Nanny services (merged)

[rage2]

Originally posted by nzwasp
I guess cooking and cleaning is expected when its done for the kid but I wouldnt expect my nanny to cook my dinner every night and clean the whole house I think that would be setting unrealistic expectations.

Every nanny we've interviewed brought up cleaning, laundry, and making dinner as part of their job responsibilities. We've never brought it up, and was blown away.

[you&me]

Originally posted by rage2

Every nanny we've interviewed brought up cleaning, laundry, and making dinner as part of their job responsibilities. We've never brought it up, and was blown away.

Was this for live-in?

That level of expected responsibilities would be exactly what we'd want...

[rage2]

Originally posted by you&me
Was this for live-in?

That level of expected responsibilities would be exactly what we'd want...

For both live in or part time.

[SilverGS]

Originally posted by nzwasp


Well i agree its more flexible but I dont think babysitting would be ontop of the agreed monthly wage where its typically 40 hours a week. We pay a friends nanny to look after our kid and its $15 an hour for that.

I guess cooking and cleaning is expected when its done for the kid but I wouldnt expect my nanny to cook my dinner every night and clean the whole house I think that would be setting unrealistic expectations. There was a show on cbc that said some nannys were expected to clean out the garage and mow the lawn for their employers.

And while I dont have a nanny at the moment, as soon as baby 3 is on the way im looking into it. I'd rather pay $2500 a month for a live out or 2k for a live in than pay 3k plus for daycare.

Yes the babysitting would be extra at your agreed rate but they are basically available all the time at a moments notice which is quite nice. Most don't go out at night since many don't drive or have cars and transit is not great so they basically just stay in their rooms in the evening.

The ones coming from over seas all expect to cook and clean for the household. Depending on the age of the kids they are watching they definitely still have time to do some of the household chores. Most of the ones I know of do all of it.

[78si]

Originally posted by ExtraSlow


I let my nanny drive our car, and I had people tell me that was a big risk. Bit honestly, if I'll let her spend 45 hours a week with my kids unsupervised, the chance of her stealing a $30k vehicle which i have full insurance on is minor.

Did you look into the insurance end of this? We live on an acreage and would need our "future" nanny to drive our kids to preschool and kindergarten.
I'm guessing it would be like adding a new "teenager" driver to your policy.

[nzwasp]

We are now thinking of getting a nanny vs putting our 2nd kid into daycare with the older kid. Reason being is that Daycare and Nanny will end up being about the same price for the next 18 months. However Im torn because then my wife would want to put our oldest into preschool for 2 days a week costing an additional $300 a month.

Also our youngest child has some physical special needs and we feel like she wouldnt get as much support in a small classroom with 11 other kids between 12months and 18 months.

The only issue I really have is what if one of us loses our jobs, did any of you guys / girls pull your kids out of daycare/nanny once you got laid off?

[Strider]

Bump.

Any more experiences with daycares and nannies?

I've just started looking into daycares and the prices for Kids and Company seem to have gone up pretty significantly over the years that this thread spans. Now looking at just shy of $2000/month when we start daycare at around the time that baby turns 1.

That seems to be about the going rate for a live-in nanny ($1800-$2200/month), and the idea of coming home to a clean house and cooked dinner is quite compelling.

I've also found some less expensive daycares on the outskirts of the downtown core (~$1200), but I'm quite leery of daycares where the main contact uses @shaw or @hotmail email addresses.

[ExtraSlow]

Check out Churchill park, they run several daycares around town, they manage a some dayhomes and they run at least two school-age care centres for before and after care, which trust me, is insanely hard to find. They are well organized and well managed.

As for the price of Kids and Co, many companies sponsor employees children to go there, so if you aren't in that situation, you are kind of paying double. I don't think their high prices are in indication of higher quality.

[Strider]

Originally posted by ExtraSlow
Check out Churchill park, they run several daycares around town, they manage a some dayhomes and they run at least two school-age care centres for before and after care, which trust me, is insanely hard to find. They are well organized and well managed.

As for the price of Kids and Co, many companies sponsor employees children to go there, so if you aren't in that situation, you are kind of paying double. I don't think their high prices are in indication of higher quality.

Thanks, looks like a good alternative. The two Churchill Park options for an infant are in Hillhurst (age 0-2) and the Penn West building, but iirc the Penn West daycare pricing is pretty much in line with Kids and Company.

