To expect the au pair to eat breakfast in her own time?

[Mammagaga]

The au pair works from 8-10 every morning AIBU to expect that she feeds the baby at 8am instead of leaving her screaming while she makes and eats her own breakfast?!

OP I think you've been given a hard time on here and £12 an hour for an aupair is very steep. It should be around £85 for a 30 hour week over five days and include two babysitting evenings. Your baby/toddler probably can feed herself but does need to actually be served with the food. Aupair eating at same time as supervising breakfast seems reasonable.

Personally I would tell her that she is no longer needed, check your contract and give her notice.

Next time make sure agency and aupair know what you expect before you take them on.

Sorry that would only give her a 12.5 hrs per week and a hourly rate of £9.60 which is around the figure proposed for a London Living Wage

Ignore half the posts.
Tell her you no longer need her. If she still has stuff at your house give her a week to either find a job or fly home, or whatever.
Get a different au pair, one with half a brain.

Hi OP. YANBU to expect her to feed your baby as instructed at 8am. Either she could eat 15 mins earlier, or eat at the same time.

I think the salary you are paying for just 10hours a week is massively outside the norm so increasing her hours is entirely appropriate. Unfortunately by starting by overpaying and under-utilizing, you now seem to have yourself an entitled Aupair. Add to that the fact she is ignoring your instructions, failing to look after the child and also so lacking in understanding of children that she does not realise they need to be fed, my view is you should part ways with her and find new help.

I do think though that YABU for using an Au Pair to look after such a young child, this is against the guidelines and probably half the cause of your problem. Aupairs are not trained childcarers and not qualified to look after such a young child.

Its expensive but the reality is that you need professional childcarers until at least age 3.

I think yanbu and of course she should feed the 18mo breakfast. But I just wanted to mention, for all those including the OP who are saying what a great well paid gig this is... Yes it may work out as £12ph plus perks but it's also the kind of role that is a nightmare to fill - so many working parents just need a hand for a couple of hours, with the schoolrun or similar, and that kind of thing is much harder to sort than several hours of childcare from a professional. A nanny or cm wouldn't do it, a loving relative might if you're lucky, but otherwise it's only gonna be the pot luck of au pairs. No doubt there are better ones than the OP's but a glance at the childcare section shows there are much worse. This is not to excuse this au pair's inaction in any way, but just to temper the 'what a great job!' posts with a little reality. It's a great job, that most people wouldn't want.

I don't think she sounds a suitable person to be looking after a baby. Leaving a baby screaming while she gets her own breakfast is not on. Get rid of her.

What are her qualifications?
I think your problem may be that you are paying someone with no training and little 'life experience' 'nanny wages' as you just need a couple hours a day....and you are expecting to get a 'nanny' level of care.
As others have said...it would be better to get a real nanny for this time...and ditch childminder...or extend childminder hours.

Are you going to tell us what her contract says?

Because despite her not doing her job properly, you might be in quite hot water if you just tell her not to bother coming back.

She might also call you out on the whole looking after a young baby thing too. Unless it's all very clearly laid out in the contract. Mine was very specific (even listed which items needed to be ironed and which didn't)

Bakingaddict - the living wage concept does not apply here -Aupairs have no housing, food, phone, travel costs at all as this is all provided on top of the wage. All in benefits are well within the minimum wage, and it is a great transitional role which enables young people to experience living abroad in a safe environment. It is a formal work status and there are guidelines to govern it. Lack of understanding of this is what derails so many au pair threads in my view (not your post, speaking generally here)

Au-pairs don't need any qualifications Fluffy- which is obviously part of the problem. They just need to be over 18 and under 30. But for the rest of it, yes, I agree with you, a baby that age needs someone who knows what they are doing. As I said earlier, when I au-paired I wouldn't have had a clue what to do with a baby. Wouldn't have known what they ate, when they ate, or how much sleep they needed.

But of course, this will all have been laid out in the contract. I hope.

She's not being paid £12/ph as au pairs are required to work around 30 hours/PW.

Your 'baby' is 18 months old she is not a baby and should be learning feeding herself breakfast. However I think making a child (any child) miss breakfast so that a grown up can eat is ridiculous so yanbu! How long does it take to eat breakfast anyway? Unless she is very short on time (in which case you should start breakfast before she starts). I am confused why she can't feed the baby and eat herself

itsall she's only doing ten hours

Now that you've finished dripfeeding, clearly YANBU. But then, now that you've finished dripfeeding it's hard to imagine that you ever had the smallest doubt that you might BU so I'm not sure why you posted.

