What do you do when your nanny quits unexpectedly or that they did something and you really need to replace them because you can’t trust them anymore. I’ve been dealing with one of these situations and it’s been SOOO stressful. I can barely bill 8 hours and feel like I’m dying/drowning between interviewing new nannies, figuring out how to deal with current one (take over a lot of the tasks myself etc.), fear for new nanny to not work out either, fear my baby will be sad, and 100 other things ahh

Does your firm have Bright Horizons or nanny agency benefits? I’m a single mom, so I’d do that and get on a daycare waitlist.

Deep breaths first. One thing at a time. It’s all going to be okay. Can your spouse, or significant other, or the father of your child help with the baby? How about family in the area?

I would just do daycare.

I personally like and trust daycare facilities more because they have to comply with laws and regulations. We go to one that every parent I’ve talked to loves. And my kids have so many friends. For my oldest’s first day of kindergarten, she walked in with her two besties and was probably significantly less stressed than she would have been if she didn’t have that tight knit daycare group going in. My son will be the same, he’s 4 and already has 3 friends that will start school with him. But it’s always hard to trust anyone with your infant!

I have had both my kids in daycare and aside from winter sick season 🙃 I feel 100% it has been smoother than our friends who used nannies. If one teacher is sick, there is a whole system in place so I'm not stuck in your situation and dependent on 1 person all the time.

I ran into this last January. Do you have a HS/college age family members nearby to help with baby in the interim? Retired family member? Regarding school age family member help, it is just about summer so that can help some with the burden.

Do you have any local Listservs you can add yourself to and request nanny referrals? That’s how we ended up finding ours.

I also second the emergency nanny service. A lot of biglaw firms have access to one. Reach out to your benefits coordinator to ask. Alternatively, reach out to local nanny agencies to see if they have something similar or can help you with nanny placement. Having your little one with a stranger a week or so in a row can be tough but that stranger could become your new nanny.

I am on the opposite end of the spectrum regarding daycare. I find most of them to be lacking in one way or another … whether it’s quality of staff, quality of the facility, or general cleanliness. Not to mention adding an additional leg to your already long day with a commute.

I can’t have my LO sick on and off for a full year, there’s no way I could keep up with my job.

Can your partner help with the interview process or help with taking on the baby related tasks?
Here with you in solidarity!! You’ve got this :)

For context I’m a mid associate in biglaw…I’m keeping up with my matters barely but also feel like I’m not as focused and dropping balls or that I could be doing better. I don’t even know. I had to turn down some work recently (after things started picking up) because of all this (happening for he last 3 weeks but hopefully resolving soon) even though my hours are low from previous few months due to everyone being slow and just coming back from mat leave a few months ago. Now I just think I’m going to get fired. Anyways I’m just super worried about these type of stuff now.

I was in law school and my nanny did a no call no show (and never showed up again) the morning of my first final. My husband was training in another state and I had no family around to swing by. I ended up using an emergency nanny service, but that meant my son was with a different stranger every day for 2 weeks.

I say all this to say I completely understand. Once my son turned 1 1/2 we put him in daycare because it was more reliable. Then he ended up getting sick a lot from daycare the first year he was there.

With that said, from birth - age 3, I wasn’t my best professional self and it felt like I was running a circus. Now that he’s older, I can lean in more and life is a little more manageable.

Thanks for all the suggestions! I also wanted to know how much you’d think to share with people at work? Like at least so if you did something not as good they’d understand? But I’m also scared I’d be staff on things less etc. even though I think it’s more short term thing than long term issues but how to walk this fine line?

We decided to go with a nanny service for this reason and it’s been great. When our usual nanny needs time off or if we need to switch nannies (we have had a few college girls who only needed work for 4-5 months in between semesters), the service handles all of the details and will send a sub. They also handle payroll and taxes so we don’t have to worry about it. We have never been without care when we needed it! And we don’t have to worry about our daughter getting sick at daycare!