 day/week nanny who is also great. I was worried about having someone who is so close to FT (we guarantee 36 hours/week but often it's more like 37-38) but our nanny has loved having Fridays off.

I do think we pay on the higher end. We also offer vacation, paid holidays, etc but I don't think that's all that special/unusual around here.

Everyone that ever says this seems to actually pay middle of the road or less.

Everyone? You need to get out more.

As long as you can offer a minimum of 4-5 hours per day w/consistent regular hours then yes, it sounds very doable to me.

Anonymous wrote:It's not that hard. 3 days might be tougher than 4 but we've done both.

I agree with the above poster that you need to start by figuring out your schedule. If you truly have flexibility, you may be able to hire a student but our first experience with this did not work out AT ALL. We eventually found an older student (in her mid-30s) who really only wanted 3 days/week. We were able to change days based on her semester which helped.

We now have a 4 day/week nanny who is also great. I was worried about having someone who is so close to FT (we guarantee 36 hours/week but often it's more like 37-38) but our nanny has loved having Fridays off.

I do think we pay on the higher end. We also offer vacation, paid holidays, etc but I don't think that's all that special/unusual around here.

Everyone that ever says this seems to actually pay middle of the road or less.

It's not that hard. 3 days might be tougher than 4 but we've done both.

I agree with the above poster that you need to start by figuring out your schedule. If you truly have flexibility, you may be able to hire a student but our first experience with this did not work out AT ALL. We eventually found an older student (in her mid-30s) who really only wanted 3 days/week. We were able to change days based on her semester which helped.

We now have a 4 day/week nanny who is also great. I was worried about having someone who is so close to FT (we guarantee 36 hours/week but often it's more like 37-38) but our nanny has loved having Fridays off.

I do think we pay on the higher end. We also offer vacation, paid holidays, etc but I don't think that's all that special/unusual around here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did this for the first two years we used nanny care. I did not offer a higher wage, but I did offer all the same benefits (just scaled down -- so, 1 week's vacation = 3 days, not 5).

What made it easier to find someone was
1) set schedule of at least 20 hours/week (don't offer to be flexible; it confuses candidates)
2) guaranteed hours (if Monday is one of your days, be clear about which holidays you are offering)
3) minimal expectations beyond childcare

Also be prepared to find a new person every year. People who are looking for part time work are usually doing so because their current circumstances make that attractive, and when the circumstances change, they move on or look for full time work.

My final piece of advice is to hire someone who wants to be a part time nanny. Don't hire someone who really wants to be full time, but is taking what she can get, and don't hire someone "just looking to make some extra cash." Both of those types of people are likely to leave well short of a year.

All nannies are just looking to make some cash. It's an easy job that doesn't require a degree or certifications or really even training. 99% move on to bigger and better things not too long after.

Looks like our nanny hating troll if on the loose

Yes some people are looking at being a nanny as a temporary nanny gig, it is true here in the USA there are no standards for saying you are a nanny but that does not mean there are not many qualified, educated, loving and gifted childcare providers that choose to be an nanny as a career.

Anonymous wrote:I did this for the first two years we used nanny care. I did not offer a higher wage, but I did offer all the same benefits (just scaled down -- so, 1 week's vacation = 3 days, not 5).

What made it easier to find someone was
1) set schedule of at least 20 hours/week (don't offer to be flexible; it confuses candidates)
2) guaranteed hours (if Monday is one of your days, be clear about which holidays you are offering)
3) minimal expectations beyond childcare

Also be prepared to find a new person every year. People who are looking for part time work are usually doing so because their current circumstances make that attractive, and when the circumstances change, they move on or look for full time work.

My final piece of advice is to hire someone who wants to be a part time nanny. Don't hire someone who really wants to be full time, but is taking what she can get, and don't hire someone "just looking to make some extra cash." Both of those types of people are likely to leave well short of a year.

All nannies are just looking to make some cash. It's an easy job that doesn't require a degree or certifications or really even training. 99% move on to bigger and better things not too long after.

I did this for the first two years we used nanny care. I did not offer a higher wage, but I did offer all the same benefits (just scaled down -- so, 1 week's vacation = 3 days, not 5).

What made it easier to find someone was
1) set schedule of at least 20 hours/week (don't offer to be flexible; it confuses candidates)
2) guaranteed hours (if Monday is one of your days, be clear about which holidays you are offering)
3) minimal expectations beyond childcare

Also be prepared to find a new person every year. People who are looking for part time work are usually doing so because their current circumstances make that attractive, and when the circumstances change, they move on or look for full time work.

My final piece of advice is to hire someone who wants to be a part time nanny. Don't hire someone who really wants to be full time, but is taking what she can get, and don't hire someone "just looking to make some extra cash." Both of those types of people are likely to leave well short of a year.

There is not an easy answer to your question OP as it is more about who is looking for work at the time you are looking for someone. It may be a challenge to find an experienced professional nanny as most of them do it as a career and most always want full-time, and it is even going to be more of a challenge to find a nanny experienced in newborn care. Experienced nannies looking for part-time are in high demand, agencies often have these jobs open for months. It will help to offer a higher than normal pay and you need to guarantee hours and pay those worked or not. Another option may be to look into a nanny share but it would be different as it would not save you money but a second party may offer the full-time nannies are looking for.

Good luck

We are going to be looking for a nanny in late April/early May 2017 in NW DC, but possibly only 3 or 4 days per week. How difficult is it to find a part-time nanny for an infant? Does it substantially limit the nanny pool? Thanks for any thoughts on this!