Working Moms
docco11
member
Nanny bringing their own child...
docco11
member
in Working Moms
I am a FTM thst WFH and am looking to hire a nanny to care for our LO. We were orginally looking into a nanny share, we want our LO to still have interaction with others for social development. We have been in contact with a great indiviual who would like to bring her 2 year old with her to watch our LO. She is willing to reduce her rate if she can bring her LO as well, the LO is 2 year old.
My question, has anyone done thus? Are there any questions I should ask that relates to this arrangement? As I WFH, I'll know if my LO is being negelected,etc.
TIA!!
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Re: Nanny bringing their own child...
Personally, I would put it on her to find appropriate back-up care if her child is sick, or cannot come for some reason. I would only want to have to deal with using my back-up care if the nanny was sick, or needed the day off for some reason.
We have a nanny who brings her son (almost 4, but they've been with us for a year, so he was 2 when they started). It's worked really well for us. DS loves her son, and every time the garage door opens, he says his name repeatedly because he thinks he's coming (no matter whether it's the weekend, nighttime, whatever).
How it has worked for us is if her son has something like a cold or something minor, we just let her bring him along still. DS is going to get sick, and if he was in daycare he'd get sick all the time, so if he gets a cold once in awhile it's to be expected. If he gets a fever or something, her husband stays home with him or her mom, or she arranges care for her son so she can still come over. If DS is sick, she still comes and brings her son, unless it's something crazy bad, and then she will either stay home with her son or arrange back up care for her son, but traditionally when DS is sick they still come over. It's very comparable to daycare--you can't bring them in when they have a fever/rash/whatever, anyway, so you have to take off those days usually, and with a nanny with a kid, there's generally a few of those days as well where one has something other than a cold that you don't want the other one to get and there might have to be a situation where you get back-up care or stay home from work, same as you would if your kid was in daycare.
Our nanny brings her own food for herself and her son, but there is some sharing as well...DS always wants what everyone else is eating, so they share their stuff if we don't have it available for him, and likewise, if DS is having cookies or whatever that her son wants, he's welcome to have some as well.
They do go on outings together, especially because our nanny's son is in preschool 2 days a week. We are really flexible and trust our nanny to take DS and her son wherever is appropriate--play places, the zoo, whatever. I know a lot of people insist on schedules but I don't like to micromanage. I work 55 hours a week and don't have time for multiple phone calls a day to check in and see if it's OK if DS goes wherever.
We do give a weekly allowance for our nanny to spend on DS...lunch out, the play places, whatever, and she knows that the money is for DS and not for her son. Although he's like a member of the family now so we are always bringing him treats when we bring stuff home for DS anyway. There's a lot of overlap.
Plus, it's GREAT socialization for DS. We really love it.
BFP #1 6/28/11 ~ EDD 3/7/12 ~ m/c 7/15/11 at 6w2d
BFP #2 8/29/11 ~ EDD 5/12/12. 4/25/12: Our take home baby is here!
BFP #3 8/27/13 ~ EDD 5/11/14. 4/27/14: Our second take home baby is here!
Good luck with your decision!