...to expect nanny to do dd1 washing while I'm on Mat leave with dd2

[sun85]

We've had the same nanny for over 2 years now. It never really bothered me before but she doesn't do any of dd1 washing - she'll fold up dry washing that I've done but has never put a load on. Last week I found her swimsuit in laundry basket after she had taken dd1 swimming. She's great with the kids but terrible at any household stuff. There isn't a lot to do as we have a cleaner as well.
Also thoughts on whether fish fingers/scrambled egg suppers are sufficient every night or should she be cooking something 'proper' for dd1?
In general I guess my question is how many times do you ask someone to do something before you throw in the towel? And how important is washing etc compared to being good with the kids? Thanks mummas xx

Now I've been educated on a nanny's role and duties I think you need to prepare a meal planner and have a chat to her about both the meals and duties of household chores.

The bottom line is she's employed to meet your full expectations which you need to be clear on.

I suppose at least as you're on mat leave - you can oversee this before you go back to work.

As a nanny I do all of my charge's washing, ironing, and putting away. I also changed bedding and towels once a week. When new sibling came along I did her washing and ironing too.

My job was to cook balanced and nutritious meals everyday, and I took the time when new sibling was born to stock up the freezer to make life easier for my boss. I also bulk cooked family meals for those days when my boss was tired. I saw my job as making family life easier. No doubt my boss could have done all of this on her own, but I was glad she kept me on full time, and I'm sure most mothers would have appreciated a regular cup of tea, snacks while breastfeeding, someone to watch the baby while you took a shower or spent time with your firstborn etc.

Before the baby was born my boss sat me down and listed some duties she would like me to take on while we were both there. Could you do something like that with your nanny?

I used to be a nanny and thought it was normal for nannies to do childrens laundry and cook for them. I used to put the wash on, dry it, iron and put it away and by the end I used to iron everyone's stuff as the ironing pile lived in the play room and I couldn't bear to look at it (I didn't mind, the family were good to me and were excellent employers in return).
cooking for a small child doesn't need to be complicated, can you make room in the freezer for her to make batches of stuff and freeze for a later date, then she can cook once a week and have proper dinners every day.

Laziness IMO. How difficult is it to take two minutes to sort out some laundry, bend over and put it in the machine with tablet and press a button. Not very.

Meals aren't acceptable either. She might be great with kids but she sounds lazy.

I'm very surprised that some nannies are expected to clean and do laundry. Our Nanny was with us for 11 years and I never expected her to clean. As far as I was concerned she was there to help us with the children. She wasn't our maid. Afterall, the children were our responsibility and we paid her to help us look after the children (we had 4 under 5). We also had a cleaner to help us out but we're not the sort of people to sit around while someone was cleaning. As for our children's diets, DH and I cooked for our children. Nanny often offered to help but we would never have expected her to cook for the older children. I seriously can't understand why anyone on mat leave could sit around and watch someone else cook and clean for an older child when they are in the house anyway! That's just lazy!

Don't you have a legally binding contract with her? Surely she has a job description and you discussed what you expected her to do before employing her? Meal planning (initially together) with ingredients you have chosen, sounds reasonable if she was contracted to prepare meals, although I would expect that dd might rebel for a while against 'proper meals'.

If your nanny was employed to care for, educate and feed your child, then she is doing her job. If it's in her contract to do laundry and she's refusing to do this, then you need to follow your Disciplinary & Capability Procedure and give her an official verbal, then written warning before dismissal.

I'm on the fence with this, my first nanny was a domestic disaster! Could only cook five basic meals, took her 6 months to "work up" to a chicken casserole, I'd have to clean up after she left for the day.

But she loved my DCs and they loved her. In every other aspect she was brilliant.

I interviewed someone who point blank said they wouldn't do the DCs rooms or bedding, I didn't hire her as I got the vibe that this would be the first in a long line of "no's".
An acquaintance did hire her and I'm very glad I didn't.

Our nanny does any of DS' laundry in his laundry basket (it's small so big things like towels etc go in the 'family' wash anyway), including ironing and putting away. She also changes his bedding once a week and will whip round his bedroom and the playroom every day and put away/wash up things from those rooms, but not the whole house. No cleaning as cleaner does it, but does do a proper meal in the evening if needed. Fish fingers all the time is not ok!
Basically any mess made by DS when he's in her charge gets taken care of.

The nanny is lazy?

I always thought a nannys job was to provide childcare in the home.

I've read threads on here where people defend SAHPs rights to not do housework as their job is purely to take care of the kids. Yet it seems a nanny is expected to pluck extra time out of their arse to complete extra tasks there is supposedly no time/energy for.

What would you rather her be cooking for your child? I would give mine the meals you describe (with accompaniments) as do most people.

For those thinking a nanny is only for the rich - think again!

I am a single mum to 3 boys, 13, 3 and a baby. Once I go back to work from mat leave, I will have no choice but to hire a nanny. I will be working (in the NHS!) 2 long shifts per week (12.5 hours). Leaving the house before 7am, and getting home at 8.30pm if no mothers give birth on me right at the end of my shift!.

What other childcare options would I have for those hours and the ages of my children?

I'll be earning 18k. I'll be paying £11k plus other costs for a nanny. Luckily 70% of that cost is met through tax credits. Or I would have lost my career thanks to my husband turning out to be an utter shithead.

The nanny I interviewed said she would do the children's laundry (awesome! That is one of my biggest tasks of the week!). She would cook a meal for the 3 of them from whatever I provided/requested. She also does all other tidying and cleaning related to the children. So she would vacuum after dinner if it was messy. Tidy all the toys away. Wash their dishes for the day. She will have 1.5 hours to do this with help from my 13 year old once the small ones are in bed. So I think it's reasonable in that time.