Also not sure why you're being rude to other posters - given that guidelines are that au pairs shouldn't have sole charge of a baby, when they ARE given charge of a baby it's often because the parent has a working from home / telecommuting job so is on the premises but not actively involved in childcare. It's not "lala land" to imagine that that might apply to you when you haven't given any contradictory information.

Ok with further clarification - if baby is needing to be woken at 7:45 then breakfast at 8am is not unreasonable. Your OP did imply that the baby was already at screaming-with-hunger stage by 8.

But there's good reason why the standard definition of an au pair specifies that they shouldn't be in sole charge of children under 2. This girl is clearly not capable of properly looking after a baby of that age.

I think if I was you, with the details you've given so far, I would replan my own morning time (it shouldn't take 2 hours to get ready for work) in order to be able to scoop baby from bed into pram/carseat and leave the house with the baby at 7:45, giving the baby a banana to munch on en-route to the childminders, and let her have proper breakfast there. Then au pair just has to deal with 2 school-age ones which is more in line with her capabilities.

If you can't make something like that work, you need to replace her with someone who can. A nanny share with another family, who deliver their child/children to your house, could work out cheaper than this aupair+childminder combination.

You do seem to be paying effectively Nanny rates for aupair capabilities, but you can't make a person more capable by paying them more.

Au pair is either an idiot or stupid or both. An 18 month old should be able to make a good attempt at eating independently, with a bit of help and good supervision. Also should have milk in a cup not a bottle at thay age and again should be able to drink with supervision.
If ds had gone until 10am without food once, the ap would have been gone had it ever happened again. YABVVVU if you don't get rid if her now

ItsAllGone, but she's not working 30pw, she's working 10.

Get rid of the au pair. This is not difficult stuff that she just isn't quite getting. She is just not bothering to do her job. Phone her up and tell her that she will no longer be working for you. Give her a week or two to find something else if she wants, but tell her before she comes back in case she would prefer not to.

As she has been away it gives you an opportunity to review the morning routine and reiterate your expectations in a non accusatory way. If you ask her to be around from7.30 to set up breakfast and allow her to eat as part of the family before the baby needs hers then would that resolve the problem? I'm surprised children eating at 8 can still arrive at school on time. Getting the baby up that late may be at odds with what is her norm . Who collects them later if not AP?

yanbu.

For your next au pair draw up a timetable. I suggest this starts at 7:30 AM and that they are fully ready. I think one evening of getting the DC tea and babysitting sounds fine too.

CMP My almost 19 monrh-old Baby can eat independently BUT I do heavily supervise/virtually fed him his Weetabix as we are constricted by time in the morning (he doesn't usually wake till about 8 and needs the sleep) and I don't want him covered in it/milk. Even other less gunky cereals are very messy to self-feed. He then eats his bread/toast/brioche by himself with his siblings as I flit about finalising things and his drink is in a lidded beaker.

YANBU I'd find a new au pair. Not good enough especially for what she is paid.

Re 'eating with family' surely anyone with small kids knows that eating 'with family' often involves making sure the little ones are fed first? What kind of adult sits stuffing their face paid or otherwise whilst an 18 month old cries with hunger? She's the grown up, not your other kids who need to eat before school, she sounds selfish and lazy. Perhaps the au pair should be the one 'grabbing a banana' to eat on the school run.

Now you've crossly updated, OP, YANBU and I see that you've already fired her.

What you've described really isn't an au pair situation. She was live-in help with fixed hours & duties. When you get someone else to fill her role, I think you should do it on a more formalised basis.

I'm reading all of this feeling sorry for the baby .

I would be sacking the au pair & using either breakfast club (for older DCs obviously) or just a proper, qualified, childminder. You may even save money by doing so.

I couldn't be going to work worrying which of my DCs may have missed breakfast that day.

No of course you are not being unreasonable to expect your au pair not to leave your baby screaming in hunger! Not unreasonable at all.

UNBELIEVABLE responses on this thread. Mumsnet appears to have been overtaken by very dense people who can't actually read.