A mom called us last month, genuinely baffled. She’d found the perfect nanny. Ten years of experience, stellar references, her kids adored her. After three months of part-time work, the family was ready to offer her a full-time position with a significant raise. The nanny said no. Not “let me think about it,” just a polite, firm no.
“I don’t understand,” the mom told us. “We’re offering her more money, guaranteed hours, better benefits. Why wouldn’t she want that?”
Because full-time isn’t always the upgrade families think it is. And the sooner you understand why experienced nannies often prefer part-time work, the better matches you’ll make and the less frustration you’ll feel when they turn down what seems like an obviously better offer.
Let’s talk about why professional nannies deliberately choose part-time work and what that means for your family.
The Professional Part-Timer Is a Different Category
First, we need to distinguish between nannies who take part-time work because that’s what’s available versus nannies who actively seek out part-time arrangements. They’re completely different professionals with different goals.
A nanny who’s looking for full-time work but settling for part-time is still hoping to convert the role or find something full-time elsewhere. You can usually tell because they’ll jump at the offer to increase hours. They’re building toward something bigger.
The professional part-timer, though? They’ve structured their entire life around working 20 to 30 hours a week. They’ve built systems and made choices based on having significant time outside of nanny work. When you offer them full-time hours, you’re not offering an upgrade. You’re asking them to dismantle a life structure that’s working for them.
We work with dozens of nannies in Austin who have built careers around part-time work. They’re not less professional than full-time nannies. They’re not less experienced or less skilled. They’ve just made a different choice about how they want to work, and they’re serious about protecting that choice.
Families often assume everyone wants full-time employment because that’s the traditional career model. It’s not the only model, and it’s not everyone’s preferred model.
What Part-Time Nannies Are Actually Doing
Here’s what families usually assume: part-time nannies work with you for 25 hours, then sit home the rest of the week wishing they had more to do. Here’s reality: most professional part-time nannies have their schedules completely full, just not with one family.
The nanny who works for you Monday through Wednesday might work for another family Thursday and Friday. Or she might nanny two mornings a week, teach music classes three afternoons, and run a weekend tutoring business. Or she’s in graduate school on the days she’s not nannying. Or she’s caring for aging parents. Or she’s building a photography business. Or she genuinely just values having time for her own life.
When you offer her full-time hours, you’re not filling empty time. You’re asking her to give up whatever she’s currently doing with that time. Maybe it’s income from other families. Maybe it’s pursuing another career. Maybe it’s personal time she fiercely protects. Whatever it is, she’s chosen it deliberately.
We placed a nanny in Austin who worked 25 hours a week with one family and 15 hours a week teaching art classes to kids. The family adored her and offered full-time work with a $15,000 raise. She said no because teaching was her passion, nannying was how she funded it, and she wasn’t willing to give up the teaching to nanny 40 hours a week. That wasn’t rejection of the family. It was protection of what mattered to her.
The Income Math Isn’t What You Think
Families often assume more hours equals more money equals obvious choice. But the math for part-time nannies who work with multiple families or have side businesses is more complicated than you realize.
Let’s say your part-time nanny works 25 hours a week for you at $28 an hour. That’s $700 a week or about $36,000 annually. You offer her full-time work at 40 hours for $32 an hour, thinking the $66,000 annual salary is a huge increase. It is, on paper.
But if she’s currently working 15 hours a week with another family at $30 an hour, she’s already making $450 from them. Her total weekly income is $1,150, or about $60,000 annually. Your “generous” full-time offer is actually asking her to work more hours for slightly more money while giving up the flexibility and variety she currently has.
Or maybe she’s teaching classes that bring in $500 a week. Her total income is $62,000. You’re offering $66,000 to give up work she finds more fulfilling. Not such an obvious upgrade anymore.
We see families get frustrated because they’re doing mental math that doesn’t account for what the nanny’s actually earning across all her income sources. Before you feel rejected that your generous offer was declined, ask yourself if you actually know what her full financial picture looks like. You probably don’t.
