intro and nanny question

snairic102

Hi All,  I am a FTM who just returned to work after having my daughter 11 weeks ago.  Hoping to get some input from you all...

My mom is currently watching DD during the day, and the plan is to send her to daycare starting in August.  We have a daycare lined up that we are happy with, but we have been thinking of looking for a nanny instead for maybe the first year or so.

 I just found out that a friend of a colleague at work is looking for a nanny position where she can bring her infant daughter (currently 5 months old) with her during the day.  Her credentials seems good -- currently a school teacher with lots of nanny'ing and babysitting experience.  However, my gut instinct is that this arrangement would not be ideal as I'm worried that she would tend to her daughter first when both kids need attention at the same time.  And when her daughter becomes mobile before mine does, then she'll have to devote even more attention to her daughter.

I just thought I'd see if anyone has had any luck with a setup like this before we ruled it out.  Thanks in advance! 

  

bethann3181

We have a nanny, and I personally ruled the situation your describing out.  We both many be over thinking it, but I preferred to have a nanny focus on my boys alone.  

Also, I would be concerned about different parenting styles.  She might parent her LO one way, and you might have different rules or styles, which could end up creating a conflict between you and her. 

Mrs.RockyM

I agree with what the poster above said, and add to that what is she going to do if her LO is sick.  If she brings her LO, your LO will get sick, but odds are if she doesn't bring her LO she'll have to take off.

loneybaloney

We have a nanny (she started with us when DS was 9 months), but honestly, I would not have hired one with her own child, for exactly the reasons you're describing. She can tell you til she's blue in the face that her child wouldn't come first, but at the end of the day, her motherly instincts would force her to put her own kid first. In addition, and I'm sorry if this comes across harshly, I'm not paying someone so they can, essentially, be a stay at home mom. Either you want to work, or you want to SAH...but in my book, you can't have it both ways. At least not on my watch.

mexicolombiana

My nanny brings her grand daughter along and always has.  Well actually, I started by taking my then 9 month old to her daughter's house where the nanny watched her then 1 year old grand daughter and my then 9 month old.  

This worked great because they played together.  I did not worry about her preferring one child, though she may have naturally done this.  Actually I think she might err on the side of being more careful with my child since it's NOT her grandchild- if that makes sense.  I can see this being an issue if the nanny is the child's mother not grandmother.

Then when I had a 2nd baby I asked the nanny to come to our house and told her she could bring along her then 3 year old grandchild to stay with my then 2 year old and 12 week old baby.  This again worked out pretty well.

I know my situation is a bnit different than yours, but here are the pros and cons IMO:

pros- you can probably pay a bit less since your nanny will be bringing her child.

-they can play together and socialize if they're close in age.

-your nanny will be "interested" in baby things maybe a bit more since she also has a baby and can fully understand and appreciate the importance of baby proofing, etc.

cons:

- The nanny might prefer her child

- what happens when the nanny's baby is sick? you need to have a back up plan.

- your baby could pick up bad habits from her baby/child (though this is kind of silly since there would be many more children in day care)

- other conflicts like what if she has a doctor's appt for her child, etc.

Honestly it's up to you and your comfort level.  I think if your nanny's child was a little older it wouldn't be too big of a problem and might be nice to have a companion for your child, but while they are both babies this could be difficult- but not impossible.  

snairic102

Thanks for the input, everyone!  We decided that this arrangement won't work out for us.  I'll probably nanny shop a bit in the next month, but my guess it we'll probably end up sending her to daycare.  We actually really liked the daycare we chose and have several friends who are happy there, so it's definitely not a bad option.