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Having a nanny in the home is very convenient and there are many advantages. On the other hand there are also disadvantages to having a nanny watch your children in the home. The older the children are the more the disadvantages appear. Here are some for your consideration.

1. Lack of social interaction – As children grow older it becomes important for them to interact with other children. This socialization prepares them for school. Without it, they may have a more difficult time adjusting.
2. Bored kids – Since the kids are home all the time there is more of a chance they will become bored with the same routines. Unless your nanny is unusually creative and resourceful it may be difficult for her to keep the kids adequately entertained day after day.
3. Wear and tear on the home – There will be constant activity in a home with a nanny and the children there all day. This will add more to the housekeeping chores than if the children were being cared for elsewhere.
4. Additional costs – Hiring a nanny will generally cost more than putting your child in a day care center. Along with her salary, you will need to pay nanny taxes, possibly transportation costs and extra insurance costs for workers comp and added liability coverage.
5. Additional meals – Having a nanny means you will need to have additional groceries on hand for meals, both for the nanny and the children. This means extra meal planning and grocery costs.
6. Less privacy – Privacy issues can arise with a nanny. Constantly having another person in the house can get to be stressful if it impacts your privacy. Personal documents and information you might normal feel free to leave in the open might need to be handled with more care.
7. Less cooperative kids – Kids can become unruly just because they feel so comfortable on their own turf. When they are in the comfort of their own home sometimes they feel as if they can challenge the authority of outsiders. This can cause discipline problems for the nanny.
8. Preschool education – Your toddler will miss out on many preschool activities and the education a preschool provides by staying home all the time with a nanny. This might also affect your child’s ability to easily socialize with other children when it comes time to enter school. Group activities with other preschoolers teach little ones how to cooperate and share with one another.
9. Jealousy – The green eyed monster can come most unexpectedly to mothers when they realize their little one seems to be more attached to the nanny than Mom. Even though it may not be the case, it can certainly seem that way since the child is spending hours with the nanny instead of Mom.
10. Manipulation – Kids might feel like they can manipulate situations to their advantage by playing Mom against the nanny. Kids are pretty smart when it comes to knowing how to control things in order to get what they want.

Knowing the disadvantages of having a nanny in the home before you take that plunge can help you decide whether you want to brave those waters or not. Having a nanny is a great convenience, but it does come with some costs in other areas.

Pull-Ups seem to be the best thing since sliced bread, but are they actually? Once you do a little research and talk to a few parents, you will find that they may not be the best way to get your toddler potty trained. Here are some reasons to reconsider using them.

1. They keep your baby feeling dry – On the surface, that may seem to be a good thing; except when potty training, it’s essential for your little one to feel the discomfort of being wet or soiled.
2. No motivation to stay dry – Since your child can’t feel any discomfort by being wet, there is not motivation to use the potty. Being cold and wet is one thing that motivates the little one to try to stay dry.
3. Environmental responsibility – You can do a lot to help the environment by not adding to an already overwhelming pollution problem. Pull-ups, like disposable diapers can create quite an accumulation of additional trash.
4. Training pants are reusable – While traditional cloth training pants may seem somewhat inconvenient when compared to disposable pull-ups, they are reusable and don’t have the same negative impact on the environment.
5. Shorter potty training time – By using either cloth training pants or allowing your little one to go bottomless during the potty training process, the time spent in training actually is shorter than if you use pull-ups. Both methods allow your child to feel or see that something is happening, making them more willing to sit on the potty.
6. Pull-ups seem more like a diaper – The similarity between diapers and pull-ups does not allow your little one to truly distinguish the feeling between the two. Since both feel the same, it will take a longer time for your little one to associate their new covering with the self-control you are attempting to teach them.
7. Cost – Traditional training pants are a one time investment. If you are planning on having more children, they can be passed down. With pull-ups you will constantly put out money until training is done. When the next child reaches the training point, you will start paying out again.
8. Savings – Using an alternative potty training method to pull-ups can save on the time you spend potty training. This can result in money saved as well, since you won’t be buying disposable pants for all that extra time.
9. Cloth is more comfortable – For the child, using cloth training pants is much more comfortable than the scratchy plastic and paper of the disposable pants.
10. Cloth trainers are more like real underwear – Many toddlers like the idea of wearing big girl or big boy underwear. They have a feeling of being grown up. You can use this milestone to your advantage in getting your child to use the potty.

 

When you consider the pros and cons, it makes sense to use cloth training pants or the alternative bottomless method of potty training to cut down on training time. These alternatives to disposable pull-up can save you time and money and get your little one trained a lot faster.