The Schedule Flexibility Factor
Part-time work often comes with flexibility that full-time positions don’t. If your part-time nanny works Monday through Wednesday, she has Thursday and Friday free. Not just for other work, but to schedule doctor’s appointments, handle personal business, travel, or live her life without asking permission.
Full-time positions, even with generous PTO, still require requesting time off, coordinating with the family’s needs, and working around their schedule. For many nannies, especially those who’ve worked in demanding full-time roles before, that loss of control over their own schedule is a dealbreaker.
One nanny we work with in Austin deliberately moved from full-time to part-time work after years in full-time positions. She told us she loved her families but hated never being able to make personal appointments without negotiation. Working part-time meant she could schedule dentist appointments, meet friends for lunch, or take a long weekend without requesting PTO or rearranging her employer’s plans.
When you offer her full-time work, you’re offering money in exchange for the autonomy she’s built. That’s not always a trade people want to make.
They’ve Seen Full-Time Burnout
A lot of professional part-time nannies used to work full-time. They left those positions not because they didn’t like the families but because full-time nanny work is exhausting in ways that people outside the profession don’t always understand.
Forty to fifty hours a week with young children is physically demanding. It’s emotionally draining. It often involves early mornings, late nights, and constant high-alert supervision. Many nannies do it beautifully for years and then realize they can’t sustain that pace indefinitely.
Part-time work offers a sustainable pace. You can give your best energy to 25 hours and still have reserves for your own life. Full-time work often means you’re depleted by Friday, spending your weekends recovering, and never quite feeling like yourself.
The nannies who’ve made the intentional switch from full-time to part-time usually won’t go back, regardless of compensation. They’ve learned what burnout feels like and they’re not interested in repeating it. Your offer of more money doesn’t change the fundamental reality that full-time childcare is exhausting.
We’ve had families get offended when nannies explain this, like the nanny is saying their children are too difficult or demanding. That’s not it at all. It’s acknowledging that quality childcare requires significant energy and part-time work allows maintaining that quality without complete exhaustion.
Multiple Families Means Variety
Some nannies genuinely enjoy working with multiple families because it provides variety and prevents the monotony that can come with doing the same routine with the same children every day.
Working with one family Monday through Wednesday and a different family Thursday and Friday means different children, different dynamics, different activities, different challenges. For nannies who thrive on variety, that’s energizing. A full-time position with one family, even a wonderful family, feels limiting.
One nanny in Austin works with three different families across the week. She has infant twins on Mondays, school-age kids Tuesday and Wednesday, and a preschooler Thursday and Friday. She loves the variety. Each family has offered her more hours. She’s declined every time because she doesn’t want to give up the diversity of her week.
Families sometimes take this personally, like their family isn’t interesting enough. But it’s not about you. It’s about how that particular nanny operates best professionally. Some people want depth with one family. Others want breadth across multiple families. Neither approach is wrong.
The Benefits Question Is Complicated
Families often include benefits in their full-time offers, thinking that’s the clincher. Health insurance, paid holidays, retirement contributions. Why would anyone turn that down?
Because nannies who work part-time across multiple families sometimes have better total benefits than they’d get from one full-time employer. If she’s working 25 hours with you and 15 hours with another family, she might be getting health insurance through the other family, or through a spouse, or through the healthcare marketplace.
She might prefer the retirement flexibility of contributing to her own IRA rather than being locked into an employer’s plan. She might value unpaid time off more than paid time off if it means true schedule control. The benefit package you’re offering might not actually be better than what she’s cobbled together, especially if you’re asking her to give up other income sources.
Before you assume your benefits package is obviously superior, ask if she’s even missing those benefits in her current setup. You might be offering solutions to problems she doesn’t have.
They Don’t Want to Be That Invested
Full-time nanny positions create deep, intense relationships with families. You’re there for every milestone, every rough day, every family dinner. You become part of the family fabric. Some nannies love that level of connection. Others find it overwhelming.
