quick question about adding a sibling to a nanny share

[hellosailor]

Wondering if any parents or nannies can help with me the following question?

My eldest child is currently in a nanny share with another family a couple of days a week, the other family have 2 children, when the times comes, if my second child joined the share, should the nanny's hourly rate go up and if so, what to? (it's currently ?12 an hour not including tax and NI.)

Or would the nanny's pay remain the same even tho a sibling has joined and we just increase our percentage of the pay to 50% of the monthly total (we currently pay less than the other family as we have just 1 child in the share and the other family have 2) in other words it would benefit the other family but our nanny's pay would not increase? I know it's prob a stupid question but I don't have any idea what the norm is and wanted to sound it our before getting into discussions..

thanks!

[bumpy]

Are all the children of similar age? We've had one child in a nanny share with 2 older children and have always split the costs 50/50 as the other boys were of school age so our child had one on one care for a large percentage of the time. Also do you share the hosting, again the other family have always hosted and by default our child ends up eating their a lot of the time which we don't pay any extra for. Not really helping you with answers but just offering food for thought on alternatives!

[RichJ]

I believe the differing rates for sole care/nannyshare is to compensate the nanny for the logistical hassle of having to deal with two different families, rather than pure number of kids. For example, I think in most cases nannies charge the same for one or two children from the same family. Therefore, I wouldn't necessarily expect the nanny to increase her rates in this case. However, 4 kids is an awful lot for one nanny so she may well ask for extra in recognition of the increased handful. In any event, the split should probably go to 50-50, irrespective of the nanny's wage.

Your contract, assuming you have one, may also deal with this - worth having a look.

[hellosailor]

Thanks so much for replies, does anyone else have an opinion / experience of this to add?

[SBot]

As a nanny I wouldn't expect a pay increase if the mother had another child. What you could do (assuming she's managing 3 children), is find a new family that has a new baby too or a child of similar age to your older child. If you're in a nanny share for the childrens benefit over financial reasons, could you have her on own her being your nanny only??? I agree with RichJ, 4 kids is a lot even for a very experienced capable nanny!

[womanofdulwich]

i don't think nannies can look after 4 children safely for any more than short periods of time unless they are all at least year 4 ( personally).

[hellosailor]

The share is at the other family's house and our nanny works 4 days a week for them, with my child sharing there on 2 days. By the time my second child potentially joined the share, their eldest child would have started school and their youngest might be at pre-school for some mornings, so I think our nanny would only have all 4 children for an hour in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon, and this would only be on 2 days a week as she just looks after the other family's children the rest of the week. If their youngest does indeed go to preschool in the mornings on the same 2 days my children were there, it could therefore be that our nanny only had my two for that part of the day.

Sbot can I ask is your feeling that you wouldn't expect a pay increase for a sibling being added the same given that our nanny works from the other family's house and so they are, as it were, the primary family? Or does that make no difference to your thinking?

[VeronicaSawyer]

As the youngest of four children, I'm relieved I managed to survive my childhood relatively intact. My mother's Norland nanny training obviously prepared her well.

[simonethebeaver]

I looked into this for a potential nanny share for two sets of siblings 3 and 1. The feedback I got was that some nannies would consider it but they would be at the most experienced end of things, and would provably have worked with multiples. The difference between families of four and nanny shares are that you may not get the age spread of a family, twins etc aside, and that the children won't be used to the arrangement and be less clear about their role within it than a child with a larger family is.

We have three, and would like four, and I would recruit a nanny to look after them, but all four would not be around all day.

[alieh]

Would the nanny have to do the school and pre-school run with all 4 children on those days? That sounds very challenging! I have to say I would be worried about those ratios with one nanny, more so than the salary/pay issue.

Moneywise, my instinct is that if you had a sole-charge nanny for your family and added a sibling, that would be one thing. But adding a sibling to a complicated share like that would seem a bit more like a childminder situation and I think the nanny would be reasonable to expect more money.

[katgod]

We did a 4 child nanny share and it was fine. No doubt it depends on ages and behaviour of children. With toddlers it may be tricky but children of school age should be able to walk sensibly to school. Generally I have found they behave better for a nanny than a parent. We had 2 in reception, one in nursery mornings only and one in preschool elsewhere. So lots of pick ups and drop offs but a very easy time after school as they played with each other and did not need much input from nanny. I would expect to pay more because you get children need more from a nanny than older children.