When to start searching for nanny share?

We searched about a month or 2 out and had no problems.  We used BPN to find another family.  

I think it is a great idea to post as I am sure you will get a range of different perspectives on this topic.  The variety will hopefully help you triangulate on a path forward that works for you.

My suggestion would be to start in late May/early June.  There tends to be a fair amount of turn over in nannies in the July and August timeframe as children transition into preschool or other school year based programs.  Starting in late May/June will help give you a little more runway (as a first time Mom) to sort out what you are looking for and what options are available to you.  You can certainly find a nanny in a matter of weeks but it can be a bit of a process to determine for yourself what you want.  Adding the additional consideration of a nanny share means you will also need to bake in time to find a family to partner with.  A good place to start would be to align around your general strategy.  Do you want to find a nanny first and then find a family to share with?  Do you want to find a nanny and then find a family to share with?  Do you want to wait until closer to August and hope to find a family that already has a nanny?  It would not hurt to be open to different pathways but the steps in each process and the lead times will be different.  Happy to share my own personal experiences and answer any questions you have over a call or email.  Best of luck.   

Congratulations! You sound like a planner just like me! A great suggestion i followed was to first look for a partner family, and then jointly interview/select nannies. We found our partner family 3-4 months before desired start date and the nanny we began looking for about 2 months before and finalized about 1 month before. I think we were ahead of the curve though, and a lot of nannies aren't looking until 1 month or less in advance. BANANAS offers a free great training on How to Hire a Nanny 101 that we found very helpful. Happy to answer any more questions - we are so happy with our nanny-share arrangement!

Most nannies are searching for employment immediately or starting within a month or two. Focus on finding a family to share with first and then you can begin looking for a nanny togetehr 2-3 months before you need her to start. BPN or one of the parent Facebook groups (like Berkeley Moms, Main Street Mamas: East Bay) are a great place to find another family to partner with, and I've found the parent recommendation forums on BPN to be an excellent source of nanny referrals.

Hi, we have had a really good nanny share experience. No complaints. I would say it takes two months before the start date. I tried earlier to be prepared but it was pointless they can’t commit to you when they work gig jobs and take jobs as they come. 
 

First I found a family who wanted to share and who we knew shared similar expectations. After this, we decided what we could afford. My family was  no way ever going to be able to pay the full price of a nanny at market price. That would be 100% of my take home pay after taxes. We also didn’t want to low ball a nanny and we wanted to pay them well with good benefits. So the only way we could do that was to be on the same page as the other family. After we agreed what we could pay and what our schedules could be we began to look for a nanny. It took about 2 months to find one that fit. 
 

keep in mind a nanny expects to be paid every time you don’t use here if that is her agreed upon schedule. So, if I call out sick I still pay her. If I go on vacation I still pay her. She told us up front she would not match her vacation time to our vacation time (some will). We always pay our nanny the two child rate (we agreed to one higher rate) vs the norm of the one child and two child rate. because in some way my family and the other family financially are relying each other in this way and split her wage in half. 
 

the best part is the nanny is happy, cares for our babies, we trust her, and she is paid well. I can’t imagine having to be a nanny and always negotiating with two families who think differently. 
 

One perk for her is that both families is that this year both families will go on vacation the same week so she will get a week of free paid  time off (plus her regular vacation). I mean regardless of whether my family did or didn’t go on vacation we had to pay her. We figured with the other family if we coordinated our vacation it would be a great break for our nanny. 
 

Many nanny shares have problems, it ends up being a 3 party negotiation. Ours has less because so far the two families act like one party. If you don’t have a budget then You have less to worry about. 
 

Congrats btw!