AIBU to ask the nanny to do babysitting?

[BearClaire]

AIBU to ask the nanny to do babysitting? Our nanny has been great for 2 months with our 2 children during the week. We’d love some occasional evening/weekend babysitting to go on the odd date night. Is it too much to ask her, or should we look elsewhere? Don’t want to be unfair, but a couple of times each month would be amazing. Thoughts?

It’s definitely worth asking! She might be glad to have the extra work. If not, she can always just say no.

Edited to sort autocorrect typo 🙄

Just ask them and say no pressure but I wanted to offer it to you first but we are looking for someone to babysit a couple of times a month would you be interested or is that too much for you. Then agree a rate if she is.

Do you mean for extra pay or as part of her nanny contract? It doesn't specify in your OP. My DD left a nannying job because it started as a full-time 8am-6pm, but then slowly creeped to one night of babysitting a month, and then once a fortnight, and then once a week. All of this for no extra pay. She was taken advantage of tbh

Just ask but a couple of times a month is maybe too much. Start with one maybe?

I don’t see the issue in asking her to be honest.

Nannying is her job. It’s no different to being asked by your boss if you’re able to take on some overtime here and there.

Just say you’re looking for a babysitter once or twice a week and as you know she does a great job with the kids you thought you’d offer this to her first. Tell her there’s no pressure to accept. She might be happy to earn a bit of extra cash.

YABU not to pay though of course

That’s very normal, I’m a nanny and I expect parents to ask at some point. As paid overtime, of course.

I once had an awful contract where I agreed to one night of babysitting per week as part of my salary- but they didn’t go out most weeks even though I was available. As it got towards Christmas time they blocked out my Calendar with about 12 nights of babysitting for the month and it turned out they thought they could bank them all and I couldn’t say no because it was in the contract. 🙄 they were such cheeky fuckers.

Once or twice a month* not week

It’s definitely ok to ask.
its ok for her to say no
In an ideal world you’d have asked her when you hired her, especially if you actually need her to do it.

I did this when nannying. Just remember to be respectful and pay market rate

I did have a few parents who would say things like "you know the kids already so it will be easy, we will give you snacks and £20".

You don't want to sour the relationship by trying to take advantage

My favourite family I worked Mon - Fri for, and I baby sat every Thursday night and often on Saturday evenings too.

They treated the babysitting as an entirely separate job and were very appreciative of me.

As long as it’s paid additional hours it’s fine to ask.

As long as you're paying her for it, I'd ask. She can always say no.

I've never employed a nanny but I would've thought this was a pretty common request. I mean, it's a bit of a no brainer really. I assume you mean for extra money in which case it's just like overtime in any other job. No harm in asking but maybe not twice a month though.

This is the best approach.

As long as you pay extra and make that crystal clear when you ask then there is definitely no harm in asking.

We did this with our nanny, she said yes or no depending on availability. Paid her hourly rate.

Friends of ours have it in their nanny’s contract as part of her salary to do one night a week. I think it’s very standard if not even expected

No harm in asking but if she is young it might impinge on her social life if it is a regular thing then again she might be grateful for the extra money

You can ask and she might be glad of some extra money, make it clear it’s fine if she wants to say no though

Yeah I agree with this, if you worked at an office job you wouldn’t be happy with “I’ll give you £20 and a Diet Coke to do 5 hours over time next week”

So you shouldn’t treat nannying any different, it’s a job.

One of the nursery workers at my daughter's nursery babysat often for families at the nursery. I never asked because I didn't use babysitters but I would have if I'd needed to.

She was paid properly and I know she only did it for the families she wanted to (eg the ones whose children she liked who didn't have difficult parents). I think it's a fairly common request tbh.

Thanks for the advice, I guess I should just go for it. I tend to overthink these things

Ah, thanks for the tip and sharing your experience! That makes total sense. We are definitely planning on paying for the extra hours. I was just a little worried that asking our nanny to babysit might be a bit much, you know, since she's still pretty young and she might have other social activities. Definitely don't want to make her feel like we're taking advantage or anything. Good shout on treating babysitting as a whole different thing and paying properly. Appreciate you pointing that out!

No problem to ask!

If you have to change Nanny at any point my recommendation is to put the desire for occasional babysitting it in the job spec and discuss at interview.

Wanting a nanny to do evening babysitting is a very common ask so no problem in raising but being clear on pay. Assuming you have a payroll provider you should push payments through that. It does make it quite dear as you are then paying employee NI but for me personally I really don’t think worth doing any other way for relatively marginal savings.

It’s much more expensive than another ad hoc babysitter, but if that doesn’t bother you then go for it – it’s a common request.

My sister and her nanny friends (all live in nannies in a v affluent area) all used to babysit for each other's families so that nobody could be taken advantage of!

I always offer to our nanny first incase she wants the extra money. To be honest I expect her to say yes during the week, I made it very clear at the start that we would probably need a few nights a month due to work commitments. But all paid as overtime and usually at least a couple of weeks notice. On the weekend if she’s free she says yes, if she’s not she often recommends a nanny friend.