OP, go with daycare. Unless you are a math genius and enjoy pointless conundrums combined with working parent hassle, this would be the best choice for you if you are trying to avoid having an embolism at the age of 42. This is the best advice you're going to get unless you live in Sweden.

nannydebsays wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I don't do their laundry, make their beds, vacuum their entire house, or dust. If an employer were to ask me to take on those tasks, it would cost them about $400 more per week.

I do load/empty the dishwasher, take out kitchen and diaper trash, do all the cooking for my charges, do family groceries and errands, vacuum the main living/play area every other week, do kid laundry, organize toys/outgrown clothes, etc.

I wouldn't hire you because the tasks that you list don't take much time at all. My kids nap for at least 3.5 hours every afternoon. This is 12.5 hours a week on top of a daily one hour break. It takes 10 minutes to unload the dishwasher. Kid laundry is not a daily task and no one needs someone organizing outgrown clothes more than a few times a year. You are just being dishonest trying to claim that any of these things add up to actual work.

I pay our nanny a reasonable rate which may or may not be more than your rate + 400 to actually do something during nap time. Luckily, my nanny has a good work ethic which I think is the real probably with so many nannies on this site. You have no work ethic. You only want to maximize your downtime or expect some extra compensation to get yourself off the couch. You will not go far with this approach.

Yes, you got me. The 8+ hours a week** I spend on the listed tasks are in no way "real work", and I obviously shouldn't expect to make it as a nanny. Darn, and I was almost at the 20 year mark too!

**load/empty dishwasher - 20 mins - daily - 100 min/week
Trash duty - 5 mins - daily - 25/week
Cooking for my charges - 40 mins - daily (sample menu: grilled chicken, risotto, roasted cauliflower, steamed broccoli, clementines) - 200/week
Vacuum - 20 mins -bi-weekly - 10/week
Laundry - 20 mins - twice a week - 8/week - since you already said you only do the kids' laundry
Family groceries - 2 hours - weekly - 120/week
Family Errands - 1 hour - weekly - 60/week
General tidying and picking up toys - 20 mins - daily

Not to belabor the point, but how are the bolded parts EXTRA LIGHT HOUSEKEEPING??? Aren't they part of your regular duties and not the extra light-housekeeping duties you've been arguing about? That leaves about 3 hours per WEEK of extra light housekeeping

It sounded like the OP was looking to hire a new nanny and asking about how to structure the job and pay for a situation with 1 child at home and 1 child at school. What works marvelously for us was hiring a nanny at a normal market rate and including light housekeeping. This justifies one basic rate and the tasks simply change depending on how many kids are home and what is going on. The light housekeeping is very important. Our lives would be chaos if we were doing everything at night and on the weekends. I enjoy spending time with my kids and one of the reasons we hired a nanny was to make our lives run better.

On days when my older child is home from school, depending on the reason he is home, things may not get done and this is fine with us. On other days, it is very valuable to us to have all laundry, grocery shopping, and basic light housekeeping done. I know how long my youngest naps and know that the nanny gets at least an hour usually more a day on top of tasks. DH and I actually do the heavy cleaning and yard work stuff on weekends when the youngest naps.

This arrangement is the norm among everyone that I know who has a nanny. It isn't a difficult at all to find a nanny who can be great with the kids and do basic light housekeeping. There are nannies who have an attitude that they shouldn't need to do anything during nap time or preschool time but those were not nannies that we were willing to hire.

Anonymous wrote:PP here. This is really frustrating. OP asked a question that I'd really like to know the answer to and this just devolved into useless drivel.

The question is how to deal with the PAY of a nanny when you have two kids, but she's only caring for two on a limited basis.

