week 24: childcare for a sane life
Recently a pregnant friend asked me what I would recommend she does when she returns to work. Considering the endless days and nights I have spent musing over my childcare budget and needs, I thought I should write a blog post on this puzzle: how do you find childcare for your professional and personal needs?
First let me reiterate the question: professional and personal needs. Very quickly I realized that having someone watch my child(ren) only when I work was a receipe for disaster: even if I didn’t have a job, I’d need a break once in a while, and so do you. For me, this means 50 to 55 hours of childcare per week. Approximately 35 hours for work, another 6 for three evenings per week (we are at home too, we just don’t have to do it all on our own on the days where we return exhausted from a big office day), our weekly date night (5 hours), and anywhere from 5 to 10 hours of time to myself, to exercise, read, walk, or focus on one child only.
Obviously, 55 hours is a lot of time (and money). So here are ways I’ve found to make it work for us, and our caregivers:
1 - hire someone who does not need to be paid on weeks when you are absent or when your mom is visiting. Given that we are the only ones with children in both our immediate families, our relatives are lining up to have our kids visit them, or come and visit us. At these times, we need our babysitters less, or not at all.
2- hire someone who can do light housework while watching children (in particular when they sleep). Our “date night” is every Saturday, and our babysitter does laundry and ironing when the children sleep. So we come home to clean sheets, ironed clothes for the next week and even a tidy kitchen. It’s fabulous.
To find people who meet your needs and qualifications, check out this website: this is where I found my most recent nanny.
3 - hire multiple people. In my early parenting years, I only had one nanny, and she was often sick. This would happen (obviously) unexpectedly and create quite a bit of chaos in my work life. Indeed, I was now vulnerable to three health hazards: my own, my child’s and my nanny’s. You absolutely need a beta plan. If your parents don’t live next door, your beta could be a family friend with extra time on his/her hands, a friend with a nanny who does not mind the extra child for the day, or an emergency babysitter. I have all of the above (except a parent who lives next door); and I pull my emergency triggers at least once a quarter. If you are curious, here is our current chain of back-up plans:
- If our son is sick and can’t go to school, he stays at home with our nanny and daughter; if we don’t have the nanny on that day, he still stays at home with a family friend or our cleaning lady who can come for a few hours (so that I can get some work done, likely from home or a nearby cafe);
- If our nanny is sick, our son goes to school and our daughter goes to my best friend’s house;
- If our daughter is sick on days we don’t have the nanny my husband stays home (she’s still a little baby), or we can call on the cleaning lady, or our family friend.
4- mix it up: you don’t need to hire a nanny 5 days per week. Once my son turned two I enrolled him in a day care program 2 days per week, and I plan on doing this for my daughter much earlier (she’s currently in a nanny share twice a week, and will start day care at least once a week when she turns one, or shortly thereafter). In my experience, this is great for children’s development: it’s more fun for them to be around children their age, and it’s a lot more economical than a full time nanny. I would not opt for the full day care option as this tends to mean more infant illnesses; I also think its important for a child to spend a lot of time in her home.
5- pay well: in San Francisco, average childcare ranges from $13 to $25 per hour, depending on the number of children and the babysitter’s experience. I personally think it’s much wiser to pay on the higher end of the scale, but request more from your babysitter. Here is the most recent list of duties I included in my last nanny search:
- Active and loving childcare
- Helping parents with evening routine (bathing, dinner, cleaning up, bedtime stories, preparing bags for next day)
- laundry
- Tidying children’s play areas and kitchen
6- if you have the extra space in your home (or own a studio next door!), hire an au pair. Au pairs are young girls in their early 20s who are looking to live with a family for 9 to 12 months and help out with childcare. If you want your children to speak a different language this is a great option. It is also super affordable if you have the extra bedroom and space to host them. For the bay area an au pair can provide up to 45 hours of childcare at half the price of a nanny. Here is an au pair service you might want to check out.
All this will be expensive. Yet, you can’t think about it as a trade off between your job and your childcare expenses: this is something you have to do to keep a profession and your earnings will increase with time. As a wise friend of mine said a few months ago, when all my money was going to day babysitters, night babysitters, cleaning ladies, cooks… YOU ARE WORTH IT. It’s not some silly l’Oreal cliche. It’s true. Think about it.
Oh, and one last thing: if you have more than one child, bring a sitter with you when you go on holiday. I know, this sounds like the life of the rich and famous. Just try it once. You’ll see what I mean….
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