How Does a Nanny Share Work? Cost, Hours and Ground Rules
Quick version: two families hire one nanny together. She is paid more per hour than either family would pay on its own, and each family still pays less than a solo nanny costs. Both families are separate employers for their own share of her wages. The hard part is not the nanny, it is finding the second family and agreeing the terms before you start.
How does a nanny share work in practice? Two families with children close in age hire one nanny, she cares for both sets of children at the same time in one home, and the two families split her rate. That is the whole idea. Everything that goes wrong in a share goes wrong in the details underneath it.
I have worked in shares and I have watched families set them up well and badly. Here is what the money actually looks like, how families find each other, and the terms I would not start without.
What each family actually pays
The nanny gets a raise and both families get a discount. That sounds like it cannot be true, and it is the reason shares exist. She is caring for two children instead of one, so her hourly rate goes up. Split two ways, each family still pays well under what a solo nanny would cost them.
These are the ranges I see in this area right now. Rates move, so treat them as a starting point rather than a quote.
| Arrangement | What the nanny is paid per hour | What each family pays per hour |
|---|---|---|
| One family, one nanny | $25 to $35 | $25 to $35 |
| Two families sharing one nanny | $32 to $45 | $16 to $23 |
| Two families, one nanny, three children | $38 to $50 | $19 to $25 |
On top of the hourly rate, both families still owe employer taxes on their own portion, and both still owe paid time off and overtime. A share reduces the rate you pay. It does not remove the paperwork that comes with employing someone.
If a full share still costs more than you want to spend, the other route is a part time nanny for two or three set days rather than a full week. Plenty of families start there and move to a share when they find the right second family.
Finding the other family
This is the part that takes the longest. You need a family whose child is close in age to yours, whose hours line up with yours, and who lives close enough that the second drop-off is not a second commute.
Distance matters more than people expect. Two homes that are ten minutes apart on a map can be forty minutes apart at 8:15 on a Tuesday. Almost every share I have seen last a full year was inside one neighborhood.
Where you look is where you will match. A search for washington dc nannies and a search for fairfax nannies turn up different candidates and different families, and that is correct. A share only holds together if both homes sit on the same side of the river and the same side of the morning traffic.
The places families actually find each other are ordinary: preschool waitlists, the neighborhood parents group, your own apartment building, the pediatrician's waiting room, and agencies that keep a list of families looking to share. Say out loud that you are open to a share. Most matches happen because somebody mentioned it.
Whose house it runs at
Pick one home as the main home, or agree to alternate on a set schedule. Both work. Deciding week to week does not, because it turns into a negotiation every Sunday night.
The host house takes on more than it looks. Its floors get the wear, its groceries get eaten, its parking gets used, and its living room stops being a living room. Some families rotate monthly to even that out. Others keep one house and have the other family cover a slightly larger share of the rate. Either is fine if it is agreed up front.
Whichever you choose, both children need their own gear at the host house. Two safe sleep spaces, two high chairs, two sets of diapers and wipes, duplicates of anything both children use at the same time. Families underestimate this and then spend the first month buying things twice.
How the hours and the pay get split
Agree one rate for the whole share, then decide the split. An even split is simplest. If one family only needs three of the five days, the split is not even and the agreement has to say exactly how it works out.
Both families are employers. This is the piece people miss. In a share, each family is a separate household employer for its own portion of the wages, so each family runs its own paperwork and issues its own W-2. It is not one family paying her and the other reimbursing them in cash, and setting it up that way causes real problems if she ever files for unemployment.
Guaranteed hours still apply to both halves. If your family goes away for a week, the nanny is still paid your share for that week. Write that down, because it is the term most shares miss and the one that ends them badly.
Overtime is calculated on her total hours across both families, not on each family's half. If she works 45 hours in a share, five of those hours are overtime and the two families split the overtime cost the same way they split everything else.
The agreement between the two families
There are two documents in a share. One is the contract between each family and the nanny. The other is the agreement between the two families, and it is the one nobody writes.
- Which house hosts, and whether that rotates
- The split of the hourly rate, and what happens if one family drops a day
- The sick child policy, in detail
- Vacation weeks, and whether they have to line up
- Who buys the shared supplies and how that gets settled
- Screen time, food, naps and discipline rules that both families accept
- How much notice a family gives before leaving the share
The sick policy is the one that ends shares. Agree it before anyone is sick. Most families I have worked with settle on this: a fever means that child stays home, the share still runs at the host house for the other child, and both families still pay in full.
Discipline and screen time need agreeing too, because your nanny cannot run two sets of rules in one room. If one family allows a tablet after nap and the other does not, she is going to be managing two upset children instead of one.
What happens when one family leaves
Shares end. Somebody moves, somebody has a second baby, somebody's job changes. Plan for that in month one rather than in the week it happens.
Write in a notice period, usually 30 days, and say what happens to the nanny during it. If the remaining family wants to keep her on their own, they will be paying the solo rate, and they should know that number now instead of discovering it under pressure.
If your family found the nanny first, that does not make her yours. She works for both households and she is entitled to notice from both. Say so in the agreement so nobody has to argue about it later.
The other option is replacing the family rather than ending the share. That is much easier when you started with a written agreement, because a new family can read exactly what they would be joining.
Next step
If you want a share and you have not found the second family yet, say that when you get in touch. We place nannies into shares, and we hear from families in the same neighborhoods who are looking for a match, so it is worth being on that list before you have found each other.
Call 202-415-7033 or use the contact form on our site and tell us three things: your neighborhood, your hours, and your child's age. Those three things are what a match depends on.