OP, we are going to be doing this in the fall. The answer is obviously NOT that you pay for two and suck it up. That's ridiculous. I also think it's kind of silly to say that it's too complicated to do hourly rate. Our current nanny watches my some part time and if he's sick and stays home, I see if she can stay all day (completely within her discretion). If she says yes, then I add her extra hours to the payroll. How is that hard?? Similarly, if my older son is home because no school or sick, then I add the extra to her payroll!! I just don't see the problem with this.

Anyway, what we are planning to do is tell her that there is a weekly rate and show her the math on what that rate is based on (letting her know that any additional hours with more than one child will result in an increase of that week's rate). For US it looks like this:


40 hours a week of infant care, 16 hours of those 40 include toddler care. SO we do 24 hours a week at $16/hour ($384) and 16 hours a week at $22/hour ($352/hr). So that's $736 per week, or $2944/month. We would tell her that is what we're paying her and then if the toddler is home, we add the extra $6/hour to each hour that she has them both. We pay a payroll service so this is incredibly easy for us to manage.

I would love to hear some more real responses to this rather than the crap that tends to come from nanny forums, but maybe expecting too much here.

First of all that wage increase seems HUGE for only adding one additional child (and I'm a nanny). I'd say $1-3 is more typical (both in my own wages and what other nannies on this board are posting). I was the first poster that suggested a rate slightly higher than the one child rate but lower than the two child. So if I wanted $16 for one or $19 for two, I'd be looking for probably $18 if one was in school most of the time. That's $720 for 40 hours vs $688 with your math. And that includes any sick days, snow days, and holidays. The only time I might look for a higher rate would be summer vacations if I were to have both kids FT.

I think the reason most nannies are reluctant to have a split rate is that many have had bad experiences where families try and nickel and dime them. I'd rather have a flat guaranteed rate than worry that my wage might fluctuate. I think I might be more willing to agree to a split rate if parents were to agree to not only guaranteed general hours, but guaranteed minimum hours at each rate. So in your scenario you'd agree to 40 hours a week, promising 16 at the higher rate even if circumstances ever dictate that that's not the case on a specific week.

All this is almost enough to make me want to raise my own kids

Anonymous wrote:PP here. This is really frustrating. OP asked a question that I'd really like to know the answer to and this just devolved into useless drivel.

The question is how to deal with the PAY of a nanny when you have two kids, but she's only caring for two on a limited basis.

OP, we are going to be doing this in the fall. The answer is obviously NOT that you pay for two and suck it up. That's ridiculous. I also think it's kind of silly to say that it's too complicated to do hourly rate. Our current nanny watches my some part time and if he's sick and stays home, I see if she can stay all day (completely within her discretion). If she says yes, then I add her extra hours to the payroll. How is that hard?? Similarly, if my older son is home because no school or sick, then I add the extra to her payroll!! I just don't see the problem with this.

Anyway, what we are planning to do is tell her that there is a weekly rate and show her the math on what that rate is based on (letting her know that any additional hours with more than one child will result in an increase of that week's rate). For US it looks like this:


40 hours a week of infant care, 16 hours of those 40 include toddler care. SO we do 24 hours a week at $16/hour ($384) and 16 hours a week at $22/hour ($352/hr). So that's $736 per week, or $2944/month. We would tell her that is what we're paying her and then if the toddler is home, we add the extra $6/hour to each hour that she has them both. We pay a payroll service so this is incredibly easy for us to manage.

I would love to hear some more real responses to this rather than the crap that tends to come from nanny forums, but maybe expecting too much here.

I have a few questions for you.

Has this nanny been with you for a year or more? If so, are you manipulating her hourly rate to make sure she continues to get the same paycheck as she gets currently starting in the fall or will she be taking a pay cut?

IOW, does nanny currently make $22/hour for 40 hours ($880/week), and you plan to reduce her pay to $736/week, or does she currently make $736/week and will simply make the same based on different math? (BTW, the $736/week means a monthly rate of 4.3 x $736, or $3164.80/month. Paying her for 4 weeks/month means you will short her on 4 weeks of pay per year.)

