Can you help me with organise my nanny..

[addictedtoblub]

I've posted on here before and I'm always getting really helpful advice.

Summer holidays start soon. Usually my nanny has my 1 year old 5 days a week and my 3 year old and 1 year old together, 1 day a week.

I've noticed on the days she has both, it's all a bit tough for her. Cooking and laundry falls behind a bit. I get that it's hard and I have never complained.

I also notice there is a fair bit of TV for the 3 year old. I don't mind that much. I'm a bit concerned as the holidays are so long, how she's going to entertain both of them.

We have a big garden with swings / sand pit/ little house/ trampoline / slide. She never takes them out there. She only takes them out to the playground and for lunch. She will take them to two toddler classes a week.

What else can she do ? Or what can I encourage her to do ? It's tough because they're such different ages. I usually get older one to play play dough/ do drawing / play tea party etc. we also go out a fair bit.

What else could we be doing with two kids of these ages ? I struggle myself some days, but I'm not a child care professional.

Nanny also doesn't love taking them out together to the park as they shoot off in different directions. She usually just closes herself into the living room with them both.

Any advice welcome.

My dc were a similar age gap, one with emerging SN and the youngest a runner. It was full on.

But we had an outing every day, played in the garden, and making lunch and doing laundry with me (and other household tasks) were part of their activities too. I don’t think that’s asking a lot of a professional.

Is she a trained nanny OP? Or is this more of an au pair situation?

Is she getting paid more for having two dc 5 days a week?

Texting while talking to you would be a big issue for me. It tells me that her attention is elsewhere. And if she does it in front of you, who’s to say she’s not on her phone while she has your children stuck in front of CBeebies.

I have had the same nanny for ten years and have never seen her use her phone while at work.

When the DC were younger (same age gap) the sorts of things they would do with their nanny included:

Story time at the local library
Stay and play at local children’s centre
Sensory play (for oldest when baby napped) eg finger painting with shaving cream on foil
Making dens (a couple of chairs and a sheet)
Basic scavenger hunt eg a feather, a flower, a twig
Pop them in a bubble bath with some toys

Local community centres and libraries often have free pre-school activities. They are very low-effort, require no planning and can take up a good portion of the morning or afternoon. Add in naps and lunch and the day’s sorted. Laundry or cooking can be done during naps.

She's a child care professional, yes. Trained.

No she's absolutely not being paid more to look after two kids. She's employed to take care of both of them. It's just that in term time the older one goes to nursery some of the time.

I don't love the whole phone situation. She's always on it tbh. I've come into the room before and she's been on it and tried to hide it. I just thought it would be super strict to say something about it.

We all use our phones too much. I wouldn't really know how to bring it up, because I also use my phone a lot.

Ok, so she doesn't sound great, but I'm assuming you want to work with what you've got at this stage so I'd come up with a schedule for her.

I think the key is to contain the 1yo unless they are in a safe space/the chaos they can cause is limited.

Do you have a playpen? If not, I'd invest in one and also a couple of new toys to soften the blow to a baby used to freedom. If you get one of the pop-up ones, it can move between the house and garden. It might help her if she has a safe space to pop the 1yo occasionally when she's running around getting everyone ready/trying to make food.

Morning - nanny arrives. Toy time. Everyone gets ready to go out. Trip out to safe space - soft play, park, children's farm, woods. The key is to choose fenced in places with no escapes where you can see the whole area from one location. Then the nanny can keep an eye on the 3yo while shadowing the 1yo. 1yo can sit in the buggy for some of the time so nanny can spend some time interacting with the 3yo.

Lunchtime - either picnic lunch out (which 3yo can help make in the morning while 1yo is in playpen/highchair) or back home for lunch. TV can go on while the nanny is preparing lunch.

After lunch - crafts/messy play/cooking. 1yo can sit in highchair to take part so they're not getting in the way. Messy play like painting and playdoh can be done in the garden to reduce mess/tidying up time.

Afternoon - garden time for an hour or so. Suggest some games they could play - maybe a small croquet or tennis set, bubbles, make a den with an old sheet etc. Then inside, read some stories, play with toys and another half hour or TV while she makes dinner/sorts the laundry.

Blowing bubbles
Supervised waterplay in the bath with a bath type chair for the little one:tipping and pouring, saying with boats, squuzy bottles, making 'tea'
Picnic lunches in the garden.. also teddy bear picnics/tea parties etc...
Mud kitchen in the garden: pots and pans, wooden spoons, water
Spaghetti painting: mix cooked spag with paint, lay on sheets of greaseproof and dry in the sun
Butterfly printing
Drawing in flour, shaving foam etc...
Dancing to music of all kinds
Treasure hunt in the garden
Making collections of pebbles, feathers, leaves etc
Planting seeds
Making dens
'helping' with cooking, washing up, laundry etc
Sorting things into containers, by colour, texture or shape..
Drawing round things, round hands, get them to drawroundeach other on big bits of paper, colour them in like portraits..
Music, so drums (pans), shakers, recordery type things...

Long time ago, but I used to have a list on the fridge I could refer to if I went blank.

she's on her phone sometimes. Often texting when talking to me even.

If any employee did that to me she'd better be texting her resignation.

Nanny is responsible for socialising your children. That includes, communication, manners, how to behave to others . I cannot believe that you are more focussed on the kids laundry than her incredible rudeness, laziness and obvious lack of interest in them.

