We Used to Offer Nanny Shares. Here’s Why We Stopped.

A nanny share is supposed to save families money—not make a professional nanny cheaper.

For years, Tried and True – Nannies & Sitters offered nanny-share placements. Every so often, I still get a call from a family who remembers them and asks, “Didn’t you guys used to have a nanny-share package? What happened to it?” Yes, we did. And eventually, we stopped offering it.

We didn’t stop because nanny shares are inherently bad. When they’re structured correctly, a nanny share can be an incredible childcare arrangement. Families can receive professional, personalized in-home care at a lower individual cost, children can benefit from built-in socialization, and the nanny can earn a higher rate for taking on the additional responsibility of working with two households. When it’s done correctly, everybody benefits.

Unfortunately, that’s not always what I was seeing. Too often, families approached nanny shares as an opportunity to get a professional nanny as cheaply as possible. I was hearing feedback from nannies who felt undervalued, underpaid, and overwhelmed by arrangements where the workload increased significantly but their compensation didn’t. As an agency owner, I had to listen to them. If I don’t listen to my nannies and take their feedback seriously, eventually I won’t have a team of professional nannies who trust my agency enough to accept our placements.

My responsibility isn’t simply to fill positions. It’s to create placements that are sustainable for the families and fair to the professional accepting the job. Nanny shares became some of the most difficult placements for us to make successfully, and there are several reasons why.

What Is a Nanny Share?

A nanny share typically involves two families employing the same nanny, with the nanny caring for children from both families at the same time. The arrangement can look different depending on the families. Care may always take place at one family’s home, alternate between homes, or follow another arrangement everyone agrees upon.

The appeal for parents is understandable. You receive many of the benefits of professional, in-home childcare without individually paying the entire cost of employing a nanny. But there is one enormous misconception that families need to understand: a nanny share does not mean taking a nanny’s normal hourly rate and dividing it in half.

If a professional nanny normally charges $30 an hour, two families do not simply get together and say, “Great, we’ll each pay $15.” That’s not how a properly compensated nanny share works. Industry guidance commonly uses approximately two-thirds to three-quarters of the nanny’s regular one-family rate per family during the hours when both families are receiving care.

Using that $30/hour nanny as an example, each family might contribute approximately $20–$22.50 per hour during shared-care hours. That gives the nanny a combined rate of approximately $40–$45 per hour. Each family is still paying considerably less than the $30 per hour it would cost to employ that nanny independently, while the nanny earns more because she’s doing more.

You’re sharing the cost of a nanny. Your nanny is not giving you a 50% discount on her labor.

Why Should the Nanny Make More?

This is where I think some families lose sight of what they’re actually asking someone to do. Instead of working for one household, your nanny is now working with two. Instead of communicating with one set of parents, she’s communicating with two. She’s balancing two sets of expectations, two parenting styles, two schedules, two sets of boundaries, and potentially children at completely different ages and developmental stages.

There may be different feeding schedules, nap schedules, allergies, dietary restrictions, discipline philosophies, activity schedules, and developmental needs. The nanny may also be dealing with two sets of bottles, diaper bags, car seats, supplies, calendars, grandparents, work-from-home parents, and last-minute schedule changes. That’s before we even talk about the actual work of simultaneously caring for multiple children.

A nanny share can save each family money precisely because two households are contributing toward the nanny’s compensation. The nanny should benefit from that arrangement too. The goal isn’t for two families to figure out the lowest amount they can possibly pay. The goal is to create an arrangement where each family saves money compared with employing the nanny individually while the nanny receives increased compensation for the increased workload and complexity.

“But We’re Doing a Nanny Share Because We Want to Save Money.”

That’s completely understandable. Saving money is one of the primary reasons families choose nanny shares. But saving money and underpaying your employee are two completely different things.

Let’s go back to our $30/hour nanny. If each family pays $20/hour during shared-care hours, each family is saving $10 every hour compared with independently employing that same nanny. Over a 40-hour week, that’s a substantial savings for each household. Meanwhile, the nanny earns $40/hour because she’s accepting the responsibility and complexity of caring for children from two separate households.

That’s how the arrangement should work: Family A saves money, Family B saves money, and the nanny earns more.

What shouldn’t happen is Family A saves money, Family B saves money, and the nanny is expected to absorb the difference.

Different Schedules Make Nanny Shares Even More Complicated

One of the reasons nanny-share placements can require significantly more work from an agency is that real life rarely looks like two families needing the exact same schedule every single week.

Maybe Family A needs care from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., while Family B needs 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Maybe Family A needs five days a week while Family B only needs four. Maybe one family goes on vacation while the other still needs care. Maybe one parent gets off work early. Maybe grandparents come into town. Maybe one child is sick and can’t participate in the share.

All of these situations need to be discussed before the nanny’s first day, not after the first disagreement.

If the nanny works exclusively for Family A from 7:30–8:30 and then both families from 8:30–4:30, the compensation structure needs to clearly address the individual-care hours and shared-care hours. The same is true at the end of the day if one family’s children leave earlier than the other’s. Everyone needs to know exactly who is responsible for paying what and when.

This is why nanny shares aren’t necessarily easier placements simply because two families are splitting the expense. In many cases, they’re substantially more complicated.

