2008 Nanny Survey: Full Results | Berkeley Parents Network

Total Responses = 880 Survey conducted April-May 2008

Weekly or Hourly?

8. Do you pay a weekly salary or by the hour?

By the hour	78.7%
Weekly	21.3%

Hourly Rates

10. If you pay by the hour, what is the TOTAL hourly rate your nanny is paid? (Please give us the total, not just your family's part of the rate.)

	average	median	std deviation	min / max
One child (500 responses)	$14.20	$14.00	$2.40	$8.00 / $27.00
Two children (438 responses)	$18.40	$19.00	$2.60	$8.00 / $30.00
Three children (114 responses)	$23.70	$24.00	$5.10	$13.00 / $36.00

Notes:
Hourly rates that were well outside the average appear to be cases where the nanny is paid a flat rate regardless of how many children are present. For example, the $27.00/hr rate for one child was a case where the nanny was caring for the family's three children, and would be paid the three-child rate even if only one of the children was present.

As with previous BPN surveys, some people mis-read the question and provided only their share of the nanny's rate for 2 and 3 children. We assumed this was the case if the 2-child or 3-child rate was LESS THAN the 1-child rate. In this case we multiplied the rate by 2 or 3 to get the total. (This was not done where the 1-child rate EQUALLED the 2 or 3 child rate. In nearly all these cases, the nanny was caring for the children of only one family, so she was being paid the same rate regardless of how many children were present.)

Weekly Rates

9. If you pay by the week, what is your nanny's weekly salary?

# of respondents	avg. weekly pay	avg. hrs/wk	avg. hourly rate	min / max
156	$485.76	34.5 hrs	$14.60	min: $65.00 (3 hrs/wk) max: $1950.00 (50 hrs/wk)

Note: One response was omitted because the weekly rate was $18.00 but the number of hours per week was 45. We didn't know how to interpret this.

Hours worked per week

11. How many hours does she typically work for your family per week? (for live-in nannies, include only 'on duty' hours)

# of respondents	avg. hrs/wk	most common	min / max
807	29.3 hrs/wk	40 hrs/wk (100 responses) 20 hrs/wk (59 responses) 45 hrs/wk (54 responses) 50 hrs/wk (53 responses) 30 hrs/wk (52 responses)	3 hrs/wk / 100 hrs/wk

13. If she works for other families, how many TOTAL hours a week does she work?

# of respondents	avg. hrs/wk	most common	min / max
376	38.1 hrs/wk	40 hrs/wk (102 responses) 45 hrs/wk (54 responses) 50 hrs/wk (50 responses) 30 hrs/wk (22 responses)	2 hrs/wk / 100 hrs/wk

Overtime

12. Do you pay overtime (more than 40 hours / week)?

No	84.1%
Yes	15.9%

12.b. At what hourly rate is overtime paid?

(104 respondents)
This question was poorly worded and resulted in confusing responses. A number of responses gave an overtime rate that was equal to the rate paid for one child. We didn't know whether to interpret this as meaning that the overtime rate is the same as the regular rate (i.e., overtime is not paid) or whether the overtime rate is double the regular rate. Therefore, we are not going to try to summarize the results for this question!
Click here to view all responses grouped by hourly rate.

Comments about Rates & Hours

8. Do you pay a weekly salary or by the hour?
9. If you pay by the week, what is your nanny's weekly salary?
10. If you pay by the hour, what is the TOTAL hourly rate your nanny is paid?
11. How many hours does she typically work for your family per week?
12. Do you pay overtime (more than 40 hours / week)?
13. If she works for other families, how many TOTAL hours a week does she work?

14. Any comments / input on the questions above?

View 231 Responses

Comments about Duties & Policies

15. Which of the following duties does your nanny fulfill?
16. Which of the following things does your nanny receive?
17. What is your policy about the following things?

18. Anything else you'd like to add?

View 243 Responses

Taxes, Withholdings & Reporting

19. Do you report your nanny's earnings to the California Employment Development Department (EDD)? (for state disability & unemployment insurance -- see http://www.edd.ca.gov/taxrep/de8829.pdf)

No	73.8%
Yes, all	17.8%
Yes, some	8.5%

19.b. If you report some of the earnings, what percentage do you report? Is there a particular reason why you don't report earnings? If you report the earnings, please give us details (do you use a filing service and which one, etc.)? Was it hard to find a nanny who wanted to be paid on the books? Anything else people should know?

"$5000/year, which is my Flexible Spending allotment. I use an accountant to do the books. Frankly, it's more trouble than it's worth and costs more (between added tax pmts from me and costs of accountant) that I might stop entirely next year."
"40 hours only, use GTM Payroll service, little harder to find someone to be paid on the books"

"40% reported. nanny didn't want to report full earnings, but she wanted to report part of it. i do it myself."

"50% no filing service, we do this on our own. it's doable with a little bit of work."

"50% are reported. she asked us not to report any of it, but we think it's important for her to have them reported."

"50%, per nanny request. use paycycle.com"

"50%. Frankly, it's a drag AND expensive. I believe in our tax structure, so I'm happy to pay into it, but it hardly seems affordable for working families."

"50%. i would prefer to pay 100% on the books. if we did, she would not qualify for low-cost health care (medi-cal?)"

"After the experience of being a Household Employer last year, our CPA advised against us continuing that with our current nanny. He advised to report how much we pay her at the end of the year on our tax forms with her social security number and advise her to do the same."

"call me paranoid, but i don't want the IRS or INS intercepting my responses"

"Do not report bonuses, though"

"do not use a filing service, was not hard to find a nanny who wanted to be paid on the books"

"Don't report simply because it works better financially for all of us AND primarily because since I work full time I don't need one other thing to have to schedule, write, be responsible for!"

"Due to strong anti-government sentiment on both sides (we don't want to support the war, among other things), along with wanting her to have as much as we can afford, in a manner that allows her to eke out a living, we are all cash. Everyone is happy with this arrangement."

"For the few hours we need childcare each week (one day -- 8), it was not worth all the work and expense to do this on the books. I researched it and found it easier to just not report it (or be able to write it off)."

"For three years, we reported it all via Paycycle, but when we cut back to just a few hours a week, we gave that up and now just pay our portion via cash. Her main family-employer reports."

"I do not use a service - I do all the paper work myself. When we told her we wanted to pay by the book, we increased her hours so she could meet her financial needs for a weekly take home pay."

"I have been a small business owner so don't find it too difficult to figure out the taxes, etc and file on my own. It was hard to find a nanny who was willing to be paid on the books, but the most difficult part was figuring it all out with a share family. In both situations we have done, we have paid 100% on the books and the other family has paid all or part in cash. That has worked well for the nanny since she is reporting income but not all of her income. And for us, since we wanted to report everything."

"I think that most nannies want cash. Our situation is new and we didn't fully discuss this, but should have. She works so few hours a week that I didn't even think about it."

"I used PayCycle to calculate paychecks and taxes due (www.paycycle.com). I've been extremely happy with the service. The "good" candidates didn't balk at having taxes withheld. The candidates who did weren't the ones I wanted to hire. If they're honest about taxes, I feel they're likely to be honest with me. When we employed a full-time nanny, she appreciated that she'd be able to use W-2s for credit applications, rental applications, be able to file for unemployment or workman's comp if necessary, and be eligible for social security (she's not that far from retirement)."

"I used paycycle.com to pay every two weeks, track vacation and sick time and end of year taxes. Our nanny wanted to be paid on the books because she wanted to bring her husband and children into the country."

"Just heard that it was hard to do, and I don't think we could afford to pay our nanny at her current rate and pay over the table."

"Most nanny's do not want to get paid "on the books". I assume most people will not answer these next questions for fear of liability."

"nanny has requested that we not report - we really want to, but have abided by her wishes, uncomfortably"

"Nanny wanted to be paid on the books as she doesn't want to break the law, nor do we. We report only half of her income though as it otherwise would cost us too much and would cost her too much. We do all the taxes ourselves."

"One of our 3 nanny-share families reports earnings because they are self-employed through a corporation, which administers payroll. Our family does not report because we have maxed out our child-care credit through our other child's preschool."

"only a part because we subsicibe to a certain amount of tax deduction, which we found out was not a benefice at the end. We did not realize how complicated it is to report her earnings. People needs to check before what it means, because it is not an easy task."

"Our nanny didn't want us to report it, and as this is a short-term situation, we didn't debate it."

"Our nanny prefers that we don't withhold, so we give her the equivalent of our tax contribution to use for her health insurance plus savings."

"Our preference was to hire someone who would be paid on the books but given the short turn-around time we had to hire someone, we lowered that priority and unfortunately gave it up."

"People should treat their nannies like they'd want to be treated -- as professionals providing an invaluable service. This means making sure they have disability insurance and social security contributions made in their name. We use paycycle.com, an online service that makes the whole payroll and employment tax payment very simple."

"Roughly 17% reported, though we report a fixed dollar amount ($5K). Dont use a filing service."

"She requested that she receive half of her pay reported (which the other family agreed to take on) and half of her pay unreported (which our family pays). The other family uses a filing service, but I don't know which one. Most of the nannies we interviewed did not want to be paid on the books. Those who did, also charged more, so there was a huge incentive for us to NOT hire them."

"She's not documented, so reporting could put her and us in jeopardy. She and her husband recently asked if we could start reporting using a TIN instead of SS # so they could get additional home loans, but we have not worked this out yet."

"The other family, who employs her for 35 of the 45 hours that she works a week does report her earnings."

"We guaranteed our nanny's hourly rate after taxes, so we report an hourly wage that is slightly adjusted so that her after tax wage is right."

"We have only reported earnings when we have been the "full-time" family in the nanny share. Now that we're part-time, we pay cash. Our nanny wants to be legitimate and have a work record because she's working to get a green card and eventually become a citizen. But it's also better for her and for us if she makes part of her wages tax-free. We originally went with a nanny who wanted to be "on the books" because my husband had a flex spending account that gave us pre-tax reimbursement on childcare."

"we haven't up until this point, but now nanny wants us to do her taxes including withholding income taxe from her pay. So I am researching this. It is very confusing and hard to understand."

"We just started with our nanny and will soon be paying in a way that reports part of her earnings. Reason being because we signed up for the Dependent Care Assistant Program (savings account pre-tax) before we came to realize that not many nannies are willing to be paid on the books. With the account, we are locked-in and cannot change our mind. If we didn't have the pre-tax account, we would just be paying all under the table because it makes the nanny happy."

"We know we probably should but our nanny was used to declaring as self-employed and we didn't want to make things more complicated, since she didn't."

"we offered to report earnings, deduct social security, etc. but she refused."

"We preferred to report 100% of her earnings, but the agency reported the rate we wanted to pay (including taxes) to the nanny. So the rate we could pay her was less than she expected. We couldn't pay all she wanted, so we split the difference by only reporting 20 hours and she accepted slightly less than she had hoped for."

"We report 100%, and she wanted that, so it's easy, worked great"

"We report 38% only for her own tax purpose so she and her kids can still be covered by Medicaid. I think to get Medicaid annual salary needs to be below $ 14,000 for 2007."

"We report 99% of her earnings on paycycle.com . Occassionally, we pay her cash because this is how she hides or has pocket money that doesn't get taken and immediately spent by her boyfriend."

"we report about 50% of earnings. this amount lets our nanny have enough cash every week, but still shows some income for her graduate school financial aid awards. we use ADP to process her pay checks and do the tax accounting."

"We report earnings that can be covered by our Dependent Care Savings Account (maximum $5,000 per year)"

"We report her normal weekly salary, but if she works a few hours overtime, we just pay by check and don't report it. So the vast majority gets reported."

"We report just the portion that covers the minimum wage and only 40 hours a week. I file the taxes on my own. It's not that tough but sort of difficult to do since it's only quarterly and I tend to forget how I did it the last time. Only 1 of 5-10 nannies I interviewed wanted to be paid on the books. Honestly, I didn't care but I'm glad I am paying taxes. Mainly since my nanny would receive disability if she really needed it. Also, she will get social security benefits later."

