North Florida Nesties
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
reality hits: daycare or nanny?
Which do you use? I think I would like to have a nanny because I work from home so I'm here all day, I just need some help during the day.
Re: reality hits: daycare or nanny?
My Ovulation Chart
oooooh, snap! Congratulations! 2 Pcola babies at once, yay! hehe I'm leaning toward nanny. I think at first I'll work partially at home, partially at the office and bring baby w/ me when I come to the office. But, after that, I'd like to hire my sister.
Ahhhh! Congrats again!!
I say Nanny, but I may be biased, since I am one.
Laner, if you don't mind, does your employer pay you directly and deduct taxes? or do you just figure the taxes yourself at the end of the year? I'm trying to figure out what would be easiest.
Yeah, I don't know if I'd pick nanny so quickly if it weren't my sister who'd be doing the nannying. haha You're basically giving someone free reign of your home and child. It's scary. But of course in your case, you'll be home. And, luckily, we have Laner for reference! I'm sure she has some good suggestions and recs.
Is that normal for your office?
Yes. I wonder if Laner will charge us a consultant's fee. lol
Congrats!
We will be using day care. I am not sure a nanny is in our price range but even if it was my DH doesn't get home from work until 2am - 3am so having a nanny and baby at the house would not work for him to get sleep in the morning.
No, there is no normal at my office. I'm the first....and only to ever have a baby here probably. The only other girl is a les. We have no policy at all for maternity leave, etc. So, I'm pretty much making my own rules. My boss said I'm welcome to bring the baby to work, and that we could set up the spare office for him/her so we could shut the door during "nap time." I said, "yeah, I already planned on doing that."
Most days, it's just me and 1 other person actually IN the office, so it shouldn't interrupt much. And, I definitely don't plan to do it forever, just maybe the first year.
ETA: I am probably reading too much in to my own statement, but I just wanted to clarify. I didn't mean to suggest that I don't think lesbians can or should have babies. But, the les here won't be. Her partner has 3, and they have no further interest.
That's great that your boss is being so amenable, but have you considered the feelings of your fellow co-workers?
ETA: I read that it's only 1 other person in the office, but it's still something you should consider. Having kids, dogs or whatever at home is one thing... But bringing them to work with you is an entirely different subject. While you may not realize it, its a distraction for you & everyone around you. Its rather presumptious to just assume its going to be okay with everyone.
I'm planning on just a "see what happens" approach. The other cw who's here with me is fine with it. (so she says now) But, I certainly won't be depending on it as a permanent solution. We're all pretty close here. If it becomes a problem, I'll know.
Congratulations!!!
We send baby to the daycare. It is about a mile from where I work. I felt at ease when I left him. I wish that I would be able to have a nanny. I would have had the perfect person for Trevor.
Congratulations!!
We have had both a nanny and sent B to daycare, so I can give you my experience. I absolutely HATED the idea of sending him to daycare, I couldn't imagine my itty-bitty baby thriving in that environment at all, I wanted him to have lots of one-on-one attention and care, so we hired a nanny when he was 8 weeks old and I went back to work. I think we just had really bad luck with the 2 we had.
The first was absolutely fabulous with Braden and we loved her. She had a little girl that was 2 months older that she brought to our house with her and she was just great with them. The only problem was that her daughter had Down Syndrome, so she had a lot of doctor/therapy appointments, so the nanny had to miss work, which meant I was missing work too (and still paying her). It only lasted 2 months because I was blowing through my sick and vacation time.
The second was a train wreck. I was very clear with her when I hired her what my expectations were - I didn't want my kid parked in front of the tv, I wanted her to interact with him while he was awake, do very light housekeeping (basically just keeping toys cleaned up and vacuuming) and then she could do whatever she wanted while he was sleeping. She would seriously come in, put him in his swing in front of a Baby Einstein DVD that she brought, then get on her laptop on MySpace or sleep. The way our house is set up, I could see everything they were doing in the living room from my office.. the fact that she was doing that in front of me had me really worried about what was happening when I wasn't there. Needless to say, she didn't last long either.
After that, we decided to tour daycare's and fell in love with one less than a mile from our house. The infant teachers are like little grandma's and they cuddle the babies all day and it's just such a loving environment. B is still at the same school and when we go by the infant room and they see us, they still come out and give him hugs and kisses, same with his other teachers there. We ran into his Younger Toddler teacher out shopping this weekend and he gave her a big hug and a high five, he loves them all so much and its clear that they love him as well. When we pick him up, he gives his teachers hugs and kisses, they tell him they love him.. it's just such a nice environment, not at all what I expected to get at a nationally known daycare center. I like that his teachers and the franchise owner (who is there every day) mostly live in our neighborhood, so we see them out and about a lot too.
Another big perk of the daycare situation is that we get a free week for every year we are there, and we know in advance when they will be closed (for holidays), so we can plan. We don't have to call in sick because our daycare provider is sick or has something going on. Since we both work full time, that was huge for us.
For #2, I'll be on maternity leave for 3 months, then we will have a nanny 'til she's 6 months old, then she'll be at the same school as Braden. We may reevaluate after my maternity leave and start her there sooner, but before B started solids, it was just easier for me to have him home with me (I work from home) because I could get him latched on, snuggle him into the boppy, then have both hands free to work.. it was a lot faster than dealing with the pump every 2-3 hours
Another thing to think about is cost - nannies are a good bit more expensive than daycare. Right now the cost for the infant room at B's school is $245/week. If you do decide to go the nanny route, I have a friend that used a service to find hers (she has 3 kids, so a nanny is actually cheaper for her!) and she loves it, I can ask her who she used if you like