Guaranteed Hours Still Matter

This is another area where nanny shares can go wrong quickly. Family A decides to take a weeklong vacation while Family B still needs care. Family A then says, “Well, we’re not using the nanny this week, so we’re not paying our portion.”

That creates an immediate problem for the nanny, who reserved those regularly scheduled hours for both families. Your vacation shouldn’t unexpectedly reduce your nanny’s paycheck. The same principle applies when grandparents visit, a parent unexpectedly gets the day off, a family decides to keep their child home, or another situation means one household doesn’t need the nanny during its normally scheduled hours.

This is exactly why guaranteed hours should be addressed clearly in the nanny-share agreement. Your nanny has rent, groceries, insurance, transportation costs, and bills just like everyone else. She cannot tell her landlord, “Family B went to Disney this week, so I’m going to be a little short on rent.”

A nanny share doesn’t eliminate the responsibility of providing stable employment.

Both Families Are Employers

Another misconception is that one family employs the nanny while the other family simply sends over its half of the money. That’s generally not how a properly structured nanny share works. Each household is typically its own household employer and is responsible for its respective employment obligations.

This should be treated as professional employment, not an informal arrangement where someone Venmos the nanny every Friday and everybody hopes for the best. Families considering a nanny share should understand their payroll, tax, overtime, recordkeeping, and other legal obligations before the arrangement begins and consult an appropriate household-employment professional when necessary.

The financial arrangement should also be completely transparent to the nanny. She shouldn’t have to chase Family A for one portion of her paycheck and Family B for another. She shouldn’t have to wonder whether she’ll receive her full compensation because the two families haven’t worked something out between themselves.

Your nanny should never become the collections department for your nanny share.

You’re Not Just Matching a Nanny With a Family Anymore

This is one of the biggest reasons nanny shares can be so difficult for an agency to place successfully. With a traditional placement, we’re primarily trying to determine whether one nanny and one family are compatible. With a nanny share, we’re trying to find compatibility between the nanny, Family A, and Family B. But we’re also trying to determine whether Family A and Family B are compatible with each other.

The families need to agree on major issues before bringing a nanny into the equation. What are the expectations around discipline? Screen time? Food? Nap schedules? Illness? Driving? Activities? Work-from-home parents? Pets? Hosting? What happens when one child gets sick? Which illnesses exclude a child from participating in the share? What happens when one family travels? What if one family wants to leave the share entirely?

There are also practical questions. Which home will host? Will hosting alternate? Who purchases shared supplies? Who provides equipment? What happens if something gets damaged? Who communicates schedule changes? What happens when one family wants the nanny to do something the other family doesn’t agree with?

And perhaps most importantly, what happens when both families believe they’re the nanny’s boss and their preferences should take priority?

These aren’t tiny details. They’re often the difference between a nanny share that lasts for years and one that falls apart within a few months.

This Is Why Tried and True Stopped Offering Nanny-Share Placements

Eventually, I had to make a decision based on what I was hearing from the professionals actually working these jobs. These placements were becoming incredibly difficult to structure and fill properly, and I wasn’t willing to continue putting my nannies into situations where the primary objective was finding the cheapest possible childcare.

I listened when nannies told me the compensation wasn’t matching the workload. I listened when they told me managing two households could become exhausting. I listened when placements became unnecessarily difficult because expectations between the families hadn’t been established beforehand. And I listened when experienced, qualified nannies simply stopped wanting these positions.

An agency cannot claim to advocate for professional nannies and then ignore those professionals when they tell us something isn’t working.

That’s ultimately why we discontinued our nanny-share package. Could we ever offer it again? Possibly. But I would only feel comfortable doing so with very clear standards surrounding compensation, guaranteed hours, contracts, payroll, expectations, communication, and boundaries.

Because affordability for the families cannot come at the expense of fair employment for the nanny.

Nanny Shares Aren’t Bad. Bad Nanny Shares Are.

I actually think a properly structured nanny share can be wonderful. Children receive individualized professional care in a home environment while having regular social interaction. Families receive many of the benefits of having a professional nanny while spending less individually than they would if they hired separately. And the nanny earns a higher overall rate because she’s accepting additional responsibility.

That’s the arrangement. That’s how everyone wins.

What I don’t support is taking a nanny who normally earns $30/hour and deciding that because two families are involved, she’s suddenly worth $15 from each household. What I don’t support is two families receiving the financial benefit of sharing childcare while expecting the nanny to take on significantly more work without benefiting financially herself. And I absolutely don’t support professional nannies having to chase two separate families to receive wages they’ve already earned.

If the only way a nanny share fits your budget is by underpaying the nanny, then you cannot afford a nanny share.

Professional nannies aren’t a service you bargain down until the numbers fit your budget. They’re professionals providing an incredibly valuable service to your family, and whether they’re working for one household or two, they deserve to be treated and compensated accordingly.

Before looking for a nanny share, both families should sit down together and establish the schedule, shared-care rate, individual-care rate, guaranteed hours, overtime, PTO, holidays, sick-child policies, hosting arrangements, transportation expectations, duties, payroll, taxes, communication expectations, and what happens if either family decides to leave the share.

Figure out the relationship between the two families before asking a nanny to step into the middle of it.

Your nanny’s job is to care for your children. Her job should never be mediating an employment arrangement that the adults failed to work out beforehand.