"We report only a portion so that we can take advantage of the FSA at my work, which allows me to save $5K tax free and apply it to childcare. Otherwise we might not report any. Not sure. We report $160 of the $202 - $250 she makes each week."

"We reported all earnings for several years, then stopped."

"We share our nanny with two other families. The family who initially hired her pays all the taxes, while the other families pay for her health insurance. The nanny only reports income from family who initially hired her."

"We tried to report earnings but had difficulty (impossible) to find a nanny who would be paid on the books. We even started the paperwork but she was going to leave once she talked to her accountant about what would happen and even when we were going to cover her "share" and our "share" of the tax hit."

"We use PayCycle on-line. It was a little difficult to find nanny to be paid on the books, but not terrible. It's more expensive, I think."

"We use paycycle.com ($20 a month) to calculate paychecks, file W2s, etc. It is *extremely* helpful -- we couldn't do this without it. We did find that needing to be "on the books" limited our candidate pool, but we're very happy with the nanny we found. We particularly feel good that if she were to be sick, injured or have a baby, she would qualify for CA benefits such as paid family leave."

"We would, but our nanny requested that we don't."

$900/mth That's what she requested.

30 hours

50

50%

50% -- reporting all is just too costly. As it is we pay $55K a year (in our after tax dollars). Use filing service for 50% reported.

50% at nanny's request.

50%. She wanted to be paid by the books at 50% and that was fine with us. We do it ourselves.

50%. It was extremely difficult to find a nanny who was willing to be paid on the books. The 50% thing was a compromise.

65%

all

Breedlove is a great service. They have been superhelpful. This is the only nanny we have had that wanted to have her earnings taxed.

Don't report b/c can't afford it.

Don't report since nanny did not want to be paid on the books.

everyone we interviewed asked to be paid in cash

her preference

her preference she is not legal

I did report it but the paperwork nightmare that ensued was SO not worth it...I won't make that mistake again.

I didn't know that I needed to report her earnings to Cal EDD

I don't know what the main family does.

I figure it doesn't really matter since we hire the nanny for so few hours.

I have no idea how to do this and I think it would make my nanny much less likely to continue working for me if SHE had to report earnings (pay taxes).

I have not been able to find a nanny that wants me to take taxes out of her paycheck.

I'm not sure

if we had paid her on the books we would have had to pay her more. as it turned out we made just too much money to deduct our childcare expenses on our taxes.

It is hard to find a nanny that wants to be paid on the books. We decided to pay our nanny more than we had originally anticipated so that her take-home salary was what she wanted but we were still doing it legally.

It is REALLY hard to find a nanny that is okay being paid on the books.

Nanny didn't want income reported.

Nanny files her taxes as an independent contractor/licensed day care.

Nanny is US citizen but did not want to be paid legally. She was by far the best candidate so we hired her even though we had intended to pay legally.

Never heard of this agency

Not required to report earning for Au Pairs coming through Govt. approved programs

one-half

Our nanny asked us to report only a portion (50%) since we were not able to afford providing her health insurance and she still needed coverage through MediCal.

Our nanny is not legally in this country. It was hard to find a nanny who wanted to be paid on the books.

Our nanny is undocumented

our nanny specifically does not want to be paid on the books. She would lose the subsidized care/school she gets for her own kid if she reported her income.

Our nanny wants to be paid in cash and not have her income reported. It is pretty hard and also extremely expensive to find a nanny who wants to work part time and be paid on the books.

Our nanny wants to be paid under the table.

Our nanny was unwilling to be paid on the books.

Part of the reason we don't do this is that we didn't have time to look into how to do this/the details when our newborn was little...

Per nanny's request

per our nanny's request

Reason: She's illegal. We'd rather report her earnings otherwise but we don't want to get her in trouble.

report minimum earnings as she wants to qualify for scholarships at her 2 children's catholic school

She asked us not to report earnings.

she didn't want to because she wouldn't cont to qualify for medi-cal or sliding scale tuition far one son's special school.

She doesn't work enough hours to report.

She is an independent contractor.

She requested that we do not.

the agency reports earnings

the full amount of the starting salary is what we report. All raises have been under the table

The nanny is self employed and thus it treated as an independent contractor.

This is a temporary situation and she doesn't want us to report the earnings. It took us months to find this nanny and the last one told us she didn't want to care for our child because he was too much work.

Wasn't aware of this.

We are in the process of changing this from none to full.

We are trying to correct this. Our nanny is OK with being paid on the books -- we made sure she had her green card when we hired her -- but I was thrown off by the paperwork; almost enough to make me a Republican. We will likely end up going through a service. Several people we interviewed disappeared when we asked the green-card question.

We are working to change this with our nanny.

We cannot report her earnings as she is undocumented.

We didn't talk about it.

We don't report earnings at the nanny's request.

We don't report earnings because the Nanny has asked this of us.

We don't report earnings because we don't want to pay the taxes.

We found this nanny through someone who was to be working with her at the same time so we just did what they were doing. Our preference would have been to report.

We just arrived from Europe so I am not familiar with EDD.

We pay her less than would be required for annual reporting -- hours don't add up to enough over the course of a year.

we report 2/3s of her earnings. we don't report all because one of the families we share with could not afford the extra money. we only recently started doing any reporting.

We report approx 75% of the earnings. We use Breedlove & Associates out of Texas.

We report it on our taxes

we report the portion of the nanny's choosing

We simply told the nanny that our preference was that she be paid legally.

we use a nanny tax service. wanted this nanny b/c she wants to be paid above the table. so important to give people who care for our children the opportunity to have retirement benefits.

We use Breedlove. Being paid on the books was a bit of a challenge but overcome in the end as we felt strongly about it. The other families in our share do not report earnings.

We use Nanny Pay to help us calculate. It was harder to find a nanny who wanted to be paid on the books.

We use Paycycle.

We use paycycle.com. Our nanny wanted at least one of the share families to be on the books. Currently we both pay her on the books.

We would love to do this but we had difficulty finding a nanny who would agree.

we're planning on switching and reporting next year--we just didn't figure out how to do it for this year.

~85% We don't report overtime hours

20. Do you report your nanny's earnings to the IRS?

No	71.0%
Yes, all	19.4%
Yes, some	9.5%

20.b. Comments

"-we report approx 50% b/c i have dependent daycare flex account so we want to use that -our nanny wanted to be on the books, when we started with her she was in the process of obtaining citizenship and she reports her own income -our nanny share partner does not report -we have not yet figured out which filing service to use but we will use one"
"40% reported. nanny didn't want to report full earnings, but she wanted to report part of it. i do it myself."

"Again, it was her request not to report it, so we complied."

"Again, we are working to change this."

"Again, we want to report it but our nanny is unwilling due to her family's financial situation."

"At her request, we pay cash every two weeks. If we were to change this, we would look at covering her share of taxes, too."

"Nanny wanted to be paid on the books as she doesn't want to break the law, nor do we. We report only half of her income though as it otherwise would cost us too much and would cost her too much. We do all the taxes ourselves."

"no, see abive"

"Nope. All cash, under the table, utterly illegal, doubtless morally reprehensible, and I have zero guilt about it."

"Our nanny asked us NOT to report any of her earnings to the IRS. We tried to convince her to ""go legit"" but she insisted on having a cash situation."

"Our nanny wants to show her yearly salary to build her credit, so she reports it as well as us."

"Our preference was to hire someone who would be paid on the books but given the short turn-around time we had to hire someone, we lowered that priority and unfortunately gave it up."

"She requested that she receive half of her pay reported (which the other family agreed to take on) and half of her pay unreported (which our family pays). The other family uses a filing service, but I don't know which one. Most of the nannies we interviewed did not want to be paid on the books. Those who did, also charged more, so there was a huge incentive for us to NOT hire them."

"The nanny is self employed and thus it treated as an independent contractor, reporting is her responsibility."

"The other family does, they are full time."

"This is as per nanny's demand, and it ends up much cheaper for us. We did report at the beginning including all the additional paperwork for SS etc. and it was quite a nightmare."

"We have started paying cash and report nothing to anyone. $24,000 annually isn't going to generate a lot of money for the government but will be a burden for our nanny, a single mother."

"we haven't up until this point, but now nanny wants us to do her taxes including withholding income taxe from her pay. It is very confusing and hard to understand."

"We offered her asking rate after taxes. If done again, I think we would have simply promised her asking rate before taxes and reported all earnings. We were trying to be nice and assumed that she would not want taxes taken out but never really clarified this. Reporting a portion of her earnings has been cumbersome and feels just about as wrong as not reporting at all."

"We plan to fill out a 1099 to give to our nanny, if this is what the question is about."

"We would, but our nanny requested that we don't."

$900/mth That's what she requested.

50

50%

also her preference

as above (we use Breedlove to handle this stuff)

Found someone our neighbors used who is legally able to work in the US. Will follow what they do when we have to file next year.

If hours were more and more regular we would.

My nanny is illegal -- with out a ss# I wouldn't know how to report.

Nanny didn't want income reported.

Not applicable

Not required to report earnings for Au Pair coming through Govt. approved programs

Not worth the tax credit.

Our nanny declares her earnings as self-employed.

Report 40 hours

report 50%

same as above

Same as above.

Same as above. We were happy to have someone who wanted to report the earnings.

Same comments as question about EDD (13 responses).

The agency reports earnings

We cannot report her earnings as she is undocumented.

We don't report earnings because the Nanny has asked this of us.

We don't report her year end bonus. We consider that a gift.

We have in the past - we leave it to the nanny to decide if they want to be paid by a payroll service or directly with cash.

We leave it to her to report or not.

we report 2/3s of her earnings. we don't report all because one of the families we share with could not afford the extra money. we only recently started doing any reporting.

We report up to the amount we can deduct - $8K

would like to report earnings so we can get use pre-tax dollars. Nanny is not willing to partake.

21. If you report the earnings, do you WITHHOLD federal and state income taxes from each paycheck?

No	59.2%
Yes	34.1%
Unsure	6.7%

21.b. Comments

"Nanny elected not to withhold, but all forms were filed and filled out."
"no, but that's because she doesn't make enough to have to withhold anything - might want to reword that question b/c results may not be accurate"

"we gross up her pay so that her hourly income is her net pay, as if we withheld from a hypothetical higher salary."

"We paid at the end of the year, but will withhold this year"

"we were told by our tax advisor that because she cares for her own child, too, that she can be considered a contractor rather than employee"

Agency does this.

I let her pay her own personal income tax.

in proportion with the above.

On 40 hours only

Our CPA advised it is too complicated and not to do it.

Our nanny asked that we not do withholding.

See above (the other family does this for the portion that is reported)

See above explanation.

She pays her own taxes. We pay more so that she can do this.

the agency withholds taxes

The au pair agency takes care of this

This is very easy with a service like paycycle.com

Up to the $5K/year amount.

We gave her the option but she wanted to do it this way so she wouldn't have to deal with figuring out what she owed herself.

we haven't decided if we're going to do that yet.

we pay all of the taxes

We pay all the taxes and social security so she takes home $15 per hour

We use Breedlove (an online nanny tax agency)

we're using paycycle.com; i think we do but am unsure.

22. Do you pay the nanny's portion of social security and medicare (in addition to the employer's portion)?

No	83.2%
Yes	16.8%

Comments

will be 1/2 contribution to SS

Can't remember.

The au pair is resident of Norway and does not get those benefits

"we offered, and she refused."

she reports and pays her own share

"yes; we made sure that her take home pay didn't change when we started to pay taxes for her, so i assume that we do."

No. We did with our last nanny and it was a bookkeeping NIGHTMARE.

We cannot report her earnings as she is undocumented.

same as above

her portion comes out of her paycheck

we withhold that amount from her check and submit with our taxes

She pays her own taxes.

"we use to - it became to complicated with taxes, so we gave her a raise to cover it"

Additional Pay for New Baby

29. If your nanny was working for you when you had another child, how much extra did she get paid when the new child arrived?

