Anonymous
07/20/2014 11:37
Subject: Re:How does a nanny share work?
Anonymous wrote:OP I want to urge you to avoid rotating houses. It makes life more difficult for everyone. Once you have a daily routine down, even if it means getting your kids to someone else's home, then maintaining that rhythm becomes habit. With the switching that rhythm never sets in. It won't be that hard to Find a family who does not want to host.
I'd like to chime in and stress how important this point is, at least for the children. Stability is essential, as much as possible.
Anonymous
07/20/2014 10:48
Subject: How does a nanny share work?
Agree that you need to coordinate 1 vacation week to overlap for all 3 parties and then let nanny have some vac days to use as she needs.
Agree too that you should agree on a weekly rate and how to split it. Then, unless one family needs OT that should be the same amt paid even if one family goes on vacation. That's called guaranteed hours generally and is even more important in a share situation.
Agree too that you should agree on a weekly rate and how to split it. Then, unless one family needs OT that should be the same amt paid even if one family goes on vacation. That's called guaranteed hours generally and is even more important in a share situation.
Anonymous
07/20/2014 02:50
Subject: How does a nanny share work?
I'll also respectfully disagree with nannydeb on the vacation solution proposed above. In our share situation, one family (not us, sadly!) takes significantly more vacation than the other. Our setup is that everyone pays in full when they are away, so costs for the family staying in town are unchanged and nanny's income is unchanged. If we had to pay the single child rate for all of the weeks that the other family is gone (they travel about six weeks a year; we for two) we would be incredibly frustrated, since for those weeks our childcare costs would be much higher, through no fault of ours. DH and I don't get enough vacation to just add another month of time off to balance it out, as nice as that would be. IMO, the viable options are either to let nanny choose half the vacation weeks and require that the families coordinate on the other half, or simply let the nanny choose all vacation weeks. We went with the latter option to avoid the issue.
Anonymous
07/19/2014 21:35
Subject: Re:How does a nanny share work?
We do a share and it's worked out beautifully, but it has to be a good match all around. We do it all at our house and split costs 50/50. We share diapers/wipes and do food shopping which our family pays for, and the other family contributes a set amount each week or two. We're not too meticulous about record-keeping but I think it roughly evens out. We also have an envelope for petty cash that we each contribute to every so often for the nanny to take the kids out (play space, zoo etc.).
The nanny unloads/loads the dishwasher and cooks for and cleans up after the kids but that's it as far as housekeeping. We felt that caring for two babies (now toddlers) was challenging enough and didn't want to put more on her plate. It's nice that you'd be willing to babysit a bit for the other child but I have to warn you it's hard, even when I've had to do it for like 15 mins! So I wouldn't suggest it as an everyday thing unless you're very confident in your abilities/energy level after a full day of work.
We give 2 weeks vacation, one of the nanny's choosing and one of ours - we've coordinated so it's usually the week between Christmas and New Years. We also give her personal days as needed - she uses them sparingly and we trust her so we're pretty understanding whenever she does need a day here or there.
My biggest piece of advice would be do draw up a nanny contract to spell out salary, vacation days etc. ahead of time (whether you do a share or just your child). We reviewed it with our nanny before she started working, and then had a one-month check-in to discuss what was working and what wasn't, and make adjustments accordingly.
The nanny unloads/loads the dishwasher and cooks for and cleans up after the kids but that's it as far as housekeeping. We felt that caring for two babies (now toddlers) was challenging enough and didn't want to put more on her plate. It's nice that you'd be willing to babysit a bit for the other child but I have to warn you it's hard, even when I've had to do it for like 15 mins! So I wouldn't suggest it as an everyday thing unless you're very confident in your abilities/energy level after a full day of work.
We give 2 weeks vacation, one of the nanny's choosing and one of ours - we've coordinated so it's usually the week between Christmas and New Years. We also give her personal days as needed - she uses them sparingly and we trust her so we're pretty understanding whenever she does need a day here or there.
My biggest piece of advice would be do draw up a nanny contract to spell out salary, vacation days etc. ahead of time (whether you do a share or just your child). We reviewed it with our nanny before she started working, and then had a one-month check-in to discuss what was working and what wasn't, and make adjustments accordingly.
