Hi there! So I’m currently hiring a nanny and i was just curious what everyone’s opinion is on the pay raise for a nanny when adding more children to the family. Specifically, we are adding twins to our family in August. We have 3 children and are planning to pay her $22 an hour 30-35 hours a week when she has all 3. Shortly after the twins arrive my son will start preschool part time and my oldest daughter will start first grade. She has said she is happy to continue after our additions join us (as we didn’t know we would be having twins when we originally found her) but we just don’t know how much to raise her pay for when she has 4-5 of them at once or even if she should be paid more when she has the 3 youngest since there will be 2 babies. Our oldest daughter is very self Sufficient and helps with the younger ones and we have generally calm easy kids although we don’t know the twins yet and twins are a handful on their own haha. any advice would be great! while im on here i also want to ask, when you hired a nanny do you typically write out a detailed guide for them on who your kids are, what they like, what their personal rules are etc.? or do you just tell them and have them pick up on the job? my husband thinks im crazy but i just think its making the transition as easy as possible. TYIA for your views!
I would bump her up to 24.
as a former nanny, I would say adding infant twins definitely warrants a raise even with older kiddos being in school, especially if she’s part of the transportation plan! also, a brief guide is definitely helpful, but so much of kid behavior is contextual that i wouldn’t worry about putting their life stories on paper. a few bullet points of likes, dislikes, where they are for developmental stages (ie [name_u]Jack[/name_u] is fully potty-trained but needs reminders to wash hands; [name_f]Lily[/name_f] is still learning to drink from an open cup so serve small amounts), and any house rules (particularly for discipline/rewards; I worked for a family where the kids could earn a treat for completing a certain number of chores, but the number and difficulty of the chores depended on their age). That being said, the first few weeks will be a lot of back and forth as you guys get to know each other!
though i’m not a nanny, i’d say maybe raise her pay to $25-30 an hour. it would be an extra dollar for each child plus another dollar for the children being babies. let’s say currently she’s working 33 hours a week 52 weeks a year she would be earning about $37,750 a year and if you raised her to $25 an hour, she’d be earning about $42,900 a year (around 5k more than now). of course i don’t know your current situation though so make whatever choice is best for you!
Thank you for this! yes that what i was writing up just a brief little bullet point with their info like full names and ages in case of emergencies and some of their quirks and rules! nice to know im not crazy and i was thinking the same about the pay raise even without the bigs bc twins are a lot lol i wish i could have a pay raise. again thank you for your input
That makes a lot of sense thank you!
absolutely! feel free to ask any other questions about bringing a nanny into the home- i obviously can’t speak for all nannies but i can answer from my experience and that of friends in the biz!
Former nanny of ~10 years here, the rate really depends on her responsibilities. Typically I add 25%-50% for each additional kid. So if my starting rate was $10, it would then be about $13-15 for two kids, $15-20 for three kids, etc. But with that said, twin newborns are a lot of work. It’s not the same as adding toddlers or older children. So I would definitely stick closer to the 50% end. But like I said, it really depends a lot on how much she’s expected to do. [name_u]Will[/name_u] a parent be home and she’ll just be helping out, or will all of the care fall on her? [name_u]Will[/name_u] she be working with your family right from the beginning when the babies are only a few days old, or are you taking a parental leave and she won’t be starting until they’re a little older? [name_u]Will[/name_u] she be responsible for transporting the older kids to and/or from school? What percentage of the time she’s there will be 4 or 5 kids versus only the youngest 3? Etc.
The previous suggestions of only adding $1-2 is definitely not enough in my opinion (if it were me, I would quit that job honestly if someone only wanted to offer me $2 for newborn twins).
Oh, dear! I’m a professional childcare provider; teacher in a educational childcare center. I can have four infants to myself or eleven two year olds to myself, and I’ll get paid the same twelve dollars an hour regardless. 
I definitely think teachers are underpaid, so I’m not using this to say she shouldn’t get paid more (she should; her workload is getting added to, so her paycheck should too) but this post made me seriously consider becoming a nanny…
I’d be comfortable with a raise to $24/hr. But I may be biased, I’d be pretty darn ecstatic over $22/hr for such a small amount of kiddos. I also personally find infants fairly easy, as far as kids go. Some of my coworkers strongly disagree, it depends on the provider.
have you asked the nanny what she wants? just because she said she’d be happy to continue with the twins doesn’t mean she’s happy to continue on the same pay. i’d also take into consideration other factors like cost of living in your area - in some places, $22 an hour is enough that you can live comfortably, but in others it’s barely enough to get by. all that said, i’d recommend at least $30 an hour after the twins are born, preferably more.