29.a $ extra

91 responses (10% of total respondents)

Extra for new baby	Pct of responses	Notes
$2/hr	23%	21 responses
$3/hr	20%	18 responses
$5/hr	14%	13 responses
$6/hr	10%	9 responses
$4/hr	9%	8 responses
$0/hr	4%	"none yet - rarely cares for both at once" ... "nothing. she kept the same rate and cared for our twins as we sent the older child to preschool."
other	20%	$10/hr (2) ... $7/hr (2) ... one response each: $1/hr, $1.50/hr, $3-$5/hr, $3/5/hr, $8/hr, $8.50/hr, $9.50/hr, $100/wk, $250, $350, $1500/mo

29.b From what hourly rate to what?

90 responses (10% of total respondents)

This question was so open-ended and responses had so much variation that it was hard to figure out how to group results in a meaningful way. It is also not clear how useful the results are without knowing more details about individual situations. For example: if the rate increased from $16 to $20/hour, how many children were there, and how many of them were in the same family? Is the higher rate paid even if only one of the siblings is present?

View all Responses grouped by from/to amounts.

The following are the top five responses:

from $/hr	to $/hr	# responses
$15	$18	8
$16	$18	8
$15	$20	7
$12	$15	6
$13	$18	5

Other Notes:

Some people mentioned a higher one-child rate when nanny was watching only one of the two children. Example: "15 for one to 16 for one, 19 for 2".
Several people noted that they only paid the higher rate when the nanny was actually watching both children.
Several people had twins as the "new baby"; in these cases, the total paid per hour did increase, but it was more in line with a 2-child total than a 3-child (from 3 different families) total.
A couple of people mentioned a flat rate of $5/hr for additional siblings

Bonuses

30. Does the nanny receive a year-end bonus?

Yes	74.0%
No	26.0%

30.b. If so, what is the amount and why? (e.g., $xxx, x days/weeks' pay)

Notes:

(464 responses)

Bonus Amount	% Respondents	Comments
1 week's pay	41%	Total=192: "I gave $1000 last year, nearly weeks pay." ... "$400 (about one week's pay)" ... "at least 1 weeks pay for each year she's been with us." ... "$100 (approx 1 days work -- she only works 1 day/week for us)" ... "up to one extra week - $700" ... "Weeks pay - $240" ... "one week's pay ish. $100 - $150" ... "1 week salary or 600" ... "$900 (one week's pay)" ... "$1000 about a week's pay."
$100-$250	20%	Total=93: "holiday bonus ($100) plus a gift." ... "I think each family paid $100 at the end of the year. She had been with us for just a few months." ... "$100 .... that's how much we could afford" ... "It was small, but it was what we could afford. ($100 from each family, $200 total)" ... "$100 after first 4 months" ... "$75 to $100 from each of 3 families" ... "$100, and another $100 for her birthday in the summer." ... "$200 and a physical gift" ... "a few hundred and a gift" .. "We gave her $100 for Christmas and then another $100 in the spring when we got our tax refunds."
1.5 - 2 weeks pay	14%	Total=65: "$600 (about 2 weeks)" ... "$2,000 -- approx 1 paycheck's worth (2 wks)" ... "$1000 (approximately two weeks' salary)" ... "about two weeks (around $200)" ... "$300 two weeks' pay from our current part of the share" ... "$500 - two weeks pay sounded good" ... "$1000 (approximately two weeks' salary)" ... "Usually a payperiod's pay." ... "between 1 and 2 weeks' pay" ... "1.5 weeks pay ($750)" ... "8 days pay" ... "$500 (about 1.5 X weeks pay), nice round number"
$300-$500	8%	Total=38: "$500 which is less than her weekly salary but she appreciated it immensely." ... "we give her money on her bday and at Xmas for a total of about $500" ... "gift basket, $500 bonus at year end plus occasional small gifts throughout the year"
$1000 and up	6%	Total=27: "Christmas bonus total of $1000" ... "Typically $1000 because we really like the nannies we've hired." "2,000" ... "2700" ... "$2,500 because she goes above and beyond and is extremely flexible all year long." ... "$1000 at end of year, same amount mid-year as a birthday gift" ... "$1200-$1500 per year, because we think her self set rates are too low."
1-4 days' pay	2%	Total=11: "Two days pay" ... "$200 (a little over 2 days pay)" ... "I give her the amount of one day's worth of time, but I don't know what the other family does." ... "A days pay, we only have her 2 days/week" ... "$400 - 4 days of salary, but she also gets two weeks off paid in the winter"
2.5 weeks - 1 month's pay	2%	Total=10: "$3000 (apx. 3 weeks pay)" ... "2 to 4 week pay. performance based." ... "About 2.5 weeks pay" ... "One thousand dollars. We want it to seem like a bonus so it's half a month's salary." ... "Birthday is an extra week worth of salary and christmas is 2 weeks worth of salary."
depends on our own finances	2%	Total=10: "When we get a bonus in the future, we will give an amount that we can afford (usually about $100)." ... "random depending on year" ... "We gave 80.00 and a small gift. Although we were told it is customary to give a week's pay, we couldn't afford it." ... "Approximately $5000. My husband received a very large annual bonus from his work, and we take a percentage of that to give to her." ... "depends on whether we got bonuses at work---typically one week's pay, or a plane ticket." ... "based upon what kind of bonus we get" ... "It depends on my own bonus, but it was $150 last time." ... "Varies. She got a +$2,000 bonus last year because our family had a financially successful year, to which she contributed by taking excellent care of our son." ... "depending on what I can afford 200-500" ... "$100 ... that's how much we could afford"
non-money gift only	2%	Total=9: "large christmas gift" ... "we give her presents from stores that she likes." ... "We did give her a gift at the end of the year, approx value of $140." ... "But we give her gifts for holidays, birthday" ... "tbd, last year it was a handbag" ... "$50 CHRISTMAS GIFT" ... "gift certificates to Macy's etc." ... "holiday gift of a massage or pedicure or some other pampering activity"
other	2%	Total=9: "double the amount she gets on a pay period" ... "approximately 20% of total, this is simply a benchmark i use" ... "Usually a payperiod's pay."

Most people who pay a bonus said they give it at the end of the year or at Christmas.
A few people said they give an additional bonus on the nanny's birthday. In this case we used the total yearly bonus.
Many respondents gave a dollar amount and explained it was "about 1 week's salary" or the like. In this case, the bonus was categorized as "1 week's salary" rather than a flat dollar amount.
Nanny shares: most people reported only the bonus they pay, which is based on what the family actually pays the nanny each week. Therefore a bonus of $100 may not reflect the total bonus the nanny received.
Many people who paid a bonus also gave the nanny (or her children) a gift. Examples: plane ticket, trip to Disneyland, additional paid time off over the holidays, gifts for her children.
Some people commented that they didn't give a bonus to a nanny who had just started working for them, or gave only a small amount, but planned a bigger one for the next year.
Responses that were not counted: haven't decided yet, giving a bonus but don't know amount, paying for accrued vacation or unused sick days, paying for health care, paying for nanny to go with us on vacation, giving her extra money ocassionally as needed

Overnights

31. Has your nanny ever slept over to take care of the kids?

No	86.2%
Yes	13.8%

31.b. If yes, how much per night extra do you pay?

Amount extra per night	Percentage of Responses
$100	45% (21 responses)
$50-$60	32% (15 responses)
$75-$80	11% (5 responses)
$35-$40	6% (3 responses)

(47 responses) Notes: three other responses: $25 (2) and $13 (1)

32. If you have paid your nanny to stay over a weekend, what were the details of your arrangement (e.g., $x/day, or lump sum for the weekend, ages of your kids, etc).

View 70 responses on the BPN website "Paying Nanny for Overnight Stays".

33. Have you ever traveled with your nanny?

No	91.4%
Yes	8.6%

33.b. If yes, how was the experience (e.g.,payment arrangements, time on/off, would you do it again? etc)

View 59 responses on the BPN website "Paying Nanny for Travel".

Paid Days Off

Respondents were asked whether they give paid days off, and if so, whether the days are broken out into holidays, vacation days, and personal days (48% do this), or given as a yearly total (19%).

35. How many PAID days off PER YEAR does the nanny get for...?

	Average	3 Most Common Replies	Min / Max	# responses
Paid Holidays	6.9 days	10 days (85), 8 days (66), 0 days (60)	0 days / 18 days	485
Paid Vacation Days	8.5 days	10 days (213), 0 days (61), 5 days (53)	0 days / 35 days	483
Paid Sick Days	4.0 days	5 days (134), 0 days (89), 3 days (42)	0 days / 12 days	382
Paid Personal Days	1.2 days	0 days (172), 2 days (16), 5 days (12)	0 days / 15 days	231

35.b. --Or, these are all lumped together and are equal to....

	Average	3 Most Common Replies	Min / Max	# responses
Paid Days	11.5 days	0 days (57), 10 days (26), 15 days (24)	0 days / 50 days	225

Notes: For Paid Holidays, we assumed that two people misunderstood the question, because their responses were "20" and "25" paid holidays per year. These were not included in the average. For Paid Sick & Paid Personal, someone responded "100" to both questions; these were omitted from the average for the same reason.

Sharing a Nanny

About two-thirds of respondents said their nanny takes care of another child in addition to their own, either at the same time or on different days/times. About half of the respondents said that there is at least one other child present when their child is being cared for by a nanny. People commented that sharing a nanny allowed them to work part-time, or to be able afford a childcare situation where their child received more attention. Many also said that they found friendship and support from the other families in the share.

40. Do you share your nanny with another family?

Yes - another family at the same time	43.9%
No - only our child(ren)	32.9%
Yes - another family at a different time	30.2%
Yes - nanny's own child(ren)	6.2%

40.b. If you share your nanny, what is the arrangement and is there any advice you would give people who are considering this option?

Three families share one nanny. The nanny has 2 children every day for full days. Each family needs 3-4 days per week. She comes to all of our houses on different days of the week. If one parent needs to bring her daughter over for a few hours on an unscheduled day, ocassionally the nanny has 3 children.
Three kids two days a week, two kids two days a week. Make sure the kids get along. Nap time will be tricky logistically if one or more don't nap.

Too complicated to remember! There are any number of families coming in at different times and different pay rates

We allow a 2 hour playdate with another child (at a park) to help out another mother (who needs a break). Our nanny gets double pay for this time.

We alternate between which house the nanny watches our children.

we alternate homes weekly

We alternate houses every week which is very nice as it gives the children a different environment. We created a contract for all of us to sign so that we are on the same page in terms of hourly rates, vacations, sick times, etc. We were NOT clear about our policy when the kid's are sick which has caused some problems, so I would be very specific about that when negotiating with another family. All in all, I think it is equally as important to have a good relationship with your share family as with the nanny.

We and the other family each use three days, but two are overlapping and each child has one day each by herself. This works well because it gives them some individual attention, especially when small, and it means that we have back up care that other day.

We are alternating between our homes from month to month. There are pros and cons to having them at home or away.

We are in a 3-family share, but our nanny only has 2 kids at a time.

We are in the process of doing a nanny share and we are still ironing out the details. IT is our neighbor next door.

we both have children in preschool. If one of our kids are sick she will watch the additional child at same $9 rate so that we do not need to miss work. If she is sick we take turns watching both children so we do not both need to miss a day of work.

We did a great nanny share in the past when we had fewer kids. If you find the right family, it is a great thing for everyone.

We did some sharing briefly, and it worked out well. She still got her full hourly wage from us, plus her wage (almost the same) from the other family. She generally took the kids to the park, Habitot, etc.

We do 2 wks at our house and 2wks at the other families house. it works out well and is much cheaper for us.

We do a nanny share with our nanny and her child. We love our arrangement and have done several shares this way.

We do both. On one or two days a week, my nanny takes care of my youngest son for several hours along with another child as part of a share situation.

