Where the two routines actually collide
An infant on their own is demanding but largely predictable: feed, settle, sleep, repeat, and most of that can be done one-handed with the right setup. A toddler on their own is demanding in a different way, mobile, curious, and needing supervision rather than constant physical care. Put them in the same house and the friction point isn't either child, it's the hours where both needs land at once, usually a feed that starts just as the toddler wakes from a nap, or a toddler wanting to be picked up while the infant is mid-bottle.
Walk through a typical day before you finalise anything and mark the hours where this happens. Most households find it's a handful of predictable windows, not the whole day, which makes it easier to plan around rather than treating every hour as equally stretched.
- Morning feed vs toddler waking and wanting attention
- Lunchtime nap transition for one child while the other is active
- Late afternoon, when both children are tired and less content to wait
What a staggered routine buys you
Deliberately offsetting the toddler's nap, meals or outdoor time from the infant's feeding schedule doesn't remove the overlap entirely, but it shrinks it to a smaller number of predictable hours instead of a constant low-level scramble. Some families shift the toddler's nap earlier so it's finished before the mid-morning feed; others use a short independent-play or screen window for the toddler that lines up with the infant's longest feed of the day.
None of this needs to be rigid. The point of mapping it out isn't to build a schedule that never bends, it's to know which specific hours are the pressure points so you and the helper both know what to do when they arrive, rather than improvising every single day.
What to put in the job brief
A candidate who has only ever cared for one child at a time may not picture what a two-under-two household actually asks of her. Describe the real shape of a day, including the overlap hours, rather than listing 'infant care' and 'toddler care' as two separate line items. This lets her, and you, judge honestly whether the role is a fit before either side commits.
Also be clear about what happens when the overlap can't be managed by one person alone, whether that's a parent working from home stepping in for twenty minutes, a second helper for specific hours, or family support on particular days. A household that has already thought this through tends to have a smoother settling-in period than one that discovers the gap on day one.