Anonymous
07/17/2014 19:10
Subject: Re:How does a nanny share work?
OP I want to urge you to avoid rotating houses. It makes life more difficult for everyone. Once you have a daily routine down, even if it means getting your kids to someone else's home, then maintaining that rhythm becomes habit. With the switching that rhythm never sets in. It won't be that hard to Find a family who does not want to host.
Anonymous
07/17/2014 18:00
Subject: How does a nanny share work?
Not sure they want to do an illegal setup in Arlington.
nannydebsays
07/17/2014 15:44
Subject: How does a nanny share work?
Anonymous wrote:Also how would vacations work? Our plan was to give her paid vacation for 13 days of our choosing (basically whenever we take our vacation) and also paid federal holidays and 7 days of paid sick leave.
In all honesty, although you are offering a LOT of vacation/sick leave, I would combine it into a PTO package of 20 days for her to use as needed. Or, if you take my next bit of advice, offer 15 days PTO and federal holidays.
And unless you and the other family plan to coordinate YOUR vacations to ensure nanny actually has a week entirely off of work, nanny needs to be able to pick her own vacation times. In a single family + nanny situation, nanny can be asked to coordinate at least 1 week of PTO with the family's vacation plans, but what is likely to happen in your situation is that you take a week of vacation in May and in October, Family X takes a week of vacation in June and in December, and nanny works 52 weeks a year, with 4 of those weeks being "half-duty" weeks.
Instead, have a set share rate ($20 - $24) and a set "single family" rate ($15 - $18). When family X takes their vacation, you pay nanny her single family rate. When you take your vacation, family X pays nanny her single family rate. When nanny chooses to take HER vacation, she gets paid her "share rate".
And you can ask for 4 - 6 weeks notice for her vacations as well.
Anonymous
07/17/2014 13:14
Subject: How does a nanny share work?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:OP, we are in a share that is always at the other family's house. We pay equal amounts, but they provide more of the food (and get light child-related housekeeping during naps) so it balances out.
Agreed that the vacation plan is not going to work. First, split vacation and sick time. Sick time is when the nanny is sick, and thus of her choosing. Vacation can either be all at the nanny's choosing, or split between nanny's choosing and the two families' choosing. Never one family's choosing, though. You should have a plan for where the share will be if you are gone while the other family needs care, though (usually just at the other family's house; for our share it's actually at our nanny's house since that works better for everyone).
Most of the nannyshares I know of have one child sleeping in a Pack n Play, usually provided by that child's family (unless share moves back and forth--then it's usually owned by each family and hosting child sleeps in his/her own crib). We split the cost of our double stroller. Other family bought some items that they wanted extras of anyway, and we provided the rest.
Hours are set to the max of what a family needs. If you are hosting and don't need as many hours as the other family, you'll have to work that out, or look for a family with a better schedule match.
Check your local code to confirm legality, but also note that in many areas, family child care regulations apply only to homes in which the children in care are not related to the owner of the home--so most places, they do not apply to nannyshares *unless* the share is hosted in the home of the nanny, rather than in the home of one of the families. Call to confirm this with your own county, though.
So how do you explain the fact that only ONE of the share children is related to the homeowner? When you bring the other child who IS NOT related to the homeowner, you're in TROUBLE.
This depends on where you live (and we don't live in Arlington, so no clue there--OP will need to call her county to see). In our state, any care based in the home of the caregiver (even if one of the children in care is the child of the caregiver) requires a family child care license. If care is based at the home of a child receiving care and the caregiver does not live in the home, then no license is required (even if one of the children receiving care is the child of the caregiver--the distinction is simply that the caregiver cannot live in the home where care is provided). This varies across states/counties, though, so you have to find out what the regulations are where you live. (To that end, I have no idea how our state handles live-in nannies, either--I don't know anyone personally who has one, but it would be interesting to find out!)
Anonymous
07/17/2014 11:19
Subject: How does a nanny share work?
OP here. Thanks so much PPs. This is all very useful.