We do not stipulate any thing as it applies to her other employment.

we do occasional shares w/ other families

We don't share; she works M-Th for us and Friday for another family

We each pay separately.

we each pay the nanny our share separately, $10/$10 per hour. If one family goes on vacation, that family still pays in $5 so that the nanny gets $15/hr for watching one child. It works out pretty well.

We found a family right around the corner whose child is a similar age to ours. It's very convenient and fun for the kids. Advice below.

We found each other first and made those arrangements before finding the nanny. Finding a nanny together was a good way to all get buy in and feel on equal footing. Our children are also only a couple of weeks apart which makes things much better for the nanny and the kids, they're on the same schedule, etc.

We generally have the kids at one of our two houses; everyone provides their kids own food; we have a cell-phone enabled flexible schedule; we all have dinner once in a while to make sure that things are going well.

We have 3 families, there are 2 children in the share at any given time. One family is full time (5 days/week), one is 3 days/week, one is 2 days/week. It can be very challenging to figure out who goes where when one family takes time off and one of the part-time families takes an extra day, but it's workable.

We have a Nanny share for 2 days a week and it is great to split up the house we are at - it keeps our house cleaner and less wear and tear on the home. It also enables our son to get to play with different toys and be in a new surrounding.

We have a nanny-share at our home with families on our block. It is fabulous.

We have a neighbor who sometimes brings over her child and that seems to work really well

we have certain days of the week.

We have LOVED having a share-care situation for the past two plus years (since our kids were 3 months old). Our kids have really been raised as twins because they've always had each other five days a week, full-time, and have thrived as a result of each others' companionship. We've switched houses every other week, which has worked well in terms of impact on house, hassle of dropping off, getting to different parks and activities, and keeping all the toys feeling fresh and new. (There are definitely pros and cons to having the share at one's house, and having it switch is the most equitable way to share those pros and cons.) And, we've appreciated raising our child with another family and going through a lot of the same things together as our kids grow. When our nanny has been ill, we've shared watching the kids for each other. We're very flexible with each other when it comes to food for the kids (the host family provides milk, yogurt, bananas) but both kids eat whatever food either family has prepared depending on what our nanny decides to give them. We've managed to make a bunch of napping situations work -- pack n'plays, switching who gets to sleep in the crib, letting one sleep in a guest bed. That said, having a share is a big challenge -- although our kids are only a week apart in age, they crawled at different times (which activated different levels of childproofing at both homes, often before both families were ready for the changes), one has a bunch of food allergies, one has gone through an extended biting phase (of which the other is the unfortunate victim), one is now into extensive climbing (which was activated yet another level of childproofing), our work hours have mostly been slightly off (one ends the day at 4:30, the other at 5:30, but the kids' naps often don't cooperate, so one parent ends up just hanging out at the other family's house to wait for his/her child to wake up), and they definitely didn't move into toddler beds (aka, climb out of the crib) at the same time, which was rough when it came to naptime at the other person's house. We've had long conversations about pay, raises, vacation time, contract issues, what happens with a new baby added to the mix, what parks we're comfortable/uncomfortable having them go to, whether or not TV is okay (which it's not when the share is going on), what to do when the kids go off to preschool. Overall, it's been a wonderful experience, but we've been very lucky to have found a great family with whom we communicate very well and are very much philosophically in-line with each other. And, of course, a nanny that we're all really happy with.

We have the share Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Our nanny works for one other family on Fridays, and sometimes fills in for us if we need extra help on a Monday. The share has been hosted exclusively at our nanny-share partner's house, which has worked out very well. My son knows when he goes to his buddy's house, that's where he plays with his nanny, too. Our nanny share partners have been extremeley supportive and open; it wouldn't have worked well otherwise. There were still some rough spots here and there, but nothing nightmarish or unreasonable that we couldn't all work out together. A part-time nanny share was an ideal way for me to start back to work again after giving birth with the peace of mind that my son was being well cared for and getting a little social development at the same time. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

We have worked with the other two families so that our nanny is made whole on holidays, vacations, time off. Each family covers the time off by the percentage they use the nanny.

We invited two other families to do part time shares in our house. They were families we knew who had flexibility and similar food/toy preferences (more organic, less loud battery toys).

We love having a nanny share and thinks it helps our children learn to share and develop social skills, as well as the enjoyment of having a playmate. We also think it benefits our nanny because she has the chance to earn a lot more money than we could afford to pay her ourselves.

We love having a nanny share with our kid and another one at the same time - gives them a friend to play with, makes the situation more affordable for each family, while still getting very close attention from the nanny. We currently have the nanny for four days/week and share her three of those days, with the fourth just for our son. Doing a share does make everything more complicated because you have to like not only the nanny, but also the other kid and the other parents! But we think it is worth it and not too difficult if you know what you want. And we have made some good friends in the process! In my first nanny share I looked to join an existing situation where the other family had been using the nanny for at least a couple of years, just for extra security and assurances on the nanny's capability.

We love our share family so it's worked out fine, but we are both very flexible w/our working schedules right now.

We love this arrangement. We have a wonderful relationship with the other family and the children have really benefited from having each other.

we pay $16 total. $8 each.

We share 3 days/week and she watches only the other child the other 2 days/week. Our share has been very easy but I think it all depends on the personalities of the families and the nanny.

We share 3 hours of care in our home every morning. With our current arragement, our nanny has to walk the other little girl back to her house. This has been awful and messes up the lunch/nap schedule for our daughter. I wish i hadn't agreed to it. I also wish we been able to find a share partner for the whole day--it would be much better for us AND for our nanny (financially).

We share 4 days/week, 10 hour days. Be sure to see the other home first, and to be clear about all policies: tax arrangements, sick policies, and baby-proofing. There should be a trial period, and do not be afraid to find another situation even if it will take a lot of effort, since it may be better in the long-run.

we share a few hours one day with the family she works for on our off days. this is great b/c if we need care on days that she is not scheduled to work for us we can take kids to their house and they know each other

We share at the other family's home since we have two large dogs. One of the other parents works-from-home and we had a hard time with this in the beginning as they thought our child cried a lot!

we share cost. if child is significantly sick (runny noses ok) then that child can't come. we share food and supply own diapers. you pay if it is your choice not to show up that day; understand vacation policies. give as much notice as possible if leaving share.

We share nearly every day with another family. Since we are both part-time, she also works for other families on the days she is not sharing with us. This is an established share and she is very experienced so there have not been issues.

We share on Mon & Fri only. On Tues & Thurs we have her to ourselves and on Wed they have her to themselves.

We share our nanny 3 hrs a week with another family. Look for a family that is consistent and reliable.

We share our nanny at the other family's home. We like it but not as easy as having the nanny come to your house (although there is less wear and tear on our house this way and it's nice to come home to a house the way you left it).

We share our nanny for 30 of our 36 hours. We share her with families we didn't know before but have turned out to really like and that's a bonus for us and our child. I would advise people to try to meet a number of families to get a sense of what you feel comfortable with and if you are placing an ad to be as clear as you can about what you are looking for, would feel comfortable with, etc

We share our nanny with another child. It used to be our daughter and one other child - currently it also includes our infant son until our daughter starts preschool in a few months time. My advice would be to really assess the other child's personality - we have found that our daughter has not enjoyed the share as much since we were forced to change share family. Also, be clear about what happens if you want your child to go to a class etc - can the nanny take them, will they pay for the other child to attend also etc.

We share our nanny with another family who have a child the same age as ours. We take our child to their house but make contributions to the other family for food expenses. Advice: Try to find a family with a child close to the same age as your child. Share care with a nice family is a wonderful thing!

we share our nanny with several other families. It has worked well but it is a lot of work to coordinate with other families

We share our nanny with two other families. I'd advise being clear at the beginning about the schedule, location, sick policy and who provides what.

We share with a neighbor whose child is 3 months younger than ours. We share for about 20 of the 36 total hours per week. We did not have any formal agreement with the other family, and have been very fortunate that they are very flexible and accommodating and the kids get along well. The nanny was already caring for our child when they joined us, so they made a point to respect all the agreements we already had with the nanny (eg: paying her through family vacations).

We share with another family. She takes care of our son (11 months old) and a 16 month old little girl. It is nice that they are so close in age. We swap houses every other week, which seems to work well, and occasionally leave things at the others' house for the week.

We share with one family Tuesday mornings and another on Monday (full-day) and Friday (half-day). I would recommend finding one family that commits to as much time as possible. It is a pain coordinating multiple families and sometimes I feel like I'm running a daycare while I'm working full-time.

We share with one other family (2 babies total). The babies spend 2 days at my house because I work from home and one day at my friend's house. When one of us needs to use the nanny for longer than usual on a particular day, that family pays more for that day.

We share with one other family (one child) in my house, 40 hours per week. For those hours, she is paid for 2 kids. For the extra time with only mine, she gets the one child rate.

We share with two families; one baby comes one day a week, the other baby comes two days a week; we have her to ourselves two days a week. As we use the nanny full-time (45 hours a week), and for longer days, the share is always at our house.

we share with two other families.

We share with two other families. The nanny and the kids are great. Sometimes one of the other parents can be difficult.

We shared at her house with 2 other kids but she always seemed to have more kids, so we were unclear how much she was really making/per hour. We should have been clear about a limit on the number of kids but we really needed a nanny quickly.

we shared her for the first 2.5 yrs with another family. we split the cost 50/50 and alternated homes every month. i liked the monthly schedule because it made getting into a rhythm easier. Only took 10 minutes to get there.

We split the $20/hour rate, don't come if the child has a fever/diarrhea/other infection of concern, have the same policies noted above, and are flexible about location though have agreed to have it all at one home for now.

we switch houses every week. really get to know the couple and if you can work with them. Remember that most of the time when you see them you are in a hurry and trying to get somewhere else. Great communication is important.

We use our nanny four days of the week, and share with two other families who each use nanny two days. So, nanny has two children on each day.

We use the nanny 4 days/week; the host family uses her 5 days/week. The share is always at the host family's house (not ours) -- unless they are out of town: then, nanny takes care of our baby at our home. We have never had the host family's baby cared for in our home; however, we'd be willing/able to host the share if needed.

We used to share her, we paid our same rate regardless of the number of children in her care. I did not see any reason to pay her less.

We will begin nanny share with our current nanny in a couple weeks.

We work well together by talking and don't seem to have problems.

We've had some problems with our Nanny's son being in the home while she is working. He is somewhat destructive; likes to color on walls and steal things, but we're working on that. It's not an ideal arrangement. If given a chance I'd reconsider this arrangement because because, the nanny's son's disipline problems a) set a bad example in my home for my son and b) take time away from the care of my son as well. It's not an ideal situation.

work out as many issues in advance as possible: how to manage illness how to manage vacations/travel how to manage food choices how to manage location of sharecare

works for other families during the week and we have her on the weekends

41. If you're in a nanny-share (nanny watches your child and other child(ren) at the same time), could you answer the following:

a) How do you split the time between houses? (50%/50%, 100% at your house? etc.)

295 responses

Split	Pct Respondents
100% at one family's house	59%
Even split among share families	27%
Other splits	14%

Notes:

100% at one family's house includes six responses of "90-98%"
Other splits include 75/25, 60/40, 80/20
Several people said that the split varied depending on parents' schedules.
A few people said they started out with 50/50 and reverted to 100% at one family's house.
Some shares do 100% at one house but then rotate to 100% at another house after some agreed-upon period of time.

b) Does one of the families pay more or less for having the kids at their house more often?

c) When you take your child to the other family's house, how much EXTRA time per day does it take you to get your child there?

42. Any comments / advice about doing a nanny-share?

Kids starting school

43. As kids get older and start school, the logistics of having a nanny can become more complicated. Please let us know how you made this work. Did you double up with another family? Did you have to find a different nanny (how did you find them)? Was it harder to find a nanny for these situations? Did you pay your nanny more/less per hour if they only do 4 or 5 hours after school?

