Nanny Sharing
Helps Working Mother

If you have experienced the frustration of trying to find suitable childcare when you want to go back to work after having children, advertising executive Sharon Goode’s experience will be all to familiar.

"As a first time mother to be, I found myself entering a completely different world," explains Sharon from London. "There seemed so much to learn. But I imagined finding full time child care to be one of the easier tasks to tackle. I was wrong. To my horror, I found it to be the single most challenging experience of the lot - including childbirth."

"Having immediately dismissed having the luxury of a nanny (there was no way our finances could stretch that far), I began optimistically enough by touring the local nurseries. It was only then that the enormity of the task dawned on me. Few and far between, the Nursery's fees were extortionate, the opening times weren't suitable or the places weren't there."

"I reached for the council list of registered childminders. Most of them weren't available on the dates I needed and countless unsuitable people later, it seemed as though the best childminders must have been booked up at conception! I was due back to work in three months, had exhausted all options and resigned myself to the fact that I would have to extend my maternity leave and pray for a miracle."

For many women that miracle just doesn't happen. Torn between the financial burden of children care, the need to find somewhere that they know their precious child will be happy and the demands of a job, many of them simply give up and leave the workforce.
Likewise, even women who don't work but a looking for a child care for just a few hours a week to give them a precious breathing space find it prohibitively difficult or expensive to fix up a flexible child care schedule. Then Sharon heard about the concept of ‘nanny sharing’ via a newspaper article. The article mentioned a website called Nannyshare.co.uk and she decided to give it a go.

"I placed my criteria on the site - but with little hope. And then it happened. An email came through saying there was a match. I read the details - there was a telephone number attached and I rang it. I spoke to a lady called Lesley who confirmed that she had virtually the same requirements. We arranged to meet up - a very relaxed meeting. We talked about our hopes for our childcare and discovered that through Nanny sharing together, not only could I obtain basic requirements that had been previously denied to me, but my wishes and dreams could also be fulfilled."
Sharon and Lesley began to work together on their joint childcare solution.

"We set about hiring a nanny, learnt a great deal about interviewing nannies through the process but finally, and in the nick of time, we found our perfect nanny.Things have been working out beautifully ever since. With busy lives, we all meet once a month specifically to keep us working on track together as a team."

Nannyshare is supported and promoted by a significant number of NHS Trusts across the country. You can visit their website at www.Nannyshare.co.uk.

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