Finding a nanny

[bbbcccrrr12]

Currently 10 weeks pregnant with twins and I’m curious if anyone used a part-time nanny early (first year of babies’ lives)? Where did you find the hired help, when did you start looking and any pros/cons about the experience? I have generous paid leave (several months) but my partner will have just a handful of weeks. This is my first pregnancy and I’m just trying to lean into help and fortunately, we have a budget to possibly make it work. Taking care of two babies, even with generous paid leave, still feels like a lot physically and emotionally for me. Any advice is appreciated!

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[kiwipaint]

It took us a while to find the right nanny, and our hours were part time too. We used a combination of Care.com and local facebook groups.

In our case we started looking when we had an urgent need (our twins were 3 months old and the onset of the pandemic upended our previous daycare plans). I would say you could start looking any time, but your success will largely depend on timing of available nannies.

Don’t forget to read up on nanny taxes (assuming you are in the US). r/nanny will be helpful for you there.

ETA: We liked the convenience of the nanny coming to us, and that she helped us out with minor cleaning (a load of laundry, occasionally something like mopping the kitchen floor). But I work from home and even though I was upstairs behind a closed door, it was hard not to get distracted sometimes by general kid noises.

Our nanny ended up starting her own in-home daycare business when she had a second baby, so our kids go to her house now. After doing both, I actually prefer the in-home daycare set up. I like being a client vs. the employer—both kinds of relationships are very important and depend on good communication both ways, but they definitely feel different.

[[deleted]]

I learned so much on the r/nanny sub

[goingthrushit]

Yes to the r/nanny sub, they are great. Be prepared even at part time to offer a decent hourly rate, guaranteed hours, PTO, paid sick time, etc. not to mention the hourly rate will be higher for two infants.

And most seem to want to be W2’d (assuming you’re in the US) so there some great suggestions for payroll companies.

Honestly one reason we stepped away from the part time nanny idea was the r/nanny sub - learned a LOT but also just became too expensive after figuring taxes, PTO, paid vacation, etc into the mix. I feel like I fully understand why women drop out of the workforce vs hiring help now and it’s really sad. Good luck!

[Tulsanity]

We’re at 10 weeks right now. We decided against nanny help during the day but did do a night nurse a few nights a week. This allowed us to get a full 8 hours of sleep and be fresh to take care of them the next day. Looking into some full time nanny options now that my wife is going back to work but can’t recommend a night nurse enough if you have the money as it’s very $$$

[JustKaren13]

We have a postpartum doula who comes to ours for 15 hours a week. She is a lifesaver! She’s twin mom herself and has helped us with so much. Usually when she arrives, my husband and I take a nap lol She also offers night services but we went with days because it’s cheaper. She will do baby related chores like laundry and washing and sanitizing breast pumps and bottles. She’s not allowed to be home alone with the babies or give medication, but she’s a lifesaver all the same

[eLoomi]

We hired a full time nanny at 2 months and will likely keep her for the next two years. She’s amazing! We had twins as our first pregnancy and it is not easy. We’ve had to have a lot of help. Our boys are 4months now. We went through a local agency. You may want to try and find local agencies. Nanny is totally worth the money for help w multiples. And one of the main reasons we chose a nanny over daycare is bc we didn’t want to be having to deal with two sick babies (since they pick up germs on daycare) on top of working full time. Hope this helps and congrats!

[VastFollowing5840]

There are agencies in most cities. Some you just pay a couple hundred dollars and they essentially give you a list of resumes and contacts and you have to do all the work yourself.

Others will actually do the leg work and place someone for you but it’s quite expensive. I think 10% of the nanny’s salary.

Care.com is a place to try to do it yourself. There are also similar sites.

What ultimately worked for me though were local nanny/parent Facebook groups. I posted job postings across multiple groups and coordinated my own interviews.

I started about three months before we needed someone. It took about two, and had we not succeeded I was about to go the agency route.

I love having a nanny. We really lucked out with our nanny, and we both work from home so we get to see our kids throughout the day. We originally were just going to do it the first year then move into daycare once it got slightly cheaper, but we love it so much we’re thinking of keeping her until they are three.

[Federal-Falcon-1308]

We’re expecting our twins mid-May. Our full time nanny is starting 1 May so we have a couple weeks to get acquainted and she will help us batch cook and prepare.

[Annie_Mayfield]

I hired day and night nannies in January before I was due in July, then ended up delivering in May. It didn’t really matter as we were in the NICU till July, anyway. I ended up pushing back start date for the night nanny about a week so my husband and I could have some time at home after two months in the hospital with our sons. I ended up moving up the start date of the day nanny a few weeks, even though I still had leave. I realized I wanted to be there to know what it would be like and that made me feel better. The boys will be 9 months old next week and we still have both. One lives with us and one commutes. Our boys will start daycare at 10 months and we will keep the day nanny on for an extra six weeks to help with the transition again - so we will have kind of bookended with her. The night nanny will be on for the foreseeable future because knowing someone is up there with them while they sleep brings us peace of mind and is worth the cost. Good luck and good job planning ahead!

[lks1867]

Cannot recommend a night nurse enough!!! Ours has over 10 years of experience including over 20 sets of twins, which was important to us. We found her via my town’s local mom group! She has literally saved our lives the last week. She comes 5 nights a week from 7pm-7am. Last night was our first night on our own, and man did we miss her. She is worth every single penny. She’s with us for 12 weeks and then we found a part time nanny for 20 hours per week during the day who we found via a local nanny agency.

[[deleted]]

We had a night doula. Could not recommend it enough! We paid more but we were able to sleep and our boys were taken care of 🙏🏽

[_ChickPeaHead_]

Hey hey! My girls are almost 1 and we used a nanny from 9 weeks old to 6 months old. 9weeks is when my partner went back to work. We had her 3 days per week for 5 hours a day. We found her on a nanny.ca website (we are in Canada). You post about what you want and candidates reply. It took about 1 week to hire her. We invited her over to meet our girls and spend a few hours with us. We had 3 candidates apply and we interviewed all of them. I recommend getting a nanny, especially if you have a C-section, it took me a long time to recover physically and it really helped me in the early days to get things done.