Childcare trials and tribulations during COVID

I've spoken with a number of my colleagues and clients recently - several with new babies - who were asking me what we ended up doing with respect to childcare and COVID and I thought it might be helpful to walk through our logic, process, and approach in a post.

Without a doubt, the hardest part of COVID has been figuring out our new approach to childcare and dealing with the uncertainty of the ever evolving future outlook of what is going to happen with COVID. I've talked with many other working parents about how they are approaching this - and there have been as many different solutions as there are working parents.

For context, pre-COVID, our kids were in daycare and we normally have our kids in daycare from like 7:30-5:15ish. We really had a great experience with daycare. They have taught us about being parents (shout out to learning about Boudreaux's Butt Paste for diaper rash!) and have taught our children things that we didn't know they were ready for like using a spoon, sitting at table -- not to mention the singing, dancing, activities, and games that are part of the day to day at daycare. The other thing that we honestly have loved about daycare is the "outsourced" nature of it - we pay one fee, drop our kids off, and the rest isn't our problem. The staffing, sick days, training, discipline, structure, etc. etc. etc. - not our problem. My husband and I both have big teams and spend our days focused on managing and orchestrating people - and so in many ways, it has been a relief to have an element of our life where that hasn't been our problem.

In the beginning of March as COVID was taking shape, our dear friends who have children the same age as ours were texting with us and we reached out to one of the teachers at daycare to see if she would be willing to watch our children if daycare closed. At the time, it seemed crazy and an over-reaction. She kind of laughed at our friend, responding "uhhhhh sure". As things locked down, we consulted with our pediatrician, and she supported the approach - as long as we knew and committed that we were essentially quarantining together. It seemed to make sense to us as we were not sure how long daycare would be closed or if we would need to pay for daycare + additional childcare, and so this would let us split the additional expense - while allowing our children to spend time with their best pals -- and frankly us to spend time with our best pals in a crazy time. Not 10 days later, we started our "new normal". Seemingly super woman, our new nanny balanced four kids under 3 - two 10 month olds and two 2.5 year olds. It was great for us, and great for our kids - as they went from a very busy, very high interaction day to being stuck in our house more often. There were some challenges with it - especially, from my perspective the shorter day. She was used to working an 8 hour day and so only worked from 9-5 and losing an hour and a half in our work days was really tough.

All good things come to an end, and at the beginning of May, our daycare planned to conduct training for the daycare teachers on the "new normal" when they reopened and so we had to figure out our new childcare situation. Our daycare was planning to reopen with a slightly revised model - and explored a number of different options - every other day, every other week, different drop off times, etc.

We debated what to do and how to move forward. Our biggest concern with returning to daycare was the germ incubator aspect: while we truly loved our daycare, every daycare is essentially a germ incubator. What one child gets, every child gets. In the past 2 years, we've had many random illnessess: hand, foot, mouth disease, LOTS of ear infections, fifths disease, and did I mention ear infections? So, the challenge of COVID -- and the reality that if someone got COVID in the center that we would have to quarantine for 2 weeks - and that it likely would not be a one time thing was really concerning to us.

So, we made the hard decision to switch to a nanny.

We then subsequently had a pretty challenging nanny search with many nannies not being willing to pay taxes nor claim their full income. I started our nanny search with hour long "fit" conversations, testing out personalities, and ended the nanny search quite matter of fact: "We are willing to pay $X, we pay above the table, we will file taxes and issue a W-4, we need an I-9 form from you, do you have concerns with any of this?"

After 14 interviews, we found a nanny who had great experience, and signed her up. To make a long story short, after giving her the I-9 form (proof of legal residence in the US), she texted me at 5am on day 2 and said she could no longer work for us. Back to the drawing board.

With that being said, it was a blessing, because we ended up with the most wonderful woman who is a complete blessing to our family - our kids love her and we love her. She goes out of her way to make our days easier. We are incredibly lucky with how it worked out. As it turns out, we didn't find her through any service or website; but through our cleaning ladies. She didn't have nanny experience but is a grandmother of 2 and has 4 children. She speaks to our children in Spanish, which we love (though, I admit, I don't speak Spanish and one of my son's first words was Avion - airplane -, which cracks me up).

Since June, we've had a nanny and at the beginning of this month, Charlie started pre-school. Unlike other daycare transitions, this one has gone great. 

We are actually in a great routine as a family and I think I will be sad when we all return to "normal". I've loved having the kids nearby and having less "wasted" time (travel, commutes, etc.). Instead of commuting / getting ready for an hour in the morning, Johnny and I walk almost every morning (shout out to the Thule double stroller as a side note) for an hour. It's MUCH easier to make dinner at the end of the day because we are already home. I get hugs and kisses during the day when my kids pop into my office.

Some things I learned in the process...

For the Nanny:

• Be direct and to the point
• Document, document, document. I included print-outs of the target activities for the nanny and would discuss line by line. Important things to include were driving needs and housework. We needed driving to and from daycare. We also ask our nanny to prepare meals for our children, unload / reload the dishwasher, and help with laundry. These things - the dishes and laundry make a HUGE difference for us, especially as Johnny and I often have to work post kid bedtime
• We use HomePay to pay our nanny and administer taxes - etc. Definitely recommend this - I also use it for my elderly parents' caregivers. HomePay was very helpful as it has draft contracts per state and helps you administer overtime, tc.
• We looked for nannies through DC Urban Mom's and Craigslist - but ultimately didn't have any luck and found our nanny through our cleaning ladies. Use your network - several other Mom's with nannies were very helpful in sharing their contracts, pay structure, etc.

For the Kids 

• Try to have a dedicated space for the kids & nanny during the day that is not where you are working
• Order some extra crafts and a table that you don't mind getting glue / paint / marker on. We ordered a ton from Amazon which was really easy and love dot paint, stickers, and play doh

For You

• Exercise is key!!!!!! It has made me feel so much better.
• Have a door with a lock - my kids have been breaking into my office during calls, which is sometimes cute and sometimes challenging