117 responses

"All three kids are in school, but they have alot of activities. I think we pay slightly more for the convenience of so few hours."
"Both my kids are in school. My nanny works for me in the afternoons andinto the early evening when I am travelling for work. She picks the children up at school, drives them to various activities, prepares dinner, etc."

"College nannies are great for split times/days (say a morning nanny and an afternoon nanny, or one who does both but isn't paid during the time in the middle while the kids are gone)"

"Come this Sept, our son will be starting school and our babysitter will have to look for a new job. The preschool offers full time care."

"didn't double up, just needed less care over time, and then eventually switched to only having the nany part-time during the school year and full-time during the summer (she went to grad school, so tht worked for her as well). Her hourly rate went up dra

"Had another baby right when older one started school, so her shchedule adjusted a bit but we tried to have her here the same number of hours."

"haven't had to deal with this yet, but our current nanny still works for another family and picks up kid at preschool with our kid- they go to the park and play and we pick up our kid from the park"

"I joined because the main employer's older child went to pre-school. The nanny has to pick-up pre-school child right at nap time, so this has been a bit of a challenge. My child naps late & then wants to stay up late."

"I pay her the one child rate for my daughter while my son is at school, then I pay the two child rate when he comes home"

"I will have to find a new nanny for this situation, if I go back to work. The other family that I share with (on a different days) lives too far away to make an arrangement like this work, and the nanny has no interest in making her day stretch out that

"I work mornings, so the school-age kids aren't part of the equation. On rare occasions that I have a late meeting, I pay her extra for being in charge of more children."

"in the event we need our nanny when our youngest starts school, we hope to get into a share, wherein we can retain the use of our nanny as needed."

"It is much harded to find another nanny for after school only . We ended up paying her for more hours than she worked each week (2 hours extra each week0 to keep a minimum for her so that she stayed wtih us. We ""balance"" these extra hours approximately

"It was extremely difficult to find a nanny to help fill in hours when both working spouses have to work but our children do not have school. In addition, there are several (like 20+/year) days when there is no school but it is not a holiday recognized by

"My daughter started pre-school at a little over 1 year old, and the nanny has been picking her up from pre-scholl ever since. I pay the same for after school as for during the whole day."

"Nanny paid the same whether watching one or both of my sons, so even next fall when older will be in preschool, she will continue at the same rate."

"nanny picked up our daughter and we paid her more per hour than when she was full time, but less overall."

"Not yet there, my child is enrolled in a preschool with a full day option (though we do have her picked up early a couple days a week by a sitter)."

"once our children went to day care at age two, we stopped the nanny. when they start kindergarden, we may get the nanny to help out some afternoons"

"Our child will be starting preschool in the Fall. While I would prefer to have her in a 1/2 day program, and then spend the second 1/2 of the day with the nanny (as both mom and dad work), we felt this was too hard to coordinate and would cost too much $

"Our nanny has always been an after-school nanny. Before our child went to school, we still used only a part-time nanny, and did the rest of the care ourselves."

"Our nanny is in school herself, so afterschool hours work for her. There have been semesters when she's not available all the times we need her. We work around her college schedule b/c we adore her and we want to support her getting her education. I'm

"our nanny only wanted to work 27 hours a week, and we made this work with my daughters preschool schedule so that she had about an hours at home without my daughter and then was with her all afternoon."

"Our nanny started doing more of the errands that we, the parents do. Ex. walk the dogs, dog sit by visiting our dog in our home while we are away, dropping off laundry, running to the store when we are out of an item (like paper towels), buying the dog

"Our nanny would never have stayed to do only 4 or 5 hours after school (even if we had a share) so we ended up having to pay her full salary for several months after our son started preschool to ""bridge"" to our second child. This was very expensive fo

"Our nanny's hours have dropped slightly, from about 50 to about 40 per week. We end up paying her for numerous hours each week (around 10-15) when she doesn't have kids. But, she has moved to straigtening/cleaning house up more, doing more laundry and

"Still need to work this out, will probably need to find a new part time nanny"

"This has been difficult. We have been through several nannies because two left us for full-time jobs, one moved away with her parents, and the fourth was unreliable. In the end, we decided to get an au pair and our first au pair will arrive this summer

"Transition to school very difficult. We tried to manage without nanny for 9 months -- it was horrible. Fortunately, she has been able to find other work -- somestimes mornings to complement after school care, sometimes caring for other kids (babies, oft

"We are dealing with this right now--trying to find a share with someone on our ""off"" hours when the kids are in school. we are trying to be flexible with the share hours."

"We are having our nanny do more driving than we would like...mostly drop off and pick up from school. It was re-negotiated and she agrees to do it, but prefers to use her car. We still have one at home (two in school), so we still have her all day on the

"We changed to a live-in nanny so she could do 2 hours in AM, 3 hours in PM, plus a few chores (kids laundry, etc.) during the day. But good live-ins are very hard to find- many just want the light hours and free rent. We have fired several for poor care

"we couldn't find a way to make it work that made sense, so we just decided to put our son into a full-time preschool and had to say good bye to our wonderful nanny."

"We found a nanny who was willing to work part-time, and at the hours we needed: late afternoon, early evening."

"We had a full-time nanny before our daughter started school. She didn't want to split time between families (do a nanny share). We were lucky to find a different nanny who was willing to work part-time. We pay our current nanny a higher hourly rate, but

"WE had a second child, so now she cares for the younger child all day, and cares for both children in the afternoon."

"We have kept our nanny in the day and have her do housework. We need someone home in case someone is ill or there is a short day at school. It's hard b/c it's expensive, I don't always feel she cleans much, I fear she's out doing her own errands, but it'

"We knew that we wanted to have another baby and want to keep her, so we paid her to stay with us, and doing shopping for us or drop off and picking up dry cleaning, take the dog for walks, etc... until we had our second baby, and we paid her full time, b

"We paid her the same rate, but reduced her hours. We will be going to have an au-pair join our family (live in). It is more cost effective since our kids are older and in preschool or elementary school 3-5 days/week."

"We paid our nanny more money and we gave her more ""hours"", but we told her she didn't need to show up for all of the hours, since we didn't really need her for all of the hours. In truth, we would have loved it if she were able to do something like coo

"We pay her the same hourly rate for occasional or after-school care as when she worked for us full time. Our situation was exceptional because she started a nursing school program at the same time, so she needed to scale back her hours anyway."

"We sadly had to find a new situation for our previous nanny when our older daughter started school. We really miss her, and it was only because she needed a more full time job."

"We still have one au pair dedicated to our family. She works a split shift getting kids to school in the morning and picking them up after school, doing all the driving, playdates, etc., and into the evening when we have engagements at night."

"We still have one child at home, so our nanny gets $14/hr for this child, but when she picks up our other child from school, she receives $16/hr."

"We won't be using a nanny once he starts school, because she wants a single full-time job rather than several part-time jobs. If it were our choice, we would keep her on part-time and help to find another family for the mornings."

"When my boy went to school, she took 6 months off without payment to visit her family aboard, and we got a friend of her to cover her at that time, then my second child born and she came back right away to take care of my girl!"

"When my current 2 year old (turning 3 in November) starts preschool this Fall, we plan to pay our nanny for the time the toddler is in school."

"When she has her second child this summer, and my boys go to preschool more frequently in the fall, we will look for another family to do a share with us to ease the costs. If we cannot find a good share situation, I may have to let her go because the c

"With our previous nanny, we doubled up for about a month after our nanny-share family had a second child, then the two older children started preschool and the people with the second child kept the nanny and found another nanny-share family. The nanny n

2:30 to 7:30 PM She works in an office in the AM

Added another family to our share. Staggered ages of children she cares for.

Asking Nanny to do some more housekeeping when not with kids - pay at the one child rate instead of two when she is doing housekeeping

Don't know yet--can't wait to hear!

doubled with another family and use her less

enrolled kids in a Montessori pre-school

Found a third family to take all the hours we reduced from starting preschool.

Found another child to join the share with my younger child.

Harder to find nanny for AM only job. The hardest was when we needed live-in care during infancy (with the nanny apt. as part of the compensation.)

I am right there and not sure how to make it work. I would love to hear how it has. I am about to change to a nanny who is willing to work with us full time till Sept and then will split with another family to share.

I had more babies!

I have a school aged child and a toddler. I pay her as if she's watching both full time even though my daughter is in school full time. My nanny has taken on more housework since my daughter is in school 6.5 hours a day and my son naps from 2-3 hours a da

I have my nanny pick up my child from preschool at 3:30 and bring her home and stay with her until 6:00 pm.

I shifted her job description to maintain her hours. More household chores. More errands. More cooking. More evening babysitting so the adults can go out more.

I've not figured this situation out. It's a nightmare. I am thinking that cutting back on my own afternoon work hours is the only feasible arrangement re: caring for my 5 and 10 year old from 3-6

It hasn't been hard to find a nanny for afterschool pickup and early evening dinner making/care. This is a good schedule for nannys who are students

kids are at home 100%

Major problem in that nanny didn't have CA drivers license. We had to find a carpool to bring our older child home from school.

My nanny is a student so she only wants to work part time

nanny was helping to pick up our child after he started preschool and still being paid the same hourly rate. So essentially her time when down so her pay went down

no nanny - went to daycare instead.

No nanny at preschool age

once my kid was in preschool we didn't have a nanny.

Our eldest is in preschool but we still need full time care for the babies. We pay the same rate for the entire day.

our kids are under 2 and same age

our nanny cares for two of our kids - one is 2 1/2 yrs old and goes to school 3 hours/day; the other is an infant.

our nanny has a part-time job

Our nanny has shifted from a full time provider to an after school provider. We supplement this time (which is really only 2 hours per day) by having her clean/do laundry for 2 hours per day. This way we keep her gainfully employed - half time - and don

Our nanny is like part of our family

Our nanny watches our pre-school child full-time and our school-age child after school. When both are school age we'll help her find a family to work for in the mornings.

she is on-call for our kids when they are at school. she makes them lunch and drops them off. she can do doctor and dentist appointments as well.

Stopped using a nanny for our older child when he entered preschool. We'll do the same with the younger one.

The three families in the share at the time looked for a new family with babies that could become the primary family. This has worked out well.

Their kids are older than ours -- they need her after school and we need her during the day.

this nanny doesn't drive so i have to pick him up

We are approaching this time - both kids have been in school but only part time - we are hoping to pay her slightly more per hour to compensate for her flexibility and erratic schedule - and also to coordinate with her school or other work

We are expecting our second child this summer and our older child is starting preschool. We will keep our nanny for the same number of hours. But I can't really comment beyond that.

We are in the process of this now. All of the children will be going to school in the fall and we will be finding a new position for our nanny. It is really hard because this is someone we have come to love and trust and who has developed a deep relations

we are letting our nanny go as our kids go to preschool.

We are letting our nanny go this summer as our youngest children go to pre-school. Our nanny needs FT employment and it's more fair to her to lt her find another FT family than coordinate PT.

We both had babies around the same time so we simply transitioned the older kids to school and she now cares for the younger ones.

we doubled up

We ended our regular arrangement with the nanny as soon as our child started pre-school (although there was a two-week or so transition time). We now only use the nanny for occasional babysitting.

We found a couple of jobs for our nanny with hours that fit our schedule. It was more difficult to find. We do pay our nanny more since she works less.

We grew out of our baby nanny and had to get someone else which was a terrible transition because we didnt realize she was not good with toddlers and needed to stick with just babies. New nanny is perfect for school age kids but we have to be flexible wit

We had to find a different Nanny. Good english became more important (for communicating with the teachers) and driving became important for the after school playdates and activities

We have a younger child as well and found a new share for the morning hours--nanny's pay was unaffected.

We have only employed this nanny since our daughter started school.

WE have to figure this out next year.

We pay our nanny more because she is part time. She also works another job as a preschool teacher in the AM. It works out well except for the conflict when the kids are home sick. We have to stay home.

We plan to let our nanny go after my son starts preschool in the Fall. The preschool provided before and after school care.

We plan to move on to preschool when our child is 2.5 years old with no regular caregiving by the nanny except occasional babysitting.

