Nanny leaving - advice for transition

[EastdulwichNewbie]

Our amazing nanny is leaving. She looked after my son for three days a week and helped with my baby daughter too. My son really cares for her and her leaving will be confusing for him I?m sure. He is almost three.

Our nanny leaves in 5 weeks and we will try to find a replacement. Does anyone have any advice about when to explain this - do we start now or closer to the time?

Any tips for this conversation or the transition to finding new childcare would be appreciated. We?re all really sad to see her go.

Thanks!

[SLad]

Hi there,

We moved on from a nanny to my care (2nd mat leave) at exactly the same age so v different circumstances but we told my daughter as far in advance as possible so she became used to it and could talk to her nanny about what it would be like after she had left. She seemed to cope reasonably well with the change (and had about a month with just me as her little sister came 2 weeks late).

We've recently changed nannies again and did the same i.e. tell our eldest (now almost 5 year old) and her little sister straight away that our old nanny was leaving. We interviewed and made our decision within around 3 weeks so had time for a long afternoon playdate with our new nanny before she started. It is literally like our daughters have known their new nanny all their lives, but that is a lot to do with our new nanny having an awesome personality and her own little boy who comes to work with her which is fab all round.

So, my headline recommendation is to share the news openly and give the child chance to talk.

Good luck with finding a new nanny. As brilliant as your current one is, there are lots of very special nannies out there to be found who will fit right in to your family and build new bonds with you all.

[EastdulwichNewbie]

Thank you so much for your post. Really helpful advice. And thanks for the reassurance too - there have been lots of tears (from me) about this as it feels like we?re losing a family member! I do hope you?re right about the next one that comes along.