Haven't done enough investigation into dayhomes to form a solid opinion on them. My initial thought is that it'd be looking for a diamond in the rough - maybe someone can educate me.

[ExtraSlow]

For Dayhomes, you are basically looking at ones who are "accredited" and ones who are not. accredited day homes have standards to adhere to that are similar to those in any kids and co or churchill park location.

Also, one of the reasons for the very high price for infants is the really low ratio. You can probably imagine that one caregiver can't deal with very many 11 month olds.
I don't remember the ratios permitted, but it's much lower as they get older, and price generally drops accordingly.

[nzwasp]

What do people pay their nannies these days?

Since becoming fly in fly out at work we are thinking about getting a nanny again which sucks because I don't really want to pay more than $2100 (what daycare currently costs) but at the same time my wife wants the convenience since dropping off two kids, then working 8.75 hours and picking up is really tedious.

We also have no basement so therefore no way to store a nanny downstairs.

This decision would be alot easier if the fly in/fly out job paid me uplift which it does not - theres no financial benefit to being up there.

[ExtraSlow]

I think you'll be looking at minimum wage for the first 40 hours, and overtime for the rest.

Also, live-out nannies with a drivers license, speak decent english and reliable transportation are STILL a hot commodity. Hope you live near the train line . . .

[G]

Originally posted by nzwasp
What do people pay their nannies these days?

Since becoming fly in fly out at work we are thinking about getting a nanny again which sucks because I don't really want to pay more than $2100 (what daycare currently costs) but at the same time my wife wants the convenience since dropping off two kids, then working 8.75 hours and picking up is really tedious.

We also have no basement so therefore no way to store a nanny downstairs.

This decision would be alot easier if the fly in/fly out job paid me uplift which it does not - theres no financial benefit to being up there.

I would really redo the math here. With no financial benefit to be up north plus an additional $2100 for a nanny you might as well just find a part time job in Calgary and drive the kids around yourself.

[nzwasp]

Due to the nature of my work I am required to fly in fly out for work on occasion depending on project - 75% of the time I am based in Calgary. We are supposed to get a 20% extra on our rate but our employer has not passed it along to us yet. Although they said it would be backpaid when it is.

A nanny wont be 2100 she will be more like 2500

Originally posted by ExtraSlow
I think you'll be looking at minimum wage for the first 40 hours, and overtime for the rest.

Also, live-out nannies with a drivers license, speak decent english and reliable transportation are STILL a hot commodity. Hope you live near the train line . . .

somewhat - we are in aspen area however we would need one that can drive to take the kids to activities etc.

[Buster]

We pay our nanny $3500 per month.

3 kids.

[nzwasp]

So we have a part time nanny who works my shifts while I'm at site but she is absolutely useless. For example we set hours of work from 4pm to 7pm every day im away. She gets to our house at 3 or even 2.30 some days then leaves to pick up the kids at 3.30pm they are a 10min drive away she gets back at 5.30.

When she does get home she just sticks the tv on and then attempts to heat up dinner. She can't follow instructions most of the time so she doesn't cook from scratch I cook on my offshift days and she hears it up. And also we have cameras inside and outside our house and she still acts like this. That and can't speak much English (speaks Spanish)

So now we are going to a full time nanny and pulling the kids both out of day care since our oldest starts school this year anyway.

[Epididymitis]

3500 eh? I'll watch your kids for a small price oooof, leave me a 24 in the fridge.

[nzwasp]

So we hired a Nanny and I found out that I have to pay her as a domestic worker - we are going to pay her $15 an hour plus holiday pay i think (4%) however how do i remit all the employer contributions to EI, CPP and Taxes on behalf of her. I did do this when I was incorporated but I have no idea how it happens outside of that. I signed up for a business number from CRA to have a domestic worker last week. And I know i can use the payroll calculator to find out what to pay her what to remit back etc. I just dont know what to do with all those remittals.

[SQ2]

You could contact someone like Ceridian or ADP. They can set up a nanny payroll for you and they'll take care of the remitting. There's a cost, of course, but it's not too bad.

[ExtraSlow]

You don't need ADP or anyone to do it for you, it's not hard. My wife took care of ours, but I think the folks at service canada can help you with this.