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Do we need a live-in nanny?
August 12, 2010By Dr. Lindsay Heller The Nanny Doctor
By now you may be well into your search for the perfect nanny. You have made a list of your needs and perhaps you have even consulted with other families with live-in or live-out nannies.
Many families enter their nanny search knowing already what type of nanny they need. However, with so many great child care options available to families these days, it’s harder to make a choice. A quick survey of families in your area may reveal that live-out nannies are more common than live-in nannies. However, if your family needs a live-in nanny, then there are a few important things you need to consider.
1. Do you have enough space?
If you plan to hire a live-in nanny, you will need to provide a dedicated bedroom. If your live-in nanny will be caring for an infant, she may sleep in the nursery with the baby on occasion, but she will still need her own bedroom as well.
2. Are you prepared to feed an extra mouth?
Since your nanny will be living with you, then you will be required to provide meals and snacks. Consider the expense of extra groceries when preparing a budget.
3. Do you have an extra vehicle?
Not every nanny owns a car. If you expect your live-in nanny to drive the kids to school or run the occasional errand, then you may need to provide her with a car. Or perhaps you can lend her your own car. Either way, you need to make sure your nanny has a valid driver’s license and is covered by your auto insurance.
4. What about vacations?
Like all bosses, you need to consider time off for your employee. Be sure to work in a minimum of one week’s paid vacation and all major holidays off with pay into your plans.
i’ve done both live-in and live-out and as long as you can find a family who respects your off-time and that you get along with really well, live-in can be great. but if you’re not able to define that it is still a professional relationship, job creep can set in pretty quick. there’s definitely a balance to be met.
What Erin said! If you can find that balance it can be such a great situation. But if you can’t… well, lets just say some families don’t understand that you are not on call.
I’ve been doing live-in jobs for years and I love the connection that you make with both the parents and the children – it’s much more intimate than a live-out nanny. However, there’s also a very fine balance to achieve being a live-in nanny – it’s not something everyone is cut out to do!
We thought we wanted to hire a live-in nanny… until we actually did. It was really difficult for us to get used to having another adult in our home that wasn’t family. There are all sorts of things to consider, like guests, meals, interests, etc. In the end, we realized that a live-out nanny was a much better fit for us.
I think having a nanny contract in place is important no matter what type of nanny job you’re doing, but ESPECIALLY in a live-in situation. It’s much easier to avoid overstepping boundaries when you’ve ironed everything out beforehand and can refer back to an actual document outlining your duties/responsibilities.