Arranging childcare should be the number one priority when planning the return to work after maternity leave. Obviously. But when you don’t even want to think about leaving your baby, preparing for it is hard! Ironically, finding a good solution for childcare would help with the anxiety about going back to work. So eventually I had to pull my head out of the bush, face the reality and start searching for a nanny for Maia before it’s too late and I’ll be forced to pick the first one available!
As my slightly frustrated husband pointed out, it took me three weeks to write a four-sentence advert to childcare.uk.co which more than revealed my reluctance to do it. Not that I’m opposed to finding a nanny, we do need one, I just don’t like the idea of leaving Maia with a stranger. I shouldn’t forget that even my husband was a stranger once but now we are family, so maybe that’ll happen with the nanny too. And so I did it, posted the (damn) advert and started the search, and now I’m very happy and relieved to say I’ve found a nanny! She would seem to tick every box being a qualified and experienced nanny, having great references and being a lovely person as well. Choosing a nanny is difficult because you will be choosing the person who will effectively raise your child during the first few years and as such will have a huge impact on her life/happiness/development. Trusting a stranger with the most precious thing you have, your child, is scary.
Before going into how we chose our nanny, I should explain why we decided to go for a nanny instead of putting Maia into a nursery. All forms of childcare in central London are ridiculously expensive as demand beats supply. My two main reasons for not choosing a nursery for Maia were:
- Poorer value for money – nurseries are expensive yet the quality of care and facilities are questionable (note, hearsay)
- Poorer flexibility – nurseries have fixed opening hours and a location away from home
A typical daily fee at a nursery in our area is 85£ and the waiting lists are very long – getting waitlisted costs money too, non-refundable 50-200£. The opening hours are sometimes only 9am-5pm with additional fee taken for extended hours of care which would be expensive for us as we will need at least 8am-6pm of childcare. Then there is the consideration of the location and the time it takes to drop Maia off and pick her up again. I used to work from 8am until 7/8pm but if I would like to see Maia at all, I’d have to be at home by 6pm (bedtime at 7pm). This is my goal (need to sell it to my boss first) but to achieve that I couldn’t have to pick her up from somewhere miles away. It also wouldn’t be fair because Maia has her dinner at 5.30pm and after 6pm we start her bedtime routine with a bath. It’s not the time to be commuting with her.
While nurseries of course also have pros, such as having other kids as playmates, lots of activities etc, we decided a nursery wouldn’t be the right choice for us at this point in time. Side note: we didn’t consider childminders for the same reasons as nurseries. But let’s not forget, it’s not like we even had a nursery place for Maia to turn down!! We didn’t apply to (nor even visit) any because of the reasons mentioned above. Also, the negative stories I’d heard about nurseries had made me nervous – Maia is still very young and couldn’t even tell us what’s going on during the day since she can’t yet speak. So my passive (aggressive) resistance made us miss the boat on nurseries, for now anyway (oops).
Hiring a nanny is admittedly the most expensive option, but it offers one-to-one care by a person of our choosing, in the familiar environment of our home. We won’t have to rush Maia out of the house in the morning but she can play in her pyjamas and have breakfast in peace. The nanny can continue taking Maia to the playgroups and activities which I have been taking her this year so she will still have company of other children. In case we’d get stuck at work or be travelling, the nanny could on occasion stay for longer. In my view the downsides of the nanny option are twofold:
- Cost – the typical net rate is 12-14£/hour, but this doesn’t include taxes, pension, sick pay, holiday pay, or potential maternity pay (so you can add another 30% to the cost…)
- Having to trust one person who will not be overseen to independently care for your child
An au pair would be a cheaper option and since we have a spare bedroom, it could have worked. However, I wanted a “career nanny” with (a long) experience with babies and toddlers and a reputation to protect. Au pairs tend to be young and inexperienced and generally not looking to work in childcare long-term. Ideally our nanny would stay with our family until our child/children start school so that they would have consistency in her/their life. We don’t have a support network (aka family) in London and I was very alone taking care of Maia. This was all fine, but should we have another child soon I would need some help… Having a nanny who we know and trust helping with Maia and the newborn would be amazing. Not sure if it would be financially viable but we’ll see if/when the situation arises.
When I started screening nanny applications, these were the things I was looking for:
- Experience: long-term positions with families and experience from newborn babies to older children (weaning, potty training, preparing for nursery school etc). Basically someone we could learn from as well!
- Excellent references
- Qualifications in early years childcare
- Ofsted registration, first aid certificate, DBS check up to date
- Non-smoker
- Cooks the children’s meals
- Gentle but firm approach to raising the children
- Fluent English speaker
- (British citizen in case of Brexit mess)
I got plenty of responses to my advert and I could be very selective. I arranged four interviews with my favourites. After the first three I was already feeling more optimistic – they were all very nice and seemed very professional! Both my husband and I really liked the second candidate and we asked her back to spend half a day with us to get a better idea of the “fit”. To be honest, I’m sure any of the nannies we met would have had the skills required but choosing a nanny is like choosing a family member and so it’s also important we all get along and can have an open dialogue. The nanny was absolutely lovely and so we offered her the job (subject to background and reference checks) and cancelled the rest of the interviews. We are now in the process of drafting the contract and fingers crossed we’ll get everything confirmed soon! And then I can start switching on my brain and catching up on work related topics!
But for now, I’m going to enjoy my last month 100% devoted to Maia. I have her christening and birthday party to organise too!
xoxoxo,
Sini