How to Share a Nanny
The concept of sharing a nanny is easy: two families jointly hire a nanny and their children are cared for in one, or both, of the family’s homes. The idea is to receive the benefits of private childcare with a cost more in line with daycare.
The main benefit of a nanny share is the reduction in salary costs but a secondary benefit is the opportunity for your child to have a regular playmate. Children who are cared for by a nanny will receive more 1-on-1 care than those who are in daycare and will also be exposed to less illness than in a daycare.
Most families prefer to find a suitable share family before they embark on hiring a nanny.
Why share a nanny?
-
Reduce the cost of a nanny’s salary.
-
Children receive socialization while still remaining in a home environment.
-
Minimized exposure to illnesses and maximized exposure to playmates.
-
By sharing the salary you can hire a higher paid, more experienced nanny than you might otherwise be able to afford.
How do nanny shares work?
There are many factors that will help you to successfully share a nanny with another family.
-
Similar schedules so that the nanny is not working more than 10 hours a day and/or 45-50 hours a week.
-
Children should either be of similar ages or sibling splits so that care can be divided equally amongst all the children’s needs (the typical nanny/child ratio for a Nanny Share is 1:2 or 1:3). An ideal nanny share would have no more than 3 children with at least 2 of the children being in the same age group.
-
If the nanny is working in both households, families should live close together so the nanny does not have a long commute to one’s household.
-
Similar philosophies concerning the day’s routine, activities and outings desired for the children.
Structuring your Nanny Share
Sharing a nanny is a business relationship between two families. For this relationship to be successful, you will want to create a unified set of expectations for the nanny. Finding the right family to work with will be as important as finding the right nanny to hire. Once you have used findanannyshare.com to locate families in your neighborhood who you might want to share a nanny with, you’ll want to meet them to see if they are a good match for your family.
Additional questions about Sharing a Nanny may be answered in the following free documents about Nanny Sharing:
Things to Consider (pdf)
Discussion Topics for Share Families (pdf)