Shared childcare between two or three families: organising Wednesdays, holidays and public holidays without falling out

On the school playground one Wednesday morning in September, three mothers and a father are comparing schedules on their phones. It is a scene that comes up again and again on parenting forums: once children start school, the question of shared childcare resurfaces in a new form. It is no longer about paying a full-time nanny between five families, but about organising Wednesdays, short school holidays and sometimes public holidays between two or three families who know each other through the local school or nursery.

The idea is appealing right away. A nanny or a grandmother who takes in four or five children instead of one or two, shared costs, a richer social life for the little ones. On paper, everyone wins. In practice, it is a different story, and the accounts that circulate online often describe the same disappointments: schedules that never quite fit, a home that becomes the default meeting point, a cost split that ends up creating tension, and the always delicate question of who looks after a sick child.

Why two or three families take the plunge

The trigger is often financial. A nanny hired by a single family is expensive, especially for care limited to Wednesdays and school holidays. By sharing her between two or three households, each pays a fraction of the hourly rate, and the caregiver can also benefit from a steadier income across the week.

The other motivation, less often mentioned but just as real, is the relief of no longer carrying the organisation alone. When one family falls ill, has a last-minute business trip, or simply needs an evening off, knowing that another family knows the children and can step in changes a lot. On forums, one mother writes: "We started with two of us, my next-door neighbour and me, because we each had a child in nursery school and were fed up paying a babysitter by the hour every Wednesday. Six months later, a third family from the class joined us because their nanny was retiring."

The real battle: schedules

This is almost always the first source of friction. Every family has its own professional constraints, and they shift over the months. A parent starting at 8.30am does not have the same needs as another who works from home on Wednesday mornings and only picks up their child late in the afternoon.

The classic problem is the build-up of small informal adjustments sent by text or in a WhatsApp group: "Actually I can pick up the kids at 5pm instead of 4pm", "I'll be late on Tuesday, can you cover?" Taken one by one, these messages seem harmless. Added up over several weeks, they create a sense of unfairness, especially when one family feels it is always the one adjusting and never the other way round.

Groups that last have almost all ended up setting a written schedule, revised at regular intervals rather than on the fly. Some settle into a monthly rhythm, others prefer to reset the schedule at the start of each school holiday period, which also happens to be when professional hours change the most.

Whose home hosts the care?

The second recurring question is location. Should care always happen at the same family's home, rotate between homes, or should a nanny travel to each family in turn?

Always caring for the children in the same place simplifies logistics: the children know the surroundings, the toys, the routines. But it also wears down the host family, whose living room gets invaded every Wednesday and who often ends up, without really meaning to, becoming the group's logistical backbone: tidying up, extra shopping, wear on the furniture, noise. One mother wrote on a parenting forum: "After a year I was tired of always being the one it happened at. I felt like I was running a free micro-nursery even though I paid my share like everyone else."

Rotating between homes spreads the load but makes it harder for young children to find their bearings and requires duplicating some equipment, such as high chairs or nap beds for the youngest. Many groups end up settling on a mixed solution: the nanny travels to one particular family's home most of the time during the week, but a rotation is set up for holidays, with each family hosting for a full week in turn.

Splitting costs, a sensitive topic for everyone

On this point, caution is needed, since the rules that apply to employing a shared nanny at home, social contributions and existing support schemes vary by situation and change regularly. It is best to check directly with the relevant authorities before committing, rather than relying on estimates exchanged between parents on forums, which are often approximate or outdated.

What comes up very often in accounts, however, is tension linked not to the total amount but to how it is spread over time. Should a family going on holiday for three weeks keep paying its share to keep its spot when term resumes? Does a child's absence due to illness entitle the family to a partial refund? If these questions are not settled in advance and in writing, they almost always resurface at the worst moment, usually when one family already feels wronged on another matter.

The solution that comes up most often in stories that work well is to accept a simple principle from the start: each family's share is fixed for the month, whether or not a child attends every day, unless an exceptional arrangement is discussed in advance for extended absences. This avoids prorated calculations, an endless source of disagreement, and it also protects the caregiver, whose income should not fluctuate with occasional absences.

Sick children: the touchiest issue

This is perhaps the most delicate topic of all, the one that comes up in nearly every parent group discussion. A feverish child cannot stay with the others, but who picks them up when both parents are working that day? Should the nanny be warned before travelling, even if it means cancelling her working day and therefore her pay?

The groups that manage best have, once again, set rules in advance rather than improvising under pressure. Some arrange a rota for illness, where each family commits to being able to help out once a term. Others accept that a mildly unwell child can stay with the group, with a temperature threshold above which the child always goes home. No solution is perfect, but having no rule at all is a guaranteed recipe for conflict.

Public holidays and short breaks: planning ahead rather than scrambling

Isolated public holidays, often attached to a weekend, create particular pressure: everyone hopes someone else will cover that day. School holidays raise the question of continuity: is the nanny paid throughout the break even if not all the children come? Do families take turns covering the full week?

One father recalls in a discussion thread: "We found ourselves as three families the day before a long weekend in May, nobody had planned ahead, and in the end I had to take an emergency day off." This kind of episode keeps repeating itself until an annual calendar is set up in advance, with public holidays and school breaks mapped out right from the start of the September term.

Checking in regularly, without it becoming a chore

What sets apart groups that last several years from those that fall apart after six months is not the absence of tension, there is always some, but the ability to talk things through regularly, before small frustrations pile up into silent resentment. The problem is that these check-in points are hard to maintain over time when they rely on the goodwill of a single person who has to chase everyone else by message.

This is exactly the kind of situation OuiCanPlan was designed for. The tool offers recurring routines from the 'Perso' subscription plan onwards, built for this kind of organisation that needs refreshing every month or at the start of each school holiday. In practice, a set of 10 to 15 targeted questions is generated based on the topic, covering availability for the coming month, preferred childcare location, upcoming public holidays or one-off constraints. Each parent answers on their own, from their phone, simply providing an email address and mobile number (not verified), with no account required to take part.

As soon as three people have answered, the responses appear anonymously within the group, allowing each parent to voice a constraint or a frustration without having to say it directly to the family concerned. The tool then works out cross-compromises and suggests several possible arrangements, ranked with an agreement percentage and, where relevant, booking links for the chosen slots. A deadline is set for each cycle, with automatic email reminders seven days, three days and twenty-four hours before it, so no one is left chasing everyone else's answers alone. The results are real and free of advertising.

For a shared childcare arrangement between two or three families, this translates into a light monthly check-in, ten minutes of answers each, rather than an informal meeting that never happens for lack of time, or a WhatsApp thread that drags on for weeks without ever leading to a clear decision.

What keeps a group going long-term

Beyond the tools, the accounts converge on a few simple principles. Write the rules down from the start, even briefly, rather than relying on unspoken agreements. Accept that the host family should not always be the same one, even if it costs a bit of comfort. Address illness and public holidays before they actually happen, not on the day itself under pressure. And above all, accept that the group will change: one family will join, another will leave at some point, and it is better to plan from the outset how these transitions will happen than to discover it the hard way.

In conclusion

Shared childcare between families from the same school can genuinely simplify daily life and create precious bonds between children as well as between parents, provided everyone accepts that it needs a minimum of structure. Schedules, the childcare location, cost sharing, illness and public holidays are topics that come up sooner or later: it is better to plan for them together, with clear rules and regular check-ins, than to face them unprepared one Wednesday morning at the school gate.