Sprog #3 just arrived so now our tribe is complete (my next search is for that vasectomy thread).
#1 is almost 5 so in full time school.
#2 is 2 and currently in nursery 1 day a week.
#3 is a shitting and eating machine at 2 weeks.

We have several months until my wife goes back to work, but then the childcare fees are going to be 1k per month. Of course we will get vouchers and wotnot, but we’re still looking at sacrificing 800-1000 per month between us.

The thought does occur that maybe we should think about employing a nanny – which will help us handle the school run(s) and 3 or 4 days of cover for the two youngest. The workers at the local nurseries are probably on minimum wage so I have an idea that it would be more cost effective to employ someone rather than sending them off to nursery.

But what about au-pairs? The attraction of having a young Swedish lady about the house (twins?) kind of appeals too ;o)

Can anyone share any thoughts and experiences about whichever route you’ve taken?

Make sure your wife is happy with the Swedish twins idea first!

When you employ the twins this thread will mean nothing without pictures. Until then we all share your grand dream.

Aupair world dot com or something like that. Select ‘Sweden’ and make your choice. Then tell your wife about it sometime shortly before au pair turns up. You’ll be fine. Next post: “didn’t tell wife about Swedish au pair… Will I die?”

I have a colleague who has Slovak au pairs for 6 months at a time. They to UK to learn English as part of a languages course.
Despite homing, paying travel and a wage, it is cheaper than nursery ( including tax credit breaks), for her as working single mum of three. And most just help our around the house as well.

Hmmm. Luckily the spare room is a little bit away from the bathroom, so the au pairs should have plenty of chances to run between them wrapped in a towel. Must make an effort to only leave hand towels in there.

Am I overthinking this a tad?

P.s. Matt – any idea how old her kids are?

Kids? Shit! I was just putting my name down for one. Dint know you had to have kids…

My work colleague had a Polish au pair. His wife interviewed and selected her. She was an absolute stunner; the logic was that she was so far out of his league that she knew there’s no way he’d be able to get up to anything.

(Tongue in cheek, she knew there was no way he’d risk everything on a 20 year old polish stunner any more than he would on anyone else. The au pair was the best one for the job!)

Swedish twin sisters, be careful what you wish for.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6agXn3fVnRs[/video]

As an employer I believe you have to pay for holidays, sick and maternity etc. same as any other job. This can leave you in a bit of a hole with no child care and a wage bill. Not sure if this is the same with both Nanny and Au pair.

When 2nd one arrived we started search for a nanny 2 days a week. Best thing we ever did with childcare. Went through a local agency and interviewed 4 before choosing one.

She is great. Always come home to happy kids and she does lots of fun but also educational stuff with them. She cooks for them and often makes enough for us. As the eldest is at school now she does pick up and with the youngest still having an afternoon nap will even do housework if needed.

Not cheap and will have to look at sorting a pension for her soon but agency does all PAYE etc for a reasonable fee.

Friday was classic, she started 1/2 an hour early as I was working in a different place to normal. She then stayed late as my wife got stuck on the motorway getting home. With normal nursery etc that could have been really stressful.

A French friend got into an email exchange with someone purporting to be an Irish au pair. He showed me the mails and it was obvious to me that she wasn’t a native English speaker. Sure enough, then came the story of how she was working for a family in Cameroon but they’d kicked her out and she needed air fare up front.

Do you people’s nannies/au pairs live in your place? How do you manage that if you don’t have a big house?

Why not hire two au pairs take in an extra three sprogs from willing parents and make a profit?

Check on the hours that an au pair can work – I think it is only about 12 hours per week

We have a nanny for 3 until 6 every day to collect our 2 from play group and school – worked out cheaper than full time nursery and after school club.

Have a look on Find a babysitter– which is where MrsFla foudn ours – she is excellent.

A swedish au pair does appeal though.

My best friend had a french au pair who used to parade around naked. I remember going swimming with them once and she insisted in using the ‘family’ changing room. When you’re 11 and a naked french 19yr old is within about 3ft of you its most certainly to be considered a formative experience.

(Tongue in cheek, she knew there was no way he’d risk everything on a 20 year old polish stunner any more than he would on anyone else.

yeah right, lol 🙂

OP, we had au-pairs for over 10 years. It was some time ago now (my kids are in their 20’s), we used to pay them £200 a month, full board and lodging obviously. Ours used to do most cleaning with some childcare, if you don’t have to do the housework then the childcare is more fun. Assuming you have the space for the au-pair to have a bedroom without compromising the family too much it can work very well. Also we wanted to get to know the girls before we let them have too much to do with the kids especially unsupervised. We had one girl who we fired after a few weeks as she was not trust worthy. We had another quit who said our kids where too loud/naughty (our view is she was homesick). Our last au-pair stayed with us 3 years and is now very happily married to someone she met here and has a family of her own.

EDIT: Our first Au-Pair was Swedish, we had Finnish (she was the one who quit), Norwegian, East German (the one we fired), a couple of French girls and the one who stayed 3 years was Slovakian. Officially I think au-pairs cannot stay that long but it didn’t seem to be an issue as they where in the EU. Also interestingly she had been fired by friends of ours who didn’t like her, we found her delightful.

So that’s how andyfla gets his new bikes!

Darling, can we have a young attractive Swedish au pair?

NO!

Can I have another bike then?

That seems more reasonable….

Mmmm, thanks everyone for the info so far. Very useful! I’d not thought of sick cover for example.

We may have run into a bit of an issue with au pairs in that to look after kids under 2 they have to have certain qualifications. Shame, because the Scandinavian twins were going to share the spare room which was going to be filled solely of pillows so they could have enjoyed endless pillow fights…

Anyway, I’m over thinking this again aren’t I?

they have to have certain qualifications

Is that new ? As per my post my wife wasn’t going out to work so the au-pair wasn’t the primary carer for the kids so your situation is different.

As an employer I believe you have to pay for holidays, sick and maternity etc. same as any other job. This can leave you in a bit of a hole with no child care and a wage bill. Not sure if this is the same with both Nanny and Au pair.

New regulations also mean having to provide a pension for the employee, as you are an employer.
http://www.independent.co.uk/money/pensions/get-ready-for-compulsory-pensions-7984624.html

Eventually micro-employers will have to enrol their staff into a pension scheme. The only group to be exempt from this pensions revolution will be the self employed: “A lot of people haven’t woken up yet to how many people are going to be impacted by this. If someone is an employee they will find themselves auto-enrolled but if they have, say, a full-time nanny at home, who is over the age of 22 and earns above £8,105 a year, they will have to act as the employer and auto enrol them into a scheme,”