Nanny sharing - anyone do/did this?

kbv

I'm thinking about sharing a nanny with my friend/coworker.  Actually, its her nanny she has had for over 2 yrs.  I trust my coworker and we have similar beliefs.  We are just trying to figure out how to work it out logisticaly since the benefit of a nanny is not having to pack up the toddler each day.  We are thinking of alternating weeks at each other houses, or maybe even months or  I would take DS to the other house until this new baby is born, then they'd all come over here.  The main reason for doing the share is once the new baby is here it would save us alot of money and be more convenient.

 Anyway, just curious if anyone has ever done this or has advice.  Thanks!

LittleMalinda

We've been doing this for almost a year now and love it.  We always use our house, so I have no advice to offer you about swapping, though I will say that there are pros/cons to either situation.  On the one hand, one of you has to pack up and bring your child somewhere each morning.  On the other, one of you has to keep the house clean and babyproofed, make sure there are supplies for both children (i.e. a place to nap, eat, etc).  Either way you need to make sure you have your own supplies for your child (i.e. bottles, bibs, binkies, clothes, diapers, etc).  The way we handle this is the other family brings stuff to our house, and we keep storage space in our guest room for her supplies (and a portable crib for naps, which they provided).  Supply management can get a bit sticky at times (who provides how many wipes, food, etc) so make sure that you have a very open and honest channel of communication with the other family as well as the shared nanny.  As with any nanny situation you will want to make sure topics such as vacation/sick time and pay dates are agreed upon in advance.

Overall we love this situation and it has worked out beautifully for us.  It provides the one-on-one attention that is so wonderful about having a nanny, as well as the socialization aspect of having another child there.  The cost is the main reason most people go into this, but I like the fact that our son gets socialization with a single caregiver who isn't trying to divide her time between a whole room of babies.  All in all it's really awesome for us, and I would recommend it to anyone who feels they have the right fit with the other family and the right nanny.

GL! 

RubyRed7

My coworker does this and they alternate weeks at each house. Their nanny charged the same for one of two kids, so they're getting an awesome deal!

flyer23

We did a nanny share for my first ~8 months back at work. We alternated days, so Mon/Wed was at our house and Tue/Thu was at the other family's house. (The nanny did not come on Fridays.)

Of course, both families were flexible if it made sense to be at the "wrong" house on a particular day, e.g. sometimes we might do a Tue at our house if we needed the nanny to come early or stay late that day.

The other family's house was only about 5 mins away, so dropping DD off there was no big deal. Plus, they had tons of toys that she loved to play with

I have some posts about the logistics of our nanny share and the pros/cons on my blog, under the "child care" label: https://worklifeunbalanced.blogspot.com/search/label/child%20care