Almost every family arranges this at the worst possible moment: the week they come home from hospital, with no sleep, under pressure from relatives, and with no clear idea of what the next six months will actually require.
The result is usually one of two mistakes. Hiring a nanny when what the household needed was somebody to take the cooking and cleaning off two exhausted adults, or hiring nobody and running on grandparents until somebody breaks.
What the first three months actually need
Work out what is consuming the household rather than what sounds like the obvious hire.
In most Islamabad families with a first baby, the mother is doing the baby care and wants to. What she is not doing — and what is quietly falling apart — is everything else: cooking, laundry, which has roughly tripled, cleaning, dishes, groceries, and the errands nobody has time for.
That is a helper's job, not a nanny's. A part-time helper covering the house for four or five hours a morning frees the parent to do the thing they actually want to do, and costs considerably less than childcare.
Where a nanny genuinely earns her place in the first months is a household where the mother is returning to work early, where there are twins, where there are older children who still need attention, or where there is a medical situation. Those are real cases and they are a minority.
The night question
This is the one families most often get wrong, in both directions.
Nights with a newborn are relentless, and the exhaustion compounds in a way that daytime tiredness does not. Some families in Islamabad arrange night help for the first few months and find it transforms the period. Others find a stranger in the house overnight more disruptive than the sleep is worth.
What is worth knowing before deciding: night care for an infant is a specialised role, it is expensive relative to daytime help, and it is a small market in this city. Anybody offering it as an add-on to a general helper's day is describing somebody who will be working around the clock, which lasts a few weeks and then fails.
The cheaper arrangement that works for many families is daytime help substantial enough that a parent can sleep during the day. That is a helper and a cook, not a night nurse, and it is a fraction of the cost.
Nanny, helper, or both
A helper covers the house — cleaning, laundry, dishes, kitchen work, errands. May hold the baby briefly while the mother eats or showers. Is not responsible for the child.
A nanny or babysitter is responsible for the child: feeding, changing, settling, play, and safe supervision. This is a different skill and a different level of trust, and it should be hired for specifically.
A cook is worth considering separately in the first year, because cooking is the task that collapses first and the one whose absence is felt hardest. A part-time cook producing one proper meal a day is one of the highest-value hires a new family can make, and it is frequently overlooked in favour of childcare the family does not actually want.
The arrangement many Islamabad families arrive at by month three is a part-time helper plus a part-time cook, with the parents doing the baby care. It costs less than a full-time nanny and solves the problem the household actually has.
If you are hiring a nanny, hire properly
The checks matter more here than for any other household role, because the person is alone with a child who cannot report anything.
Two previous employers, telephoned by you, not one, and not a written character certificate. Ask what ages of children she cared for, how long, how the job ended, and whether they would employ her again.
Original CNIC verified in your hands, permanent address recorded, and preferably a local contact in Islamabad who can confirm where she lives.
A paid trial with you present throughout. Not a demonstration — an ordinary few hours. Watch how she holds the baby, whether she talks to the child, whether she washes her hands without being told, how she responds when the baby cries and nothing obvious works.
A longer probation than usual, with you or a family member around for the first fortnight rather than handing over immediately.
Our verification process sets out what we confirm before putting any candidate forward, and for this role there is no version where the checks are optional.
Practical things to settle in writing
The hours, including what happens when they overrun — which they will, because babies do not keep schedules.
Whether the role includes the baby's laundry and bottles, or whether that stays with the parents. This is a genuine source of friction and it is trivially avoided by saying so.
What is not included. A nanny hired for childcare who is gradually given the household cleaning is a nanny who will leave, and the reverse is equally true.
Who gives instructions. In a household where grandparents are staying — common in Islamabad in the first months — a helper or nanny receiving different directions from three women will satisfy none of them. Name one person.
Sick-child arrangements, and what happens if the nanny herself is unwell around a newborn.
What changes at six months, and again at two years
The arrangement made for a newborn rarely fits a crawling child, and almost never fits a toddler.
At around six months the childcare component becomes more demanding and the household component eases slightly. At the point the child is mobile, supervision becomes constant and a person who was managing both the baby and the housework can no longer do either properly.
Families that review the arrangement at six months and again at eighteen stay ahead of this. Families that do not tend to discover it through a deterioration in the housework, which then gets treated as a performance problem when it is a workload one.
If the mother returns to work, the whole thing is a different hire and should be reconsidered from the start rather than extended.
The first fortnight home, realistically
Families plan for the baby and not for the household, and the first two weeks are when that shows.
Relatives will be visiting, often daily and often unannounced. That is a substantial increase in tea, food and washing up on top of everything else, and it lands on whoever is in the house. If you have help arriving, tell them in advance that this period is busier than the routine you described, and treat it as a temporary load rather than the new normal — otherwise you have quietly redefined the job in week one.
Meals are the thing to solve first. A household with a newborn that is also cooking three times a day is a household where somebody is not sleeping. Whether that is a part-time cook, a tiffin arrangement for a month, or food sent by family, decide it before you come home rather than working it out at nine in the evening.
And do not hand over keys or the run of the house to somebody new in that fortnight. Access can widen once things settle. A new person, a new baby and an unfamiliar routine all at once is more change than any household absorbs well.
Hygiene, without turning the house into a hospital
Worth agreeing explicitly rather than assuming, because assumptions here cause more friction than almost anything else.
Hand washing before handling the baby, every time, and particularly after cleaning or handling rubbish. Separate cloths for the kitchen and the bathrooms. Bottles and feeding equipment washed and sterilised the way you want them, demonstrated once rather than described.
The thing to avoid is the opposite failure, which is a household that becomes so anxious about germs that nobody can work in it. A person being corrected constantly about things nobody explained will stop taking initiative entirely, and you will end up doing everything yourself while paying somebody to watch.
Show the standard once, in person, and then let them get on with it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I hire a nanny before the baby arrives?
Meet candidates beforehand if you can, but avoid committing to a permanent arrangement before you know what the household actually needs. A part-time helper from the last month of pregnancy is a low-risk way to have support in place without deciding the childcare question under pressure.
Is a maid who "can also look after the baby" a reasonable arrangement?
For brief supervision while a parent is in the house, yes. As a substitute for childcare, no — it is two jobs and the housework will win, because it is visible and the consequences of neglecting it are immediate.
How much should this cost?
It depends entirely on which role you are buying. Our salary comparison carries current bands for helpers, cooks and nannies separately, which is the right way to price it rather than as one bundled figure.
What about grandparents instead?
They are frequently the best arrangement in the early months and cost nothing, but treat them as family rather than staff: they will not do the cleaning indefinitely, and a household that runs on a grandmother for a year without acknowledging it usually finds that out abruptly.