emiwar

Hi all, my husband and I are expecting our first child this coming October. We are both British living in NYC on an L1 and L2 visa and have been since last July.

So putting the shock re. healthcare costs, the pure envy of Brit maternity laws compared to NYC and of course the sheer scariness of having a child in the first place aside...I am now researching child care!!!

I have 3 options I am looking at; daycare, nanny and then the 3rd, which I call upon your help for is an Au Pair. I am just wondering if any other members of this forum have had any experience or advice regarding going down the Au Pair route? Most importantly whether or not they know if we need to be more than temporary resident holders to even entertain hosting an Au Pair?

Next step will then be to see how quickly I can start charging our beloved newborn rent seeing as we are also on the search for a bigger apartment!!!

Thanks in advance for any help.

Bob

Stick the baby in the sock draw for the first few months...you don't really need a bigger place as they don't take up much space until they start moving and breaking things

As for costs, I know where I was living, Boston burb, loads of folks had nannies come in from Brazil, as it was kind of equal cost of daycare, which was running $1500 a month for 3 half days a week, where you provided everything.

Moving further out of the burbs, nannies are less common and daycare is about the same money, but it's full time, all day, so much better value for money.

No idea about au-pair, but those who went with nannies all went through agencies, who sorted out background checks and visas etc.

emiwar

Thanks for the feedback Bob, your costs definitely fall in line with the pricing I have been getting for nanny/child care.

I think if we went down the Au Pair route we would go through an agency as they then cover the visa's, healthcare etc etc for the Au Pair. I had some dispiriting news from one agency though to say that we (the parents) had to be either GC holders, citizens or perm residents to host. I just wasnt sure if that was isolated to the one agency we tried, or the rule of thumb.

Anyone else had this crop up in their experiene???

Bluegrass Lass

I think pretty much every visa needs to have a sponsor. Such as when I filed for my Brit husband's fiance visa, I was his sponsor. In order to be a sponsor, one has to be a US citizen or a Permanent Resident (same thing as a GC holder). For an Au Pair, I don't know who acts as sponsor, you or the agency. If it's you, then yes, you need to fit the sponsorship criteria.

Bob

It would be the agency...it's what you're paying them for. They'll usually get a J1 I think it was.

emiwar

Yep thats what I would have thought. Now just need to find an agency that doesnt seem to have the requirements of us being Citizens, PR or GC holders.

Thanks all

Bob

permanent resident is a greencard holder.

MsElui

one of the ladies on here (not sure if she still posts on here anymore) is a rep for an aupair agancy here in the states - providing european aupairs. She was very helpful to me when we were lookingt at childcare options. PM if you want me to ask for her details.

I ended up chosing a nanny- who comes to my home and looks after my 3 kids - taking them where they need to go during the day. I found her through care.com which you can search for local childcare of all kinds and even advertise a 'role' (which i did) and see what applicants you get (i got about 15 poeple apply). Putting a role up is good as you can specify as much detail or requirement as you want to. You dont have to pay unless you actually want to speak with someone who applies or whose advert you want to enquire about. but its pretty cheap and i think i googled it and found discount codes too.

emiwar

Thanks MsElui, I will check out the link you provided.

Can I ask, did you have the requirement of being a Permanant Res or Citizen for either your research into an Au Pair or to employ a nanny?

emiwar

Thanks for the feedback on this so far, I can confirm that to host an Au Pair you must be US Citizens or Permanant Residents.