XP: Nannies, or those who have one, or are going to get one....

JillianAshley6

So childcare is still stressing me out. I'm on two waiting lists....on one there are 30 people ahead of me, and on the other it is a 6mo-1yr wait. I was advised to get on 4-5 lists.

There aren't 4-5 centers in this town that I would feel comfortable with. There are a few-but they only take kids part time, and so I would have to cobble together a schedule like MW @ daycare 1, TTH mornings @ daycare 2, TTH afternoons @ daycare 3, F @ whothefuckknows. This is literally what my mom friend I talked to recommended. Shes a SAHM. I just think that babies need continuity and don't think this would be good-and the driving/transferring between different places would drive me to insanity.

So next stop-in home and nannies. We're looking at about $500/month for both centers that I am waitlisted for....that seems the norm for this area...maybe even on the high side for the area since they are considered the two best places in town that take infants. So what should I be expecting for in-home care or a nanny?

And specifically for nannies-
 -Do they stick around the same amount that a center costs? More or less?
-For the girls that are nannies here-please don't feel obligated to post your salary by any means....but do you recieve any other compensation/benefits (PTO, a vehicle, insurance, etc)? I'm not sure I could tackle any of that. Maybe the vehicle. Definitely PTO ....if it would be okay just to pay a nanny one amount every month, and then Christmas/other holidays they are off but if they wanted like 2 weeks in April I would be screwed...thats my busy time (or one of many), and MHs too....does time off only when we have time off even seem reasonable?

I'm sure there are other questions I should be asking, but I don't even know where to begin. Any advice would be amazing! Thanks

mbaby1980

My friend was going to take a nanny job in TX for 2 kids under four. They were going to pay her 1800 bucks a month plus insurance, but wanted her to work 10 hour days.

epopp85

I am on my 2nd Nanny.  The first one, I was not planning to hire.  I had just moved back to my home town and my Grandma had agreed to watch DS for us.  Unfortunately, 1 week before starting my new job, she had serious heart problems pop up and was unable to take him at all.  I frantically searched Care.com and found a girl that was willing to watch him FT for $6/hr.  Now, that doesn't sound like much, but for 50 hrs/week (7:30am - 5:30pm M-F) that's $300/day and $1200/month.  We were dying!

Luckily (for us), we had a friend from college contact us who had fallen on some hard times because of the recession and needed some help.  He moved in with us and we give him free room and board plus $100/week.  It works out way better for us. 

We don't offer anything other than the compensation but I have worked with both of them on things that they need to be off for.  We just try to schedule our vacations around the same times.  I don't know if that helps you very much, but good luck in your search.  I definately recommend Care.com to begin your search.

ETA:  We also gave our nanny at the time a Christmas bonus, and she was allowed to bring her 2yo son with her but those were basically her only perks.

Sarahbear621

When I was researching nanny's what I came up with in my area (east coast) was that I would spend about $600-800 per month on FT day care and about $1000-1200 on a private nanny.  So it wasn't that much more.  We were lucky that something opened up last minute at a daycare that I loved so we didn't have to do the nanny. 

Tropicalbride09

In our area it would be around 1500$/mo for a nanny and roughly $1000-$1200 for FT daycare.  We've been debating on doing the nanny instead, but it really just depends if we find a good one.  I've been looking into the daycares here, but haven't called about getting on the waiting list yet.  We are still trying to figure out which ones are really good.  We just moved to the area last June and daycares hadn't even crossed our minds because we didn't start TTC until September 2010, so I didn't really want to start looking into daycare until we got a + test.

mrslbt

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I am waiting until we announce to everyone to really start looking because I'd like to get some advice from other moms I know. We are hopefully only going to need someone part time so I am not sure what is going to be our best option yet. This subject though is already starting to stress me out. I have always thought I'd be a SAHM but because of what I make, it doesn't make sense for me to stop working. I am hoping with help from our families and working from home a day or two, we will only need part time. We will see....

Ms.Jade

In my experience, nanny care is about 50% more than daycare. We are offering free breakfast and lunch everyday, free infant CPR training, paid time off, free access to our satellite TV, phone service including long distance, washer and dryer etc. In other words, we're trying to get creative with perks.