About Nanny

[Hedger]

Our DC are away for a couple of days with grandparents. These are days when our nanny usually looks after them. As it was short notice, we told our nanny she could either take the two days as part of her holiday allowance (paid), or take them off unpaid or she could work those days at home sorting out the children’s toys, clothes, tidying their bedrooms, etc. They have loads of toys which are in bits strewn throughout the house, in need of new batteries, clothes which no longer fit, need ironing, folding etc.

She doesn’t really do those things while looking after the children (even though she has two hours in the middle of the day when our youngest is asleep and our eldest is at school) but we are pretty relaxed generally about that. So I thought these two days would be a chance to catch up on this type of thing and if I am paying her for them I would rather she do something useful rather than me paying her to do nothing!

Anyway, this hasn’t gone down very well and she says it is normal if the children are away for the nanny to have the day off (paid - and not as part of their holiday allowance).

Who is being unreasonable?!

Surely it is equivalent to a snow day or similar in a school. There are no students to teach so the staff sort out cupboards etc.

Yanbu. I'd have had her do the sorting & let her knock off an hour & a half early each day but glad everyone is happy!

I think your compromise is fine but to be honest, I’d have let her have the time off paid. I take the view that our nanny is paid for the whole year, she gets to pick her two weeks and we get to pick ours but if we go over our two weeks, it’s our problem. She, understandably, tends to pick her two weeks out of term-time and we can’t. So we make it work when she’s away and she gets the benefit —of me finding ridiculous deals and booking half terms away— of our extra time.

What we do do sometimes is she will offer to work extra days and take some of her holiday as unpaid leave. She therefore gets to take more holiday and we get the benefit of say, a long weekend away, or I can change my working days occasionally.

But we have a fabulous nanny whom the children adore and when she finally moves on will break our hearts.

I’m a stay at home mum, but doing a similar job to your nanny! I’d love two days to get sorted. I would also think she could prepare activities for the children to do when they come back.

I would be surprised if I was paying a nanny to have to pay and them not do anything. I also think it’s the only reasonable course of action since it would be a bit unfair to demand she took holiday when she hadn’t go much notice to plan how to spend it.

The lunch break thing i think you are expecting too much. I’d imagine the house is a total state and she runs around tidying it up, putting toys away and then cooks. She probably doesn’t get that much downtime.

Maybe you need to reset expectations going forwards for the clothes / toys etc. They shouldn’t really get in such a mess.

I think you've been fair all along but what happens now regarding getting the toys and clothes sorted?
I would have asked her to do that in one day or two half days (her choice) and let her have the rest of the time off, paid

I think she’s taking the piss to be honest. She should have either taken both days out of her leave allowance or worked in the toy /kids clothes sorting you asked her to. I don’t think your compromise is one at all.

To be clear I your nanny is taking the piss not you.

To all nannies out there,
I would strongly advise against any nanny working in Germany and currently there is a family hiring in the North of Germany, Hanover, whom one should not work for. Be careful....