Cost of live-in nanny/au pair v nursery

efrieze

I am pregnant and due to have a baby in July. My DD (3) went to full time nursery from 6 months old and is now in kindergarten (9am to 3pm).

I paid around £1,000 pcm for nursery for DD and now pay around £400 pcm for her kindergarten AND £450 for a live-in au pair (so similar to what I was paying for nursery).

My quandary is what to do with the new baby once I go back to work next January. If I send it to nursery, I am effectively increasing my childcare costs to £1,900 (!!!!!) but I do think it is important for children to mix with others children from an early age, especially if the mother is at work.

I am considering to get a live-in (or live-out) help who can look after the baby full time at home (until sept when it is a year old) and also do the before and after school hours for DD. My question is, what do you think I would need to pay for this - I have been told anything from £100 - £500 PER WEEK PLUS TAX!!!! The range is so great it is hard to know what is the difference in what you get! For a small saving, i woudln't do it but for a big saving i would...I am just not sure the prices. anyone out there pay someone for this type of help?????

Money_maker

efrieze wrote: »

send it

Send it? This is a baby not an accessory.

efrieze

Sorry - colloquial expression.

...If I enrol it (flavour unknown as yet) in the nursery my DD enjoyed, I am....

Nicki

I think the amount you will pay will depend both on where you live and how experienced you need the person to be. A fully qualified nanny will obviously be a lot more expensive than an au pair.

In your shoes I would speak to your local nanny/childcare agencies to discuss what you need, and how much you should expect to pay in your area. My own experience is that it is more important to get the right person for your children, rather than necessarily the best qualified on paper person. My nanny failed the second year of her NNEB because she is slightly dyslexic, but we have had her for 8 years and she is absolutely excellent. She is deemed to be "unqualified" though. Other friends have had fully fledged nannies who have had no common sense or confidence with children, and I wouldn't leave them in charge of a budgie!

Good luck in finding the right person. You may need to put your edit filter on when reading other responses on here, because you're bound to get more than one like the one you've already had :rolleyes:

efrieze

Thanks - I really appreciate your post. It is easy to be made to feel like a bad, uncaring mother who is only worried about the cost of the childcare rather than the quality of the care itself.

Money_maker

efrieze wrote: »

Sorry - colloquial expression.

...If I enrol it (flavour unknown as yet) in the nursery my DD enjoyed, I am....

No probs. Think my mothering hormones are on overdrive at the mo!

ginvzt

Wasn't there a thread a while ago about au-pair, and someone said, that they should not be given full responsibility for children under 5? I am not sure, but I remember something like that. If that was true, you would not be able to leave the baby with au-pair.

poppet

You need to be clear on the difference between an Au Pair and a Nanny.

It is unlikely that an Au pair will have any UK recognised chidcare qualifications. He/she will be a young foreigner (17-25 usually) who wants to expereince life in the UK, a cheap way of gaining free board and lodgeings is by living with a family in return for doing light household chores.
They should be provided with room and board and a small amount of pocket money and be treated like a visiting guest, these means that you would be expected to offer to take them out with you on family trips, meals out and even holidays away.
In return for giving them your care, they can be expected to help around the house for a few hours each day or perhaps OCCASIONAL babysitting. They can be expected to help with childrens mealtimes, washing and dressing, trips to the park, that sort of thing, but absolutly should not be left in sole charge of a child for any great length of time.

The question you need to ask yourself is this:
If a nanny or nursery had unqualified staff, no ofstead report, no insurance, no first aid training, would you send your children there?

Nuff said.

Nicki

poppet wrote: »

The question you need to ask yourself is this:
If a nanny or nursery had unqualified staff, no ofstead report, no insurance, no first aid training, would you send your children there?

Nuff said.

But a nursery can change its staff at a moments notice, and you as a parent have no say whatsoever in who looks after your child on a given day. Nor can you (usually) do your own spot inspections, influence in any way what is done during the day, or require specific training!

No one is saying OP should pick any old so and so off the street and leave her children with them! Clearly she will choose someone that she trusts and has faith in to look after her child, which she will judge both by looking at the training and experience the person has had already, and on her own judgment of the person at interview. If the right candidate doesn't have any first aid training, then this is easy to arrange and not all that expensive. The environment the children will be cared in will be under the complete control of OP. Yes, it probably won't look anything like a nursery environment, as it will be a home. :rolleyes: As for the Ofsted inspection, these aren't required for carers looking after children in their own home (or for SAHMs for that matter!). If OP wants her children to have Ofsted type activities though, the information about them is readily available, and she can ask her carer to ensure that she does these sorts of activities with her children.

Your post suggests that OP is doing something completely irresponsible in considering having someone look after the child in her own home, when she is clearly looking into all the options in advance (without having decided one way or the other which to choose) and weighing up the pros and cons. She has clearly said that she uses her Au Pair for only light babysitting, so I'm not sure where you got the impresssion that she was considering an au pair for full time child care? My reference to the au pair was in relation to how much they are paid compared to how much a nanny is paid, and not in any way a suggestion that this would be a workable solution for OP

minimoneysaver

It sounds to me like a good nanny would be a good addition to your home. Hiring a nanny would enable you to dispose of other childcare costs too and probably leave you not much worse off than you are now. Is your Au Pair not interested in the role? Given that you already know her well and she already lives with you? Maybe if that is a possibility you could enroll her on some first aid training courses and get her some good quality childcare books to get her baby skills up to date.

freebiequennie

An au-pair should not have sole charge of an under 2yrs old for any length of time, so looks like nursery or a nanny.

A nanny on london would cost you about £8-£10 an hr net and you would be responsible for paying their tax and NI on top of this as nannies cant be self employed.

Nannies will undertake all childcare related duties such as cooking for children and children laundry as well as look after them. You could include some household duties into the job description but you may limited your applicants as some very experienced nannies will not do any housework or family chores that are not child related.

Have you considered a mixture of a childminer who cares for children in the childminders home costing around £5 an hr mixed with some days at nursery I know lots of parents who do this.