If you will be keeping the pay the same, then more power to you, and I hope your nanny is content with your solution. But if you are cutting her weekly pay by nearly 21%, I'm willing to bet that you'll be seeking a new nanny as soon as she finds a new job.

As for real solutions, there are a few.

1) Assume that more often than not nanny will be responsible for both kids, and continue to pay her the same amount and give her raises as appropriate, until all of your kids are in at least half day school 5 days a week, then renegotiate expectations.
2) Decide that you will no longer be giving nanny raises, since she will have fewer responsibilities with an older child in school 6 or more hours a week.
3) Decide that you will be cutting nanny's pay for all hours she does not physically have charge of the child who attends school.
4) Fire nanny and hire someone new at a lower rate.

Of course, all of these solutions come with their own issues:

1) You feel resentful that you are continuing to pay nanny the same wage for 6 or so hours with one fewer kid, and you start to try to get her to quit so you can save money.
2) Nanny resents your belief that her job has become "easier", and eventually quits.
3) Nanny can no longer afford to pay her bills, and eventually quits.
4) You wind up cutting the new nanny's pay once the 2nd kid starts school, and then you cycle through the craziness all over again every few years.

How much time is the nanny w/o the preschooler? If not much, (counting her driving time as well for drop off/pick up) then pay the normal rate. This works for a 2 morning a week program - maybe 3 mornings if the sessions are not long. If it is 5 mornings a week, then just pay a bit ($1 maybe) less than the going 2 kid rate. But you can't dock the nanny if you already employ her - ill will.

PP, I don't think what you are suggesting is wrong, but here is the primary problem with it. With a long-term nanny, who has been with you for a long time, that nanny - using your scenario - will be taking a pretty signficant paycut if she went from watching 2 kids full time to 1 kid full time and the second part time.

Most nannies simply won't tolerate this well, and as a long-term employer of nannies, I understand why. They ARE getting a pay cut and a pretty significant one at that.

That said, I think you could offer this kind of salary to a new nanny (as in, a nanny new to your family) so these are her expectations from the beginning. But the scenario you outlined above is pretty difficult to go to if you are asking your nanny to take a pay cut.

FWIW, I'm an employer.

PP here. This is really frustrating. OP asked a question that I'd really like to know the answer to and this just devolved into useless drivel.

The question is how to deal with the PAY of a nanny when you have two kids, but she's only caring for two on a limited basis.

OP, we are going to be doing this in the fall. The answer is obviously NOT that you pay for two and suck it up. That's ridiculous. I also think it's kind of silly to say that it's too complicated to do hourly rate. Our current nanny watches my some part time and if he's sick and stays home, I see if she can stay all day (completely within her discretion). If she says yes, then I add her extra hours to the payroll. How is that hard?? Similarly, if my older son is home because no school or sick, then I add the extra to her payroll!! I just don't see the problem with this.

Anyway, what we are planning to do is tell her that there is a weekly rate and show her the math on what that rate is based on (letting her know that any additional hours with more than one child will result in an increase of that week's rate). For US it looks like this:


40 hours a week of infant care, 16 hours of those 40 include toddler care. SO we do 24 hours a week at $16/hour ($384) and 16 hours a week at $22/hour ($352/hr). So that's $736 per week, or $2944/month. We would tell her that is what we're paying her and then if the toddler is home, we add the extra $6/hour to each hour that she has them both. We pay a payroll service so this is incredibly easy for us to manage.

I would love to hear some more real responses to this rather than the crap that tends to come from nanny forums, but maybe expecting too much here.

I think that the difference is in the perspective. When I hired my long term nanny-- I told her that I was paying her to take my place at home while I worked. SAHMs do a lot more than just care for children and that was exactly what I needed to make my life run smoothly-- so she does laundry, the dishwahser, cooking, etc-- everything that I do myself on the weekend. It would be crazy to employ someone who was not on board with that.