We planned months in advance to transition to a PT schedule offering a lot of flexibility/overlap to our nanny while she found work for the other hours. It was hard to find something that fit with the timing (with us from 1:30 - 6:30 every weekday) but we

we still have baby so she is full time

We still pay our Nanny the full hourly rate to care for both children even when our oldest in at school for three hours four days per week.

We swicthed her days so that she maintains the same amount of hours per week.

We tried doing pick ups mid day the first year my son went to school. but it seemed onerous - it disrupted and constrained the day for the nanny and the other children. So we wouldn't do school pick up again if we are sharing the nanny with other families

We tripled up with a third family.

We will double up with another family when by three year old goes to preschool and my one year old is home.

we will find some sort of average pay for caring for baby full time and toddler part time.

we will not use our nanny when our daughter goes to preschool

we'll stop having a nanny when our younger one is full time in preschool (at a little over 2.5 yrs). preschool is full days. we'll rely more on after school programs in kindergarden which will be half days for us.

We're going through this right now. We have yet to figure it out and can't wait for the results of this survey for help!

we're not even going to try this business

We're starting to deal with this as 2 of the 3 kids are going to preschool this fall. :(

wehave doubled in the past when the kids were smaller. worked well.

when our child go to school we won't have a nanny anymore

Will happen in a few months. We plan to let our nanny go.

Firing a Nanny

47. If you have ever let a nanny go (fired, mutual decision, change of childcare needs), how was that managed? (E.g., what kind of notice did you give? Severance pay did you give and why? How did you explain it to your children?)

161 responses

"2 weeks notice, no severance."
"After two days , we fired her immediately and gave a week's pay"

"Although we just hired our nanny, our contract stipulates that we will give her 4 weeks notice if we decide to choose an alternate care provider."

"As agreed per contract we had 4 weeks notice, but told nanny as well as the share family with 6 weeks notice, b/c I stopped working and became the primary care taker of my child. We agreed before, and followed through with finding her replacement jobs. Kids were only 1 1/2 and did not seem to understand much of our explanations."

"Babysitter gave notice, stayed until I found a replacement, still occasionally babysits. Told kids that babysitter needed to work fulltime, kids were fine with that."

"Caring for two children was too hard for our nanny and our nanny no longer wanted to care for 2 children. We were going to dissolve the nanny share in 3 months when my kid went to school. Due to the desire of the nanny to not care for two children, we dissolved the nanny share relationship 3 months early at the other family's choosing. The other family chose to keep the nanny on. Our family was given 1 month of full-time care by the nanny at our home (care was typically in the other home), to provide time to find a new care situation and to fairly break the nanny share. The nanny thus had 30 days of full time pay but only cared for one child. Child was under 2 so after the share dissolved we took the child to see the nanny at the park a few times to enable the child to continue the relationship and slowly separate from the care provider."

"change of childcare needs and health issues for nanny, gave her severance pay helped to research doctors, disability, etc."

"fired a nanny due to her being habitually less-than-honest and not respectful of my desires as the mom for what to feed my child. she got two weeks' severance. children were 18mos old. explained that it was time for a change, and that change happens in life."

"For a short time between my two children we did not employ our nanny. I gave her lots of advance notice, worked to get her alternate employment, and told her I'd do everything I could to get her back when the time came for my second child to need care (which I did)."

"found a better nanny and started to hire her more than the first. tried to discuss but found it difficult. It was probably mutual anyway, as the first nanny also didn't want to work for our family anymore."

"Gave 3 months notice We will pay for both her vacation weeks this year, even though she'll only work for us for 6 months. We did the same when she left us temporarily after the birth of our twins."

"Gave a couple weeks notice. Wimped out and didn't tell her that I thought she was doing a bad job (didn't want to hurt her feelings), told her I didn't need a nanny anymore. (Have regretted the dishonesty ever since....). Didn't really explain to 1-yr-old. He didn't really notice (he had two different nannies on different days, and the other nanny just started coming more). No severance - didn't think about it."

"gave a month's notice - couldn't afford her any more, and started child in day care"

"Gave one month notice, helped her find another job, gave her a nice present."

"Had to do this several times due to moving, change in work, etc. Always gave 1 month min notice and offered to provide recommendations and help with search if needed. Discussed with kids high level reasons."

"I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to do the same background check as a daycare/school does. Our nanny had TB (which was discovered when someone else entered our nanny share who was a healthcare specialist). Since our nanny was from another country that has a high rate of TB, she asked our nanny to get this done. Our nanny was positive for TB. We all then had to get our kids tested (they were all negative). Ultimately, we had to let this nanny go - which broke our hearts."

"I did not re-hire a nanny I had used for one child when I had my next. I had helped her find another job, and it was seamless. I know that there were reasons that I didn't want to re-hire her, but I never discussed those with her or my children. She and I had a number of conversations while she worked for us and the situation did not change. I stuck it out because my child loved her and was very attached, but I concluded that ours were not problems that would go away and it wasn't worth trying."

"I fired a nanny with no notice, she was being unsafe with my kids. I gave her one week severance, I don't know why really. She was kind of young and I didn't want to leave her hanging. I explained to the kids what she was doing that I considered unsafe."

"I fired my nanny after observing multiple abuses of neglect with my infant. One day she actually tried walking out on the job because my eldest teenage daughter was present with she and my infant and could see (and reported the extremity of the mistreatment). Nanny said there were "too many cooks in the kitchen" and she liked doing things her way. This entailed strapping my infant into her stroller and walking her entire shift, not changing diapers, allowing her to play at the park, leaving her in the public restroom by herself while using the bathroom, leaving her in a room and closing the door while strapped in a stroller and she would not bring my child back to me for feeding times (nursing). Once this was exposed by the presence of my teenager and the observations I had made over a month's trial we both mutually relieved to sever the arrangement. My infant is normally a happy child and was miserable with this woman. She was relieved to be free of her bondage frankly! She was paid for the hours she worked and not give a referral."

"I gave six weeks notice before the birth of our second child (our previous nanny cared for our older son after school and would only have been available in the afternoons). I gave a hard-and-fast end date, acknowledging that it hinged on when our second baby would be born. I pledged that if the baby was born before that date that I would continue to hire her on an ad hoc basis until she had made what she would have working all the way through to the end date."

"I gave the nanny the option of working for us while she was looking for other work, even if that meant a month or even longer. She didn't have a problem finding other work. The problem was a working style difference. We explained to our son that we wanted someone else who things in a slightly different way. He didn't ask for her even once."

"I had an unhappy situation with a nanny where I had to let her go. I gave her one week's notice, and paid her two weeks salary as severance. She and my child had personality conflicts, so I explained it to my child in a way that let her know I had listened to her concerns and was doing something about it. Luckily our former nanny was looking for temporary work, so it was a very smooth transition. I simply said "Katy is going to come back and be your nanny for awhile.""

"I have let go of two nannies. In one instance, I gave her 3 months notice b/c I really liked her and wanted her to have time to find something she was happy with. She ended up finding somethign sooner than I was ready to let her go and I had to let her go sooner than planned. I was pregnant with my second daughter so I just ended up tapering off work a bit sooner than planned. I told my 30 month old that we didn't need the nanny anymore b/c mommy was staying home to have baby sister. With the second situation, I gave her 1 month notice and one week extra pay. She was caring for my 11 month old so no explanation was needed."

"I haven't, but would plan to give 2 weeks to a month notice or severance if we no longer needed her help (depending on the situation)."

"I let my first nanny go (after 5 days of work) because I discovered that she was a smoker, even though she said in her interview that she did not smoke. This made me feel like I could not trust her."

"I once let a nanny go because she was acting strangely with the kids and would call my office every couple hours with issues in her second week of employment. We ended up giving her immediate notice. She requested two weeks of severance pay which we only paid half. I told the kids *8 and 10 that it wasn't working out. They didn't like her so it was easy to tell them. I let another nanny go because she had lied about her health and was not able to lift more than 20lbs. I gave her 2 weeks notice. This was with a baby, so didn't need to tell the kids."

"I only gave her a month's notice, which really didn't feel like enough to me. I regret this. I'm going to help her find another kid asap."

"I told her two months in advance that I was having trouble finding another family to share with, so that she had some warning that I might not be able to keep her on. Then I gave her one month notice. I told my daughter that it was time for her to start pre-school, like the other child we'd been sharing with, and she accepted that."

"I told my previous nanny that my son was starting school. She got *very* upset and accused me of being duplicitous, not giving her enough notice (I gave her 2 weeks notice and paid her for3 ultimately). It all worked out, but I felt a little railroaded."

"I've given a month's notice; I've received at least two weeks' notice. I just tell the kids what's happening and why, in language suited to their years. I tell them about a week in advance."

"I've given her about 2 months notice that we're moving out of town (though not with an exact date yet)...we're still several weeks away. Don't expect to give any severance pay. Child is only 8 months, won't need a lot of explaining."

"It was abrupt when we realized the nanny was mentally ill. Although there had been numerous warnings and conversations and reviews prior to termination. We spoke with her on the phone to terminate the agreement and then saw her once more to get our house keys back. Our child was an infant, so no discussion was needed."

"Mutual decision. We had a 'manny' leave work after only two and a half weeks with us, and in a written letter refuse to return without a signed annual contract according to his terms and without ours. We apologized to him that we could not give him what he needed, and politely requested that he come pick up his last paycheck. Privately, we were appauled at his lack of compassion and professionalism, essentially going on strike and deliberately leaving a family without child care for their 9-monthly old in order to force them into contractual terms we were uncomfortable with."

"Mutual decision: we had only employed her one day a week, for one child, and she needed more in order to make a living. She gave about 3 weeks notice. I helped her find a new job. No severance pay but a sort of bonus in the form of a paid housesitting job for us."

"Once we let a nanny go (along with another family we were doing a share with) with no notice. She had only been with us about a month, and she was not doing a good job. We considered it a trial period. Recently we let a nanny go after she did not come to work for two weeks due to an illness. She did not communicate with us professionally during her absence, and the particular health issue she was dealing with caused us concern for her ability to care for our children. Therefore, we did not hire her back after her "sick leave.""

"One nanny we loved left us very quickly to work for another family. She left us in the lurch after years of being close (like family) and doing things together. We did not continue a relationship with her and it was tough on all of us--we missed her but she put us in an awful situation with managing work & children (no coverage). All other nanny's we've worked with, we still keep in touch with and we just amicably worked out when they would leave. . gave them a bonus, etc."

"our childcare needs changed; at 2 1/2 years, we moved our daughter to a small, home-based "pre" pre-school program with 5 other kids; this was discussed far in advance with our nanny"

"Our current, wonderful nanny will be leaving us in a few weeks. I gave her a month's notice, have placed ads for her, and will give her a couple hundred extra bucks (that's just a couple of days pay - she only works for us 8 hours a week). My daughter will be going to preschool. We'll keep in touch with her and use her for overnights once in a while."

"Our daughter began preschool, and we gave our nanny 2 months notice, and helped her with job search"

"our daughter had a nanny from 3 months old, at 6 months a friend wanted the job. that's how we explained it to her. we gave 2 weeks notice. as it turned out the friend didn't work out, but the nanny had already found other employment. she was able to help us a few days while we found a new nanny, who turned out to be much better and cheaper, so it all worked out for the best."

"Our last nanny was unable to return from an extended vacation on time and did not know when she would be back - I was returning to work from mat leave. We had to let her go, since she only let us know 2 days before my return to work and had known for 2 weeks that she would not be back. We told our son that she was staying with her father to help take care of him, and that when she was back she would visit him. And that she loved him very much, but she had to take care of her own family."

"Our nannies have left us due to change in their own plans (going back to school, becoming a teacher, needed more hours), so we didn't give severance pay. (But paid a bonus for good work.)"

