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We are in BK and have a nanny share. Each family pays $9 an hour, so our nanny makes $18 an hour for two children (ages almost 1 and almost 15 months) and works from 8 to 6 p.m.

We do all federal/state holidays but we've discussed 2 weeks vacation, and she gets some personal days and sick days. We're pretty lax in that we haven't discussed an exact amount of sick days but our nanny is basically salaried.

My DH is a teacher and I think you still need to offer vacation time even though you are a teacher and get a lot of holidays off.

@regberadaisy: Ha! Well DH is a teacher and one of the other parents works for the federal gov't. so they get a lot of holidays.

@Anagram: I also think you still need to offer vacation time. The reason for this is that your nanny may want to take a vacation during a time when you are not off. I don't think nanny's vacation should be dictated by yours.

We were originally in a nanny share and cost was $20 per hour, so $10 per family. I am still using that nanny but not sharing anymore. My DH is also a teacher and I am a govt employee so I have a lot of time off. Sometimes I give the nanny those days off, but sometimes she works and DH and I take the opportunity to go on lunch dates etc.

For example, over Easter, I gave her Good Friday and Easter Monday off, but she worked the rest of that spring break. You don't have to give her all your breaks off, or you can discuss working her 2 weeks vacation into that timeframe. Totally depends on the nanny.

I would say that if you can swing it offer one week of her choice and one week of your choice that are both paid. Depending on how you work this out you might be able to call it two weeks pto and have sick time come out of this (my husband's company and many others have similar policies.) It would probably be kind though to pay her if she wound up with a stomach bug directly from your lo.

When I was interviewing in that area people offered all sorts of interesting solutions to pto and benefits. One thing that wasn't uncommon would be to tell your nanny up front that you won't need her on the following days that year and because of the advance notice it will be unpaid. You can offer her make up hours or let her know you would be happy to pass her name on to other parents if she wants to pick up hours those days.
There were times I would not have gone for that scenario but right now I would love it. I vote you offer a good salary and be up front about the extra time off. If that didn't work it becomes a negotiation point.

One other option is imagine you need her for forty hours a well. Offer a guarantee of 35 per week averaged over a month so she knows she can budget on that number but can expect to make more most months.

I mostly interviewed in West Chester and Connecticut (ultimately landed in Philly), most jobs ran around $25/ hour as a live in working through an agency.

We do a share and pay $19/hour for two babies (in Brooklyn). I think this is on the higher end but she came highly recommended and has lots of experience. We give the nanny off seven (I think?) national holidays that we have off, plus 2 weeks vacation (1 of our choosing, 1 of hers). And she basically makes a salary - even though technically she's paid hourly, we pay her the same each week whether there's a holiday or vacation or whatever.

One thing to think about is whether your daycare would close at all. The one we looked at had a 2-week "summer vacation" so we'd be out of luck then in August anyway! Though that may not matter since you're a teacher.

For our nanny, we didn't specify a set number of sick days. We don't want her coming in if she thinks she's too sick to work. The nanny we found is amaaazing and we trust her so much that we didn't feel we needed to restrict it. My office actually does this too, because they found that when they gave a set number (like 5), people felt like they deserved to take all of them even if they weren't sick, and people actually take less now with no restrictions.