Nanny Holidays -- feel I have been used??

Agree with flowwery beanbag. Your nanny should request holidays, and not announce them.

My nanny contract is written each year on a 12 month fixed term contract and the holidays are noted in the contract. WE sit down and I say right, are there any dates you want? She tells me and in most case I schedule mine around hers. Although since DD has started school I have started asking the nanny to take her hols when the school is on hols. If it's a day or two here or there I don't mind doing the school run. But I'm not going to take a two week holiday to do a school run while nanny goes off on a more economical holiday in the sun.

My current nanny asked for two weeks off in March, I said she had to take it in April when DD is on two weeks of hols. And so she bumped up her resignation to March. Must be nice to be able to put hols before income. She was leaving in June anyway so it doesn't really matter. There are no hard feeling at all. But, I did think hmmm... that'll teach me to decline holiday.

Ive usually had 50/50 in my contract, current job mum is a teacher so I pick all my own BUT must be in holidays. your nanny is taking the piss! Id always check with employer before booking something, not in this job obv as I know dates, but in all others.

I've always split my holiday 50/50 with employers, and been paid for any extra over that BUT I've usually been asked to book large blocks of holiday 6 months in advance so the parents can plan. Another contract I had specified that my holiday was restricted to school holidays which I was happy enough with then but might be a little about now especially as if I wanted to go abroad it's a lot cheaper out of season.

There's a lot your nanny can do around the house while you're away as BeauLocks says.

knakered your nanny doesn't get to announce her holiday dates to you, she can ask for certain dates but as long as she gets the required time off, you could specify exactly when you want her to take it. As shiny and beaulocks have said, normal practice with nannies is to choose half each or similar, but actually there's nothing stopping you dictating the whole of her holiday entitlement if you want to.

Agree with ShinyDyson - we chose half nanny's holiday and she had to book the other half (in theory with enough notice to let us arrange alternative childcare if we couldn't cover it ourselves).

And the other thing you can do is ask her to come in for a day or so when you are away - sort out children's clothes/toys etc, do loads of cooking and fill up the freezer with foos for the children.

We chose 2 weeks and our nanny chooses 2 weeks. If we go away for more than 2 weeks then her luck is in but otherwise it works out pretty well and means we only have 2 weeks without a nanny when we are home.

Sorry hit send too quickly!

Usually nannies choose half of their dates, with you specifying the other half. So for a 4 week entitlement, you choose 2 weeks, she chooses the other.

Say her leave year runs from 1st April-31st March. I would give her a holiday form in March ( or before if you prefer) and ask for half of her entitlement to be filled in within a certain timescale, to enable you to plan your holidays

Ask for her holiday dates by a certain date?

Some employers expect people to have half of their entitlement booked by the first 3 months of the year.