"Our previous nanny left in a bad situation, after years of being part of our family. It was hard and her tardiness and last minute inability to work was unacceptable. She was given a lot of warning and discussion, but then was fired with two weeks pay. It was hard on our kids, but they adjusted fine and we still talk about her (never badly in front of the kids) and send her christmas cards, etc. This all came about as her hours were going to be decreased because of my maternity leave and she planned to find a new job, so she was under increased stress."

"per contract: "at will", 6 weeks notice, plus 2 weeks severance."

"severance pay (our former nanny became available and the new person was not working out - mutual decision) In another situation (mutual decision), both nanny and I explained to the children that the nanny was a mommy, and was going to take care of her new baby."

"She could not dedicate time to just our family, so we asked her to work for us full time or not at all. She decided to not work for us at all."

"she gave us six weeks notice, as per contract"

"terrible transition. I didn't want to fire her, I wanted her to change and she couldn't. She left in a huff and walked out after a fight. We talked about it later and still consider her a part of the family, but I didn't realize we would outgrow her and should have dealt with it better."

"The few times we have let a nanny go over the past 18 years, we have let them go effective immediately and have allowed no severence package. In each instance, the children were not happy with this nanny and were relieved that she was fired. There was little explanation needed."

"The only time that she went for a long vacation (6 months), it's the most difficult time for my son, we had to call her and use webcam at least once a week to calm him down!"

"Tried to give notice once, she just quit on the spot, left us high and dry. Fortunately all of her friends thought she was in the wrong, so they pitched in and helped us out."

"Two weeks' notice with two weeks severance afterwards, to give her a month to find another family/share. With the kids, we focused on why we needed what the new nanny had to offer and not what wasn't working with the old one. We have also continued a relationship with the old nanny, who continues to babysit and provide coverage for the other nanny on rare occasion."

"Ugh. Actually, we've been lucky. Two nannies didn't work out, but the arrangement was short term anyway. Generally, there have been times when we lost a nanny but not we had to outright fire. The current nanny was told we would no longer need her when oldest started kindergarten -- she knew months in advance and we helped her find new position. We kept in touch and were glad when she was able to come back after we realized our mistake."

"We did so in France where it is highly regulated and we followed all regulations (including notice period, etc)."

"we fired our first nanny after two weeks. we paid her for work completed, but no severence."

"we gave 1 month notice. we knew that it would be ending for multiple reasons, none that had to do with her. i think we gave her an extra $100 or so."

"We gave her months of notice when our kids transitioned to preschool, and helped her to find a new position. Only gave a week's severance for those reasons."

"We had one very bad experience with an au pair who arrive sick, depressed, and with a severe eating disorder. It took us a while to figure it all out. When we put it all together, we just sat her down and told her she didn't seem up to the job we had for her and that she had to go home. She left as soon as the agency could organize transportation for her back to her country. It was awkward, and we ended up with a long gap in care at a very busy time. But, we have had 11 other great experiences, so this is absolutely the exception, and not the rule. She was paid throughout her time with us (six weeks) even though she did virtually no work at all."

"We had several meetings to talk about the issues that came up and so that I could let her know her performance was not acceptable. I did not give her much notice or severance pay, as she was only employed for 6-8 weeks and she did NOT fulfil her side of the contract."

"We had to let our last nanny go, she had been with us for 4 months. Our styles just didn't match up, we didn't love the way she was with our children, she demanded overtime pay for anything over 40 hours (she only worked 45 hours), she wouldn't travel with us, etc, etc, etc. We just told her that it wasn't working out, she was upset but we paid her 2 weeks severance and we ended the relationship amicably. We see her at th park sometimes with her new charge and we say hello. The children were too young to really ask questions about it."

"We have an informal "contract" with the nanny for a set amount of time. Thus, we are obligated to pay her, for example for one year, and then can review/renew the contract at that time."

"we have done this several ways: - mutual agreement based on time (nanny went back to school) and we gave her a "thank you" gift of a laptop for school - fired for cause 2 weeks severance - hours no longer worked and we agreed to a 1 month transition and also gave her 2 weeks as a "thank you""

"We have given notice and severence pay for a few firings for "cause". We think we have been too generous with this though. I would no longer give notice if firing for cause- just cash as they go out the door, and not more than a week's pay. But these were people I didn't want to be around kids again."

"We have let two nannies go over the past 7 years. Both were within the first two weeks of employment, both were due to cultural/philisophical differences and we paid both a one week severence. The children were too young to require an explanation."

"We let a nanny go on a Sunday and gave her one week severance. We felt she was no longer capable of caring for our child. Our child was only 7 months at the time, so it wasn't an issue."

"We let a nanny on trial go after a week. Since it was trial, there was no severance pay. Our children were less than 6 months old, so no explanation was necessary, we did tell the nanny that the taking care of 2 children was far harder than we had anticipated and that we didn't think she had enough experience with twins, basically."

"We let our former nanny go because after 3.5 years of trouble-free employment, she was arrested for shoplifting while caring for our son. grrr. Cause of termination was that we could no longer trust her. She showed no remorse, and blamed the shoplifting on her low salary (we paid $15/hr in 2003). No notice. No severance. And very painful for all of us. It coincided with the birth of our second child. We explained it to our first child by saying that he had a nanny, and now the new baby needed a nanny."

"We let our nanny go in order to join a full-time share. We gave her 2 weeks notice plus 2 weeks severence pay (one week for each year of service) because we knew it would take longer than 2 weeks to find another position. We also helped her find a new family and wrote a glowing review for her. We explained to our child that the nanny's last day with us was coming, and introduced him several times to the new care situation before then. We had a going-away party for her, and printed up picture books of the two of them for them both. We fully intended to keep employing our former nanny for babysitting and to see her informally for his sake, but she has not followed through with our requests, which is a great loss for our child."

"We let our nanny go when I stopped working. We told her that we would help her find a new job, which we did, and that we would employ her for a reasonable amount of time until she found a new job she was happy with. I think it took about 8 weeks for her to fine another job she was satisfied with."

"We moved out of the area and gave our nanny 2 months notice. We also helped her to find another job by posting ads on her behalf in the BPN and on Craig's list, writing her a reference letter, and being available for all references. We did not stop helping until she found another good job."

"we need to move away and will be giving 1 month's severance pay to our nanny. we are also taking our nanny to visit Boston, where we are moving to to find housing, and so that she will have an opportunity to travel, which she loves to do. It is also our goodbye present to her. Hotel/airfare will be paid for and full day's pay for every day of the trip, although she will be expected to watch our infant daughter for part of the time."

"we've given nannies up to one month notice. typically we've said that it has not worked out due to a difference in how we want to raise our children. other times, the annies have had life-changing events that required them to resign."

"When he started preschool, we cashed out all of her unused sick/vacation time."

"When my first child was an infant, I fired a nanny on the spot. Child was too young to need an explanation."

"When my son started school and there was going to be about 9 months before I had to go back to work after my 2nd baby, I told our nanny that we weren't going to need her anymore. I gave her a 3 month notice and said I'd work with her if she found something else, but that I hoped she would stay. She did and got a job right away."

"When our first nanny decided she didn't want to switch to a nanny-share after our daughter started school, we kept her on a part-time basis and paid her health insurance until her new full-time employment started. We also gave her a farewell bonus."

"when the kids were old enough to go to school, they fully understood that nanny is for baby, and kids go to school, so that was simple. We let her know all along the time range for her finishing up with our family, and we chose a nice gift (necklace/pendant) plus two weeks extra pay. this has happened twice so far."

"When we discovered that our Nanny was screaming at our children (and worse) and lying about it, we fired her without any notice or severance. Basically, the breach of trust required us to immediately protect our children, and deserved no severance compensation."

"When we hired her, we said child would go to day care at age two so she was prepared. As we did a share with my sister, we still get to see her after she stops caring for our children. the children were told about school and no nanny. for them school is fun so they don't mind and they still get to see her. I think they will forget her as they get older."

"When we left our previous nanny share it was due to changing needs and ages of the kids that would be sharing. Everyone knew a few months in advance so that the other family (who was keeping the nanny) could find a new share family and we could find a new arrangement as well. We timed the switch for holidays (Christmas/New Year) since we were planning to go on vacation anyway, and we just didn't go back afterward. We paid the nanny for a week of vacation that was essentially a severance/bonus. Our son was only 11 months old though - now we would never do that, and it would be much harder to explain to him. Can't wait to see what other people do!"

"When we let our first daughter's nanny go, we let her know 4 months in advance. We didn't pay severence but we found a new situation for her that was personally and financially satisfying to her. We explained to our daughter that she was bigger so she was starting school now. She was fine with it."

"yes - this person was not a good fit with our family although very nice - too distracted with her personal work and friends - I fudged and told her that since we were moving to a rental during a house hunt, it wouldn't work logistically and that my mother was coming for an extended stay. We did pay her one month's severance. We told the kids that we would see her and liked her but because we were moving we needed someone who lived closer - the nanny we hired didn't actually live that much closer but it worked to make everyone feel good."

"Yes, a previous nanny with our older child. 1 day notice/2 weeks pay, had a goodbye party with our child and myself in attendance."

"yes, effective immediately, 2 weeks pay - children were young and needed no explanation"

"Yes, we gave 2 weeks severance (no notice, due to the concerns about how she would react and the fact that we did not think she was doing a good job, so wanted to change ASAP). The kids were too young be able to explain (about 10 months old)."

"yes, we gave her 4 months notice. We helped her find/interview new families to work with."

"Yes. No severance pay since teh employment term was only ~4 months and she was let go due to negligence. We didn't give her any notice, simply asked her not to return."

"Yes. Managed: not all that well as we fired her. Severance: two weeks but she refused. In writing: the reasons for why she was fired. Also in writing: a letter of reference stating when she worked for us, what her duties were. for our son -- we told him she was not going to take him to the park but we still have photos/etc of her & we talk about her & he seemed to be ok with her sudden absence. We don't think at the time when we fired her that he was enjoying his tme with her as much as he had in the past."

2 weeks notice and pro-rated vacation days of what she had worked so far for that calendar year

4 weeks notice

Always did it during the 'probationary' period agreed upon.

au pair stole from us: we fired her immediately

Discussed changing needs; mutually agreed to move on. Gave each other 30 days notice.

Due to my nanny's inability to handle an emergency situation we let her go and gave her 3 weeks severance.

Female

Fired - gave 2 weeks severance pay

For performance: Gave two weeks severance. Terminated with no advance notice once we had arranged a replacement. Wanted child to go to pre-school: gave 2 months notice and paid a bonus but no severance. Children did not require particular explanation.

Gave 2 weeks pay and one week notice.

Haven't done it yet.

I fired a nanny without any notice when I was concerned that she might be endangering my children. I had reason to think that she might be using drugs or be mentally unstable. I did not give her any severance pay. I did not accuse her of drug use but I did fire her suddenly and she never returned my subsequent calls to inquire about her well-being. She also never returned my car seats or keys.

I gave three months notice. I explained to my daughter that now she was in school (and I wasn't yet pregnant with my son) that the nanny was going to mind some new babies.

I generally give either 2 weeks notice or two weeks severance pay. Mostly it's mutual with a lot of communication before hand. I usually just tell the children the truth.

I had several nannies on a trial period and let them go at the end. It worked out well because it ended during the 'trial' period. My son is too young to have it explained - he was only 6-8mos at the time when these situations occurred.

I have talked to our nanny about the fact that our daughter will be attending preschool in the Fall and that we will no longer be able to employ her when that happens. I told her that I will help in whatever way I can to find her a new nanny job.

I let a nanny go once on immeadiate notice becasue she left my 10 month old locked in a car unattended for 20 minutes and it was reported. The first nanny we had left when she wanted to go back to school. We are very close to her and she sits every other Friday for date night and is like a second daughter to us. We even helped her get into Cal over the last two years.

I terminated her on a Friday afternoon..that was it

I was very honest with both the nanny and our children. We had a change in childcare needs due to school schedules and I gave the nanny 2 weeks notice with the option of keeping her on the payroll till she gets hired elsewhere and I agreed to be on her reference list. We (both the nanny and I) told the children that she will no longer be working for us because of the changes in plans/schedule and made sure to emphasize that we will all still keep in touch.

