I am wondering if there are any solutions to this. In the past when I have been ill I just, somehow, drag myself around getting on with it, or my husband takes a day off to look after our 15 month old. However I have had very bad food poisoning recently which was incredibly debilitating and it coincided with my husband having a very important deadline. So I found myself scrambling around phoning friends who could take our son for an hour or two here and there (we don't have any family in this country). The process was pretty stressful given that I could hardly lift my head from the pillow, so it occurred to me that it would be great if there was a nanny agency or something that you could call for emergency childcare? Does anybody know if such a thing exists?