Unique nanny share situation with nanny's baby - pay question
First time parent here starting a new, unique nanny share situation and seeking advice on a unclear point. We found a wonderful, experienced nanny we connect with who has a daughter of her own the same age as our little one. We negotiated a rate based on her share rate since she's essentially acting as the other family in the share. While going over details, the subject came up of how payment would be handled if her daughter had to stay home for some reason. She said, in her experience, the family of the sick child wouldn't pay and the family of the other child would pay the nanny her single-child rate. This was a surprising convention to me, but it makes sense: the sick family is off the hook for paying and the nanny doesn't have her rate cut in half. The burden is shared between the two families.
How should we handle this case in our situation, where she is _both_ the nanny and the other family? She said she expected to be paid her single-child rate. This means if her daughter stays home, her rate would go up. This makes sense in her role as "family" to alleviate the burden when she'll have to figure out care for her daughter. But in her role as "nanny", it means she goes from watching two children to one, and her overall pay goes up.
I want to mention that we agreed on a sick time policy that should _actually_ be what governs most of the situations where her daughter gets sick -- they'll just stay home together. Thus I think the situation I'm describing will only come up rarely -- in unforeseen circumstances -- but it seems prudent to hash it out nonetheless. Also, since it should come up rarely, I don't want to nickel & dime her over a small portion of our agreement. Whatever we decide to do, though, I am curious on how others feel this should be approached.
Please share your thoughts! Thanks.
Parent Replies
Independent of the uniqueness of your situation, this seems like an odd solution--in both of my kids' shares, both families paid as usual whether their kids were sick or not, because we offered guaranteed hours at a two-child rate. That did not change if one child was home sick or on vacation--both families committed to set hours at a set rate. I would expect that to work the same way even if the nanny's child is half of the share. Yes, it's challenging and an added cost to find care for a sick child if you yourself have to go to work--but that is the case for any parent in a daycare situation, whether they are the nanny or working in an unrelated job.
Sure, but in that case, if your child is sick and cannot attend care, then you don't pay either, right? This policy she is proposing cannot be one sided. Either you pay the lower two child rate no matter what, whether she is watching one child or both and whether you need her or not, which is usually how this works. Or, the policy is that the sick child's family does not pay, in which case when your kid is sick or cannot attend the care, you don't pay either. I think the policy is a bit unusual but I've seen it happen, though it has to cover both sides equally. If you frame it that way, maybe she will drop it.
Hi Jason, that does sound like an unusual arrangement in my opinon. With our previous nanny (who watched our child and our friend's child, and has a school-age child of her own), if either one of us were sick or on vacation, we were still beholden to the share rate. Our families were close and actually just alternated weeks paying (which is different in your situation), so it all ended up being equal throughout the duration of the share. If there were every any new kids, then we would adjust the rate to three kids, or if we knew we or our friends would be gone and wanted to add another child for a short period (this was also pre-covid), it would offset the cost for the absent family. Even when one child left the share early from our contract, we had such a good relationship with our nanny that she just kept our rate as if we were in a double child situation but we paid for one kid. I haven't heard of a situation like the one your nanny is proposing, but perhaps you could offer that as "sick pay" up to 3 days that you pay a solo rate or something and then anything over would be the share rate in the contract?
I had a more traditional nanny share situation. If the other child was sick the nanny was paid a single child rate instead of the rate for both children. However, I would pay the normal rate and the other family would cover the difference. So if the share rate was 30 but the single rate was 20, I would still pay 15 and the other family would pay five when their child was out sick.
I have been in multiple shares and if one child could not go (vacation, sick etc), that family still paid as if they were there---that is the purpose of guaranteed hours and the other family not having their rate change based on the other's schedule.
This is a weird way to handle this. Normally both families pay, if they need the nanny or not. And then the nanny gets a number of agreed-upon sick and vacation days where she takes care of neither child but still gets paid. She is no an occasional baby-sitter but a household employee and should be treated as such. If she doesn't need to watch her own child once in a while, that's not your fault.
In our nanny share, we agreed to pay the normal rate for both families because it’s not the nanny’s fault that a kid got sick and should not have her pay cut. Viewing the employment as a full time and long term arrangement, and considering the nanny pay is a relatively low paying job, we thought that was fair and learned later that it is a common arrangement.
Your situation is a bit different because if the nanny’s child gets sick, the nanny should take sick time first. Only when the nanny runs out of sick time, you would pay. If the nanny’s child gets sick so often or for a long period of time, I suppose you may need to start looking for a new arrangement.