I will give her 6 weeks notice.

I'm about to let my nanny go. I'll be giving 1 week to no notice and will give her two-four weeks severance pay.

It was mutual occuring at the same time that there was an incident where the nanny was careless causing physical injury to my child. No severance pay.

It's usually been when I'm on maternity leave. I've given 3-4 months' notice. This time we were clear that this was the last school year.

Lots of notice and references

mutual decision usually no severance but usually a bonus if they were good (+/- $1000) children continued to have the women in their lives as babysitters (assuming they didn't move out of town) one former nanny became our 3 child's godmother when she moved to canada

My nanny was 'hired' on a temporary (<6 months) basis and we both were aware of that at the beginning. She was returning to school and we had other childcare arrangements after that.

No severence pay because she did not follow the agreed upon rules of childcare and blatant disrespect for our home while we were away.

One month paid; children were too young for it to impact them

One month's notice and help with finding a new employer (posting a craigslist ad on her behalf)

one was given a week or two notice. the others were just working a day a week and did not receive any severance.

Our first nanny told us she didn't want to watch our little boy anymore because he was too much work for her she was 73 years old.

paid 2 weeks severance

paid 30 days b/c she was too ill to care for our children

severance pay

She left our son alone in the bath on Friday and we fired her on Monday after we discussed the situation over the weekend. She was told this was her last day and paid for the rest of the week.

situation changed -- our kids went to preschool and she needed FT. Two months notice -- no severance

Six weeks notice with offer of continued emploment if nanny could not find job. Assisted nanny to find new job by posting on BPN and other places. Provided references. Told children that mommy was going to stay home and that would still see nanny just less fequently. Had goodbye party.

The au pair agency representative came over and we fired her together. She stayed in our house for two weeks while she looked for another job but she never watched my children again.

This has not occurred. This is our first experience with a nanny (we have an infant).

two weeks notice. she still cared for the kids. kids were too young to have it explained. i had been fired so we didn't need her anymore.

Typically gave two weeks notice with expectation they would work during that time and also paid accrued vacation. Previous nanny was not doing her job and had excess absences. Child did not ask questions/miss nanny so did not explain.

Was in a nanny share and left it with about 6 weeks notice to let the other family find a new family to share with

We disagreed after the first week of work. The nanny wanted to change the working hours and days considerably from what had been agreed to. We let her go on the spot.

We fired her that day at the end of the day and informed her not to come back the next day. We gave her 2 weeks severance and paid for her unused vacation time. Child was too young to explain it to.

We gave 2 weeks severance.

We gave 6 weeks notice when my husband was layed off- and asked in return for 2 weeks notice if she found another job before our 6 weeks was up. She screwed us over and agave us 2 days notice-- We promised her that we would be sure to include that in our references- as she truly burned a bridge (and had worked for us for a year)

We gave her 2 weeks notice.

We gave her two weeks notice and helped her find another family to work with. We let he go because we couldn't afford to keep her.

We gave her two weeks notice and one week additional pay after that.

We gave our previous nanny two weeks severence and no notice. Probably not the best situation. The children had just turned one and there wasn't much explaining we could do. We made the transition by staying with the new nanny the first few days.

We had a terrible nanny first time around and she lied to us about everything and the relationship had degraded - we gave her two weeks notice.

We had to let our full time nanny go becuase she didn't want to do part time when our son started school - mutual decision and we still keep in touch. We had several months notice and we discussed directly wtih our son.

We have changed nannies when we moved.

We have fired one nanny and we gave her severance rather than notice. Child was still an infant.

We have had to slowly cut back the hours we need our nanny but always discuss this well in advance.

We have not had good luck with nannies. One abused my son; another stole from us; another allowed my kids to write with marker on the tv and pull off the wallpaper; another made phone calls to the psychic hot line -- we had a $1200 phone bill; another continuously lied; another took my daughter to her own house without telling me; another got drunk from our liquor cabinet while watching our kids. We fired these people on the spot.

We let her know far in advance that we would not need her after the kids go to preschool I have helped her to find other families.

We moved from the East Coast to the West Coast. We gave our nanny three months notice and helped her find another family.

We moved to a different area. No severance. Gave over one month's notice.

We needed to find a new nanny due to scheduling conflicts and pay. We were in a nanny care situation at the time so we gave the nanny and the other family 3 weeks notice to find another child to share with.

We said we were starting daycare and gave her 2 weeks severance pay.

We spoke to her and provided her a letter explaining how much longer we would like her to work for us and what we would pay her. We told our children that now that they were older we needed someone who could more/different things with them.

We will give our nanny 1 months pay or more when we let her go this summer. She has been with us for 6+ years.

we've always phased our nannies out so that the kids don't have a hard time.

When we moved we gave 1 month notice. No severance pay.

With great sadness! We had a nanny for 5 years who was definately a member of the family and with whom we've kept in touch. Our children adore her. We gave her 4 months notice of an anticipated schedule change (my children going to school for a full day instead of a 3 hour day) and she gave us 1 months notice when she determined our new reduced hours would not work that well for her.

Yes - gave her a month's notice. We also paid her for a week of her vacation time because we've been happy with her service.

yes- it was still during the trial period

yes. 1 day notice after working for 1 week. 1 day severance. didn't need to explain it to my child b/c even she could tell the nanny was terrible.

Yes. I gave her 2 weeks notice but she then violatexd my trust and we ended abruptly. My daughter was a small infant so no explanation was necessary.

yes. we gave her 2 weeks. the children did not like her!

Yes. We gave six weeks' notice and posted an ad for her.

Yes. We needed someone that drove. I talked with her and let her know. I gave her 1 month's notice and an extra $1000. We explained that she the new nanny would be their new nanny and that the old one would still come and watch them occassionally and that now they had 2 nannies. i was able to ahve the new one start a couple months before the old one left so they had both nannies for awhile.

Nanny's Country of Origin

52. What is your nanny's country of origin?

Total responses = 725

Nanny from outside the U.S. = 82% (595 responses) Nanny from the U.S. = 18% (130 responses)

Most common non-US country of origin:

	El Salvador (76)
	Mexico (73)
	Peru (62)
	Guatemala (55)
	Laos (55)

% Responses	Region	Responses
44%	Central & South America & Mexico	Total=322: El Salvador (76), Mexico (73), Peru (62), Guatemala (55), Brazil (24), Honduras (9), Nicaragua (6), Colombia (4), Ecuador (4), Chile (3), Argentina (2), Venezuela (2), Central America (1), Latin America (1)
23%	Asia & the Pacific	Total=168: Laos (55), Tibet (31), Nepal (24), China (16), Thailand (15), Philippines (9), Cambodia (4), India (3), Vietnam (2), Fiji (2), Japan (2), Australia (1), Bangeladash (1), Bhutan (1), Hong Kong (1), Indonesia (1)
18%	United States	Total=131: includes Canada (1)
7%	Africa & the Middle East	Total=54: Kenya (20), Eritrea (15), Ethiopia (5), Israel (5), Tanzania (4), Iran (2), Congo (1), South Africa (1), Sudan (1)
7%	Europe	Total=50: France (6), Germany (6), Romania(5), Russia (5), Czech Republic (4), Hungary (3), Poland (3), Sweden (3), Bulgaria (2), England (2), Slovakia (2), Albania and Italy (1), Bosnia (1), Eastern Europe (1), Ireland (1), Neatherlands (1), Norway (1), Serbia (1), Spain (1)

Notes:

Responses that provided a non-US country of origin but also noted "US citizen" were counted as US. (there were 2 of these)
"Tibet" includes "Tibetan from India" and "Tibet/India"
Many responses included "Mien" with Thailand or Laos.

Languages Spoken

53. What language do you communicate in with your nanny?

Total responses = 729

% Responses	Language	Responses
80%	English Only	Total=586: includes "English (broken)" and "english (limited)"
10%	Spanish Only	Total=75: includes "Spanish only" and "Spanglish" and "Broken Spanish"
6%	Both English and Spanish	Total=42: includes "English primarily (some spanish)" ... "English and Spanish (we are both bilingual)" ... "English and occasionally Spanish" ... "English - though we occasionally speak Spanish" ..."She speaks Spanish, I speak English" ... "English, some Spanish" ... "Spanish [with me] -- English with my husband"
4%	Other Languages	Total=25: Cantonese/Mandarin (10), French (3), Russian (3), Hebrew (2), ASL (1), German (1), Hindi (1), Italian (1), Japanese (1), Tagalog (1), Thai (1) (for some of these, English was also spoken)

Zip Codes of Respondents

59. What is your zip code?

701 responses with valid Bay Area zip codes. They were grouped into cities and regions.

Zip Code City or Area	Pct responses	total
Oakland (includes Piedmont)	40%	278
Berkeley (includes Kensington)	27%	192
El Cerrito	5%	33
San Francisco	4%	30
Marin County	4%	28
Alameda	4%	25
Lamorinda	3%	24
Albany	3%	21
Richmond/El Sobrante/San Pablo	3%	21
Concord/Walnut Creek/Pleasant Hill	2%	14
South Bay/Peninsula	2%	11
Emeryville	1%	10
San Leandro	1%	6
Danville/Alamo/Pleasonton	1%	6
Benicia/Vallejo	0.5%	3

Months employed?

1. For how many months have you employed your current nanny?

Note: the survey did not allow for more than 99 months (about 8 years) and there was one response that was "99".

854 Responses

Average: 15.3 months
Most common response: 6 months (58 respondents)

Length of Time	Percent	# Responses
1 - 6 months	30%	260
7 - 11 months	22%	184
1 - 2 years	26%	223
2 - 3 years	11%	94
3 - 4 years	6%	48
4 - 5 years	3%	27
5 - 6 years	1%	11
more than 6 years	0.01%	7

Note: the survey did not allow for more than 99 months (about 8 years) and there was one response that was "99".

How did you find your nanny?

2. Which of the following BEST describes how you found your current nanny?

859 responses

How nanny was found	Pct	# responses	Comments
Berkeley Parents Network	31%	265
Through a friend	22%	191
Craigslist	20%	175
Through an agency	6%	56
Through a neighbor	4%	36
Through a parenting org/mommy group	4%	32	Twins By the Bay, parents group at husband's work, GGMG, Palo Alto/Menlo Park Parents Club, Lamorinda Mom's Club, potrero hill parents yahoo group
Bananas	3%	23	BPN Note: Bananas was inadvertently left off as an option on this question; the total for "Through an agency" probably includes some who used Bananas
Online message board	2%	21
Through another nanny or my previous nanny	2%	16
Newspaper	1%	11	NPN newsletter, local Chinese newspaper, Montclarion
Met her at a park or kids' class	1%	10	saw her at the playground, saw her at Kindergym, saw her walking by my house with a child,
Other	1%	10	nanny was a friend or family member(8), through my housekeeper(4), posted/saw a flyer(3), through my daycare/preschool(3), Parents Place (3), church (2), work associate (2)

Nanny Agencies

3. If you used an agency/nanny service, which one did you use and how was the experience?

Number of responses: 61 (about 7% of all respondents)

Click Here to see a summary of responses.

Comments about the Survey

64. If there is something that you think we did NOT cover in this survey, please feel free to add it here!

View Comments about the Survey

Notes about the Survey Results

The survey was conducted from April 24 - May 14, 2008 among members of the Berkeley Parents Network (BPN), which is based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Responses were anonymous and no identifying information about respondents was requested or collected other than zip codes.

Total responses were 886. On the day the survey ended, there were 21,443 BPN subscribers. We estimate that around 25% of our subscribers (5,400) have children under the age of three, which is the most common age group to hire a nanny. We estimate that about 20% of these parents (1,080) use a nanny. Therefore, we believe this survey was completed by around 80% of our subscribers who currently have a nanny - a great response rate!

Results omitted:
We omitted 6 survey responses where no hourly or weekly rates were provided and "number of months employed" was also blank.