I have a nanny and she makes the kids food and tidies up afterwards but she does not do any other housework nor laundry.
I am Irish and she is Belgian.
I’ve noticed that Filipina and South American nannies expect to/ are expected to do a lot of housekeeping and prioritise this over childcare. So kids end up watching a lot of TV
Personally I think you either need a great nanny or a great housekeeper or both. But you cannot expect one person to do everything.

You're paying her!! You can be on your phone 24/7. Doesn't mean she can!
You are the employer, she is the employee.
You tell her what you expect and what you will pay her for. You have a contract.

Are you this woolly in your actual job??

She is not expecting the nanny to keep house! Her 'duties' are for the children.

And she doesn't seem to be doing much, let alone everything.

The baby must nap so there's plenty of time for the 'domestic' duties.

This is really poor form on her part. I used to leave the clean pyjamas for each child under their pillow each night and full school uniform ready on the side for the following morning. The role of the nanny is to make the parents life easier!

I have a nanny for my baby. She does the baby's laundry, kids tidying up of toys but that's it. At your dc ages I think it's very unfair of you to expect her to be doing their laundry, cooking, tidying and taking them out. Can you do all that with them? Are your kids sleeping at the exact same time? If not, how do you expect her to get on with all of that if one of your dc is awake? Really ask yourself that. A 1 and 3 yo cannot be left alone so if only one of them is sleeping then it's impossible.

Yes BUT ONLY if your kids are napping at the exact same time?! How is she meant to keep an eye on them and do laundry folding and cooking as well??

@Opaque11 my three year old doesn't nap, but also doesn't require constant supervision at all.

When I cook and do laundry when my 3 year old is home, it's not an issue at all. She watches TV / draws or we chat and play while I do stuff and she helps me.

Once the 1 year old has the two hour nap, it's definitely possible to get those things done. I'm also here 24 hours a day and I don't get paid to do these things.. she's here 7-8 hours a day, she can do those things.

She doesn't even cook every day or stay on top of laundry when she has both of them for just one day a week. Worried how she'll cope once they're both home for the long break.

Children’s cooking and laundry is a pretty standard part of a nanny’s duties. It’s insane to think she shouldn’t be making their lunch or putting a wet top in the washing machine.

This is ridiculous - we had nannies for the pre school years. English, Australian and South African (so not Philippina or South American). We have three boys, each two years apart, so it was full on in the school holidays, but they all not only did the DC’s laundry and cooked for them (including batch cooking for the freezer), but also took a lot of the mental load in terms of sorting out clothes they’d grown out of, keeping an eye on the book bags of the school age ones for all the random minutiae which comes back, organising things like World Book Day, birthday parties (with my input as well) etc etc.
It was one of the best things about having a nanny - though we paid them well so it was expensive.
We’re also still in touch with them all which is lovely (the boys are teenagers), so they obviously didn’t see these requirements as unusual - they were professionals who took pride in their work.
I think the OP’s nanny sounds as if she is either not as experienced as she makes out, or is a bit lazy. Either way, you need to be more clear with your requirements OP.

NB our nannies came one at a time, not a nanny team 😂

Of course she needs to cook, it's a key part of her role to feed your children healthily. It doesn't have to be restaurant-standard or anything like that, but I don't get all these people saying it's unreasonable to expect her to have time to cook.

It's all unreasonable as I am the employer. She shouldn't need to do anything. At 40 k a year. Oh wait, out comes the club that says she's grossly underpaid.. waiting for them.

Then do you now realise that you, as the employer, has to do something about it?

You're paying her good money to do very little from what I can see.

And she needs to put the phone away!

Hi @addictedtoblub I think it’s fine to say to the nanny 1) I want the kids to eat something homemade every day 2) I want the kids to spend at least an hour outside every day 3) no telly till 5pm or whatever 4) I don’t want you to use your phone when you’re with the kids. Be clear on expectations.

On activities, I liked getting out and about with mine to different parks and playgrounds, cafe, soft play, library, also just wandering around - everything is interesting to kids that age so it’s easy to make any boring errand eg Tesco interesting - oh look there’s a post box, isn’t it cold in this aisle etc. Play dates at yours or theirs is fun for everyone and stops nanny getting lonely. Bit of craft is fun and easy eg cut up a magazine. Do messy stuff in the garden.

It sounds like you might wfh? If so I might give the nanny an hour’s break in the day if you can - a non-napping three year old every day for six weeks is a lot.

Good luck!

Not really worried about any of the household chores discussion, but I do agree with pp that the nanny is not taking a lead on organising a schedule for the children. That’s odd.

As others have said, a qualified Nanny should be doing this.

I would let her know that you expect a schedule/programme to be put in place and ask her if she wants any ideas or help with it. Give her a realistic deadline for producing it or at least a draft for review.
it should include plenty of garden activities in the summer!

I also agree that she shouldn't be doing laundry and is perhaps overwhelmed with the housekeeping side of things. Keeping on top of that and 2 very small children must be extremely tough.

OP do you WFH?

Only you seem to know a lot about what the nanny does all day in the house so it makes me think you WFH and therefore the nanny feels like she has to keep the children in one room when they're home so that they don't disturb you, the same for the garden - is she worried about them being too noisy in the garden as it's right next to your office?

Yes. Mums like me with 3 children, an intensive job and 60 animals have no chance. My children haven’t had their clothes washed or been fed a meal in years. How dare the op expect the nanny to spend 5 minutes twice a week sticking clothes in the wash for 1 or occasionally 2 children. And no way should they be fed anything hot other than toast 🙄