Mother's Helper

Hello,

I’m looking for some assistance caring for my infant twins once my husband goes back to work. I will be present but could use a second set of hands to help with the babies and support some household chores like laundry and food prep. Would love any referrals or recommendations of how to find someone!

Thanks!

[moderator: BPN's page on the subject: https://www.berkeleyparentsnetwork.org/node/add/parent]

Hi! 

My wife and I are considering hiring a “mothers helper”, but to be honest don’t really have any knowledge of what that actually means and if it’s the right thing for us! Hoping to connect with another family that has had experience (either via phone or email) 

Our questions are :

(1) what’s types of things are “in vs out” and how flexible can it be? we’d see most value in errands like grocery shopping, dishes, tidying (not deep cleaning), laundry and extra set of hands/eyes to watch baby if mother needs to do something 
(2) is an arrangement for a few hours a day a thing? 
(3) what’s a ballpark cost? 
(4) what has your experience been? 

I imagine answers will vary depending on who is hired, but just looking to gain a foundational set of knowledge on the subject before deciding to proceed with pursuing help 

Hi, I’m looking for advice on how to find the help we need. Both my husband and I work from home, and my mom is the primary caregiver for our almost 8 months old baby. My mom speaks only Mandarin and she’s able to communicate with my English speaking husband about baby. While she does most of the care for baby, my husband and I do laundry, formula, dishes. My mom cooks but as a result baby sometimes is left for self-play and will sometimes miss his nap window because of the cooking. My mom also doesn’t get enough rest during the day because obviously she’s on baby duty. I’m hoping we can find someone who can fill in the gaps so that we all can go about our day without feeling super stretched all the time. Initially I was hiring for a nanny but it becomes more and more obvious that my takes the primary child care duty makes the most sense for our family. She enjoys cooking and needs a nap during the day, and we need someone to look after baby during those times. We also need this person to make solids and do the laundry, dishes, tidying up and light cleaning around the house. If this person can also take my mom and baby out to museums, parks, beaches and easy hikes, that’d be the most amazing. We are thinking of hiring this person for 4-6 hours per day 5 days per week. Rate will be $35-40 per hour. Are there people out there work to support families in what the families need the most, instead of just nannying or house keeping? What are the things that I need to make explicit in the job post to make the hire successful? Is the rate reasonable for the expectation? Please share your experience, advice, feedbacks on how to make this hiring process successful! I could really use some help! Thank you all in advance!

Hi All,

We are hoping to hire a high-schooler or 20-something to pick up our 2nd grader from school and spend a couple of hours with them about 3 days a week.

Can anyone let us know what the going pay rate for this might be? Their house is 5 minutes from our kid's school and the current person we are going to ask, lives next door to us so there is no commute time :)

Thanks in advance!

Hello,

My wife and I (with two kids under 5) are looking for some daytime help around the house. Ideally this person would come by 2 or 3 times a week, for 2-3 hours, and help with:

• Kitchen cleaning
• Folding laundry
• Organizing kids rooms and playroom
• Meal prep
• Occasional deep cleaning
• Other odd jobs (assembling furniture and the like)

We live in North Oakland, and have a well-behaved dog. We are pretty flexible on actual days and times, but need somebody who is reliable and communicates well.

Let us know if you have someone in mind, or know of other places to post this or look for such a person. Thanks!

Our family has been struggling to find babysitters for some time but I’m thinking what we’re really looking for is a “Mother’s Helper” instead? I’m a stay at home Mom with a 4yr old boy (attending a small Preschool pod part time), 2yr old boy and 3mo old, with no help from family or friends. I’m in need of someone to play with the older children so I can focus on the baby, or get things done at home. Ideally, 3x a week for 1-4hrs to play with only the 2yr old or both the 2 and 4yr old. We previously tried another sitter a few times in this same “position” but since I was home I ended up changing the 2yr old’s diapers, prepping and serving meals/ snacks, providing new activities, etc throughout the “babysitting” time. This was despite being in a different room of the house, working on the computer, asking to not be disturbed unless necessary. My kids were bored and we still paid $25/hr for this “Nanny”. So, it really seems like for the level of responsibility I’m expecting, an older kid might be able to do the job better with a much more reasonable rate?  

My questions are- how to find such a person? I haven’t really seen any ads like that here so is BPN the best place to look? And secondly, what is average pay like for this type of position? I would imagine with schools not being in person there must be local teens or other young people available who could help another Covid conscious, socially distancing family? We’re located in Crockett and have a very open home with a fenced deck and other outdoor play space so we could even plan for the majority of time to be outside, or with masks. 
Thank you in advance for any help or insights!

Hi everyone,

How much do you pay a part-time mother’s helper that’s a high school or college student. 
 

thank you 

Hi there! 

I'm not sure if I'm asking for the moon or not, but my husband and I would like to hire someone who can come 2-3 days a week for 5-6 hours/time to help us with housecleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, meal prep (based on menus I give them), and occasional household projects.

I've posted my ad to Craigslist and to Care.com but I'm wondering if this kind of person exists and, if they do, where else I might look to find someone like this. 

If you've hired someone like this, I would love to hear your experience!

Thank you!

We are a couple with a four year old and a baby arriving in a month. We currently have an awesome housekeeper who comes once a week to deep clean the house. We are looking for someone who is available more often - 3-4 hours a day, during the day or at night - 4-5 days per week (12-20 hours a week). With a new baby, it will be hard to juggle everything. Our 4 year old will be in preschool everyday from 9-12:30. We don't necessarily want childcare, but want help getting stuff done around the house. I would rather spend time with my children than have someone else spend time with them while I do household chores. We're looking for an efficient person who will do meal prep, cook, do laundry and put it away, clean up after meals, tidy the house, etc. Virtually all the postings here and on Craigslist that we see are for nannies who do light house keeping, or housekeepers who do once or twice a week deep cleanings.

Has anyone had this type of set up? Can you recommend anyone? Where else can we look?

Thank you.