Part-time work allows professional boundaries that full-time work often doesn’t. You can genuinely care about the children and the family without your identity becoming completely intertwined with theirs. You can have a bad day without it affecting the family as deeply. You can disconnect when you’re not there without feeling guilty.
The nanny who works with you three days a week can fully invest in those three days and then fully disconnect the other four. The full-time nanny often can’t disconnect as easily because they’re there so much and so integrated into family life. For some personality types, that integration feels like too much responsibility and emotional weight.
We’ve placed nannies who explicitly told us they wanted part-time work because they didn’t want to be the primary attachment figure for children. They wanted to be important but not central. They wanted to support families without becoming essential to their daily functioning. That’s a legitimate preference, not a character flaw.
What This Means for Your Family
If you’ve found a great part-time nanny and you’re hoping to convert her to full-time, understand what you’re actually asking. You’re not just offering more money and better benefits. You’re asking her to restructure her life, potentially give up other income or pursuits, sacrifice flexibility and autonomy, and commit to a level of intensity she may have deliberately moved away from.
Sometimes nannies will make that shift. Usually it’s because their life circumstances have changed and what made sense before doesn’t make sense anymore. But expecting them to jump at the offer because it seems objectively better to you means you’re not understanding how they’ve built their professional life.
The better approach? Accept that you have a great part-time nanny and build your childcare plan around that reality. Maybe you pair her with another part-time nanny to cover the full week. Maybe you use backup care for the days she’s not there. Maybe you adjust your own schedule to need less coverage on the days she’s unavailable.
What doesn’t work is resenting her for not wanting what you want or constantly hoping she’ll change her mind. She’s told you what she wants. Believe her. You’ll have a much better relationship with a respected part-time nanny than a reluctant full-time one.
When They Might Say Yes
We’ve seen part-time nannies convert to full-time positions, but it usually happens under specific circumstances. Maybe she’s no longer in school. Maybe her other family moved. Maybe her side business didn’t work out. Maybe her financial needs changed. Maybe she’s reconsidering her priorities.
If circumstances shift and she approaches you about more hours, great. But that’s different from you repeatedly offering and hoping to wear her down. One clear offer is professional. Repeated offers start to feel like you don’t respect her decision.
The families who maintain great relationships with part-time nannies are the ones who appreciate what they have rather than constantly wishing for something different. Your part-time nanny chose to work with your family. She continues choosing to work with you. That’s valuable even if it’s not full-time.
Making Peace with Part-Time
The hardest thing for families to accept is that sometimes the best nanny for your children just isn’t available full-time. You can find someone else who’ll work 40 hours a week, but they might not be as good. Or you can work with the constraints of a great part-time nanny and build your childcare solution around her availability.
We’ve watched families lose phenomenal part-time nannies because they couldn’t let go of wanting full-time. They kept pushing, kept offering, kept expressing disappointment, until the nanny felt like she was constantly disappointing them just by maintaining her boundaries. She quit to work with a family that appreciated her for what she offered rather than resenting her for what she didn’t.
Don’t be that family. If you’ve found someone your kids love who’s reliable, professional, and good at what she does, appreciate that you get her for 25 hours a week. Build the rest of your childcare plan around that anchor rather than trying to force her into a structure that doesn’t work for her life.
The professional part-time nanny is a real category. They’re not full-time nannies who haven’t found the right offer yet. They’re professionals who’ve made deliberate choices about how they want to work and live. Respect those choices and you’ll have much better working relationships.
And honestly? Once you’ve worked with a great part-time nanny, you might realize the arrangement works better than you expected. Maybe you actually like having different people bring different energy to different parts of your week. Maybe the variety is good for your kids. Maybe the boundaries of part-time work create a healthier dynamic than the sometimes blurry boundaries of full-time arrangements.
Either way, stop trying to convert everyone to full-time. Sometimes part-time is exactly right, for both of you.
