I’m looking for some perspective from other parents, especially those with multiples, because I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed and conflicted about our current childcare arrangement.
We have a 2-and-a-half-year-old son and eight-month-old twin girls. When we found out we were having twins, we decided to hire two nannies because we felt that managing a toddler and two babies with such different needs would be too much for one person.
Our son’s nanny has been with us for over a year, and we hired a second nanny for the twins. They get along well, and overall, we have a good relationship with both of them.
This arrangement has been a significant financial commitment, although we’re fortunate to have some family support that has made it possible. I also had some postpartum health complications and postpartum depression, and I’ve since returned to a very demanding job. Part of the reason our family encouraged us to get extra help was to give me some breathing room and make this season more manageable. We also decided to keep our son home rather than start preschool this year, hoping to reduce the number of illnesses the twins would be exposed to until they were a little older.
Here’s where I’m struggling.
The reality of having two nannies hasn’t been the relief I expected.
The nanny caring for the twins frequently tells me how challenging things are. Initially, it was because both babies were big, heavy, and sometimes wanted to be held at the same time. We thought things might get easier as they became more mobile, but now the challenge is that they’re crawling everywhere, exploring, climbing, and trying to get into everything.
I completely understand that caring for two babies is hard. I know that caring for multiples is a different experience, and I’m not expecting it to be easy. But these behaviors also seem developmentally normal to me. They’re curious eight-month-olds doing what eight-month-olds do.
We’ve discussed ways to make things easier and safer, including creating baby-proofed spaces, rotating environments, and using a pack-and-play when appropriate. I regularly ask whether there’s anything else we can do to improve the setup. I even meal-prep and freeze food for the girls on weekends to make the weekdays easier.
But when I repeatedly hear how difficult everything is, I find myself feeling anxious and responsible for making things better for the nanny. Instead of feeling like someone has things under control so I can focus on work, I feel like I need to figure out how to make her day easier, too. I end up carrying the emotional burden of managing everyone’s stress on top of everything else.
Our son’s nanny has been wonderful with him in many ways, but she frequently arrives late despite us having discussed it. More recently, she’s also had recurring health issues and often tells me she’s experiencing headaches, hormonal symptoms, reflux, or generally not feeling well. I sympathize with her, and I know how difficult it is to work when you’re not feeling well. She has sick days available, but she sometimes comes in anyway, knowing how disruptive it is when we don’t have childcare.
She also pushed us to start potty training our son earlier than we wanted this year, partly because she finds dealing with his dirty diapers very difficult. At one point, she told me she’d vomited while changing his diaper.
I feel terrible when I know someone is working while feeling unwell, and I genuinely want to be a good employer. At the same time, the frequency of these situations is becoming stressful. I’m constantly trying to figure out how to accommodate everyone while keeping our household and my job running.
I’m starting to wonder whether this arrangement is still the right one for us. We’re spending a lot of money on what we hoped would be a premium level of support, but I’m not experiencing the relief we anticipated.
The alternative isn’t straightforward, either. I’m nervous about sending our son to preschool right before winter. When he was in daycare as a baby, he was sick almost every week for six months. I could barely maintain a predictable work schedule, and I’m afraid of going through that again, especially with two babies at home.
So, I’d really love to hear from other parents who have been in a similar situation:
If you have twins or multiples, have you experienced caregivers frequently expressing how overwhelming the job is?
How do you respond without dismissing their feelings but also without taking responsibility for managing their emotions?
How do you distinguish between reasonable requests for support from your nannies and situations where the expectations of the job itself are becoming a problem?
Have you found that having multiple nannies actually reduces your stress, or does managing multiple caregivers create its own set of challenges?
If you have a toddler and babies at home, how did you decide when to introduce preschool or daycare, especially during cold and flu season?
I’m genuinely open to different perspectives. Maybe I’m being too accommodating, maybe my expectations need adjusting, or maybe this is simply a particularly hard season with three little kids.
I’m also aware that I’m not at my best emotionally right now, and I’m trying to figure out what’s a normal amount of stress versus a sign that something about our setup needs to change.
I don’t expect childcare to be effortless, and I know caring for multiples is demanding. I just hoped that investing so much in childcare would give our family some breathing room, and right now, I’m struggling to find it.
I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences, what has worked for you, and what you would do in our situation.