Hope you can have a chat with your nanny and work something out OP.

Following on from Detective, it was cheaper to have a nanny than put two under 5's in nursery...

Certainly you shouldn't be doing her washing. She sounds pretty unsatisfactory all round. You could get rid of her while you're on mat leave, and hire someone better later.

to the people who think it's weird keeping a nanny while on mat leave: good nannies are gold dust, continuity of great care is bloody worth a small amount of awkward feeling round the baby bottles to retain their services for when you return to work; our nanny was like having (a much younger version of) my mum there on mat leave, there to give advice, help out, take elder child to give 121 baby time, do a little bit of contractual (paid) drudge sharing for huge appreciation; if you're paying someone 20k (and I was doing that on 3 days a week) then asking them to continue their contractual duties is bloody reasonable. Anyone saying it's odd obviously never gratefully receives help from mum/relatives/friends in similar form, albeit unpaid, or never had immediate family so far flung as to render family help impossible.

And on the duties front, a good nanny is part of the family, not just a playmate. In loco parentis in our house is childcare and all that goes with it - I had a three year career break after kids and absolutely took on the lion's share of the housework - it was part of the childcare/house looker-afterer job in my eyes. I don't get people who choose to be stay at home parents insisting they should only do 50% housework - what world do they live in? Not one of graft....

Scrambled eggs and toast is fine for lunch but not for a main meal. I do make fish fingers for my charges tea but they are home made ones, not birds eye - the family do have frozen fish fingers in the freezer but I sort of see those as quick and easy food for busy weekends, I feel I'm paid to feed the kids well so I make them myself.

Every full time job I've had has included "nursery duties" which basically involves kids laundry (wash, dry, maybe iron, put away), keep the kids bedrooms and playroom tidy, run a duster and Hoover around those rooms every now and then, change kids bedding, cooking for the kids, leaving the kitchen and eating areas in the same state you found them in (or in my case, tidier and cleaner than I found it in!). Also things like emptying the bin rather than piling rubbish up next to it or buying milk or bread if I notice we're running low and I'm going past the shops anyway.

I would have thought those sort of duties were standard for a full time nanny job and what most nannies would expect to do. It's not difficult to do those things and care for small children too, most stay at home mums without childcare manage.

As a nanny myself I'm supprised you've kept her on this long to be honest, she doesn't sound great.
In most of my jobs I have done the children's laundry. Having the odd fish fingers isn't going to hurt anyone. But when I cook for my charges it could be anything from a standard fish pie or lentil bolognese. All nutritious and home cooked. To be honest she doesn't seem that great.

Our cleaner hangs up the DC's clothes which we put on to wash the night before she comes, changes their and our sheets and hangs out their sheets (there isn't time/space to hang ours up too).

This is not to say it's just a cleaner's job but to say that there is definitely enough washing for a weekly child-only load. Darks go in first, whites with sheets. Now that DC2 is nearly 2, all the clothes are large/messy enough that it's getting on for two loads a week.

For the meals, a meal plan with ideas from the nanny could work i.e. "what else would you like to cook that we can put on the meal plan?"

We wanted to get a nanny for one day a week after I went back to work after DC2 because it would have been cheaper than our CM for two, but we couldn't find one that could work one fixed day a week and I can't change my days of work after they were arranged in my flexible working (and yes I know one day is not much work, but we couldn't actually find any nannies that would work less than full time on fixed days; there are a lot of students/part time in other jobs in our area and they all seem to want to fix their other arrangements approximately six-monthly and then fix their nanny days).

A nanny should be doing everything related to children. So children's laundry is fine, yours is not.

She should be looking up recipes and either buying the ingredients with money you leave or adding to a list for you to get so she can make them. Fishfingers and eggs are fine occasionally but not all the time. She has the whole week to plan what to cook. She can either do batch cooking and freezing to reduce time other days, or find healthy recipes she can do with little prep with children around helping, playing or when they nap.

She should be cleaning up after herself and children. So cleaning up after preparing meals, after children eating, after arts and crafts with them, children's books pola tidy and toys etc. All basically tidying and wiping, rather than actual cleaning.

She shouldn't be doing actual home dusting, hoovering, bathrooms etc. But if toddler wees on toilet seat of course a quick wipe, or crumbs in kitchen from children eating or mud in hallway from day out a quick Hoover of course.

She should however start the day with a clean home. So she should leave home how she found it. If she cleaned after herself and children evening before and left it clean, she shouldn't arrive to a home full of children's mess and yours created in the hours she wasn't there. If she does that's not her job to tidy or clean.

A nanny should also be teaching children to clean and tidy as age appropriate. Ie a toddler they would get to help them tidy toys before lunch and dinner with them, not nanny tidying everything alone for them. The same as children should be being taught to put their laundry in basket so it's easier for any adult to wash, and helping clear table from dinner etc, so you get teenagers who know stuff doesn't happen by magic.

When we had a (part time) nanny she did all the children's washing and ironing, kept their rooms tidy, cooked them fantastic meals from scratch (usually batch cooking for the freezer), kept an eye on any clothes or other things they needed and always left the house tidy and clean when she'd been here.

She sounds lazy and complacent and she's been in this job for 2 years so thinks she's getting an easy ride. If anything as you get more and more pregnant I'd expect her to help you out more with both DC.

Taking on board the other comments either you decide to keep or get rid and decide to either speak to her, see if any improvement then go down disciplinary route (surely you can't just fire her?) and look for another nanny.

If it were me also with swimming costume I thought they should be washed straightaway or soaked because of the chlorine and damage to swimming costume. That's what I do anyway.