How would you handle this? I took over a spot in an existing nanny share two days a week (it's really more like 2 half-days). The other child is a couple of months older than my LO and the nanny share is at their house. They have a pack n play for my LO and the nanny doesn't like to use white noise or a monitor (to be fair, it's not a large house). When we started a month or so ago I assumed that our LOs would be on the same schedule, but they're not. The other child naps at 9 and 1:30 and my LO has been taking a nap later in the morning and often not in the afternoon at all. One morning my LO slept in until 8 am so I asked the nanny if she could put her down later for a nap, but she didn't seem happy about it, because I think she worried that if my LO cried she would wake up the other child. I think my LO tends to fall asleep closer to 10:30 most mornings, so I would really prefer for her not to be rolling around in a PnP for an hour and a half, but I understand the nanny preferring them to be on the same schedule...it just seems like since I'm joining the existing share, that the schedule will just be the other child's (who is with the nanny 4-5 days a week vs my 2). What would you do in my situation? Should I talk to the other family? Should I just suck it up and accept the situation? How have naps been handled in your nanny share?
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This won't be much help because our nanny share is both LOs full time, but our nanny got both girls on the same schedule and we adjusted our weekend schedule to match the nanny's nap schedule.
The only time it was an issue was when my LO was ready to drop a nap and the other LO wasn't, the nanny wound up putting my LO down for her afternoon nap 30 min earlier than the other LO for a few weeks until both girls were back on the same schedule. -
@mrs.shinerbock: That makes sense. I wouldn't mind having her on the nanny's schedule if we were there more frequently, but that's not an option for us at the moment. I am thinking about asking her to put her down when the other kid wakes up, but I'm sure that would be annoying for her if she is used to having the down time. I can't tell if that's asking too much.
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We did a nanny share last year and had to adjust nap schedules.
The other girl dropped to one nap earlier than ours and there were a few weeks there that from 9-3:30 one kid was always sleeping. We pushed our daughter to drop her morning nap a bit earlier than she was ready but it worked out fine and I'm glad we did.
Having them on the same schedule meant they could do activities and not be stuck in the house the whole day. -
We are in a nanny share and the boys are on separate schedules for the morning nap and the same for the afternoon. The nanny has actually said this works really well for her because she has individual time with each child in the morning, then does a group activity (park, walk) + lunch, and then she puts them down at the same time in the afternoon. We've never (knock on wood) had an incident of either waking the other up. Our nanny share is for 3 days a week, so similar to you.
Eta: At the risk of sounding like a bitch, I wouldn't be okay with my nanny altering my son's schedule for the sake of her "down time." If it was for activities, etc (like OliviaOblivia mentioned), I would get it.
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@LBee: Hah, yeah, she has never said that to me...that's my own weird thinking
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We are in a nanny share (both kids full-time, though; our kids are 13 and 15 months, respectively) and the kids have pretty different and not-at-all overlapping nap schedules. Our nanny does individual naps based on what we tell her; in our case, DS is basically on a 2-3-4 schedule with 2 naps a day around 9 and 1. The other kid doesn't really have a nap schedule at all and fights/resists naps like crazy; she generally takes one nap around 12pm. We use white noise for DS and it helps get around worries that they'll wake each other up, but honestly it's not been a problem. Our nanny honestly doesn't get a ton of down time because the other kid in our share hates naps but we try to make things as easy on her as possible otherwise (and we know it's not necessarily our fault)! Anyway, if she's your employee and there are only two kids to worry about then no, it's not unreasonable to ask her to accommodate your LO's schedule.
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@jape14: Thanks! My LO is 12 months and the other LO is about 15 months, so similar spacing. Mine is the one with the crazy nap schedule (frustrating to me!). I guess I just have this feeling that since I'm coming into this existing share that I don't want to mess up what they already have going...but I know that's probably silly! I'll just talk to the nanny in the morning.
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We do a share and now they are finally on the same nap schedule. But they are 4 months different, so while my DS was on 1 nap, the other baby was on 2 naps/day. So it was hard for them to get out and about, but normally there was a little bit of time for outside activities. I would insist on the nanny keeping my DS's schedule steady
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