My best friend from grad school has a widowed dad - he can do a half day with both kids or a full day with the oldest. I think more is kind of too much for him.

A former neighbor works from home and doesn't want to babysit but has said if we've called everyone else on our list and nobody else can help, she will.

DH's business partner's wife can watch the kids some days (she works 3 days a week). We can sort of bring the kids to our respective offices.

If we know ahead of time the nanny won't be available, we can ask my MIL to fly out.

Perhaps interview a few girls, then keep their contact info on hand so you can ask them if they can cover for your sick nanny.

Or contact an agency & see if they can send someone over on short notice.

We use Metro Parent Relief for planned/unplanned days if I can't also take off. We use them for evening sitting too. Once my nanny called in sick and I had someone at my house before 10.

We take time off/PTO. But I've never had a nanny that was sick more than a couple of days a year.

We are really, really fortunate that our nanny has never been sick. But she had a death in the family recently and needed time off. We took time off.

For snow days, DH is a Fed and they tend to either shut down or offer more flexible options for telework or taking leave. We've been lucky there as well as I think there's only ever been 1 time our nanny couldn't make it.

I don't think there's any option for back-up care that would be worth it for us, for the very rare instances we would have needed it. We also have no family in the area and I work in health care so technically I never get a snow day and can't take off when my kids are sick. I've told DH it will have to be on him.

Further to the post about nanny sick days, what do you do for back up care?

We moved to the area and away from family recently. If our nanny was sick, we could call Grandma, as long as it wasn't all the time.

How do people that don't live near family deal with this?