Nanny additional holidays

[Thingything]

Hoping for a sense check on this one.

Husband and I both work full time and kids have SEN so can’t do after school clubs (special school doesn’t have them) or holiday camps so we’ve always had to employ a nanny. We always have good relationships with them, and have them basically on a full time contract with 25 days paid holiday etc. During term time when kids are in school they get lots of free time and then in holidays its full on.

All of our nannies have been childfree and so tend to use their annual leave days in termtime when travel is cheaper. That’s actually good for us as we don’t need to take time off work to cover - we just make it work with pick ups from school taking turns and logging on in the evening etc.

The AIBU is this. We take our holidays in the school holidays, which means our nannies always get way more annual leave effectively than their contracts allow. Because they take their days in termtime (which is good for us anyway because if they took it in school hols at a time we weren’t going away we’d have to take leave to stay home with kids) and then we take our holidays in the school holidays. Well, some school holidays - kids get 20 weeks a year of school hols and we have 5 weeks from our employers.

Every holiday, this drives my husband nuts that we are going away and paying someone to not work. He always tries to devise tasks like getting the nanny to come in and sort out kids’ toys or uniform or whatnot whilst we’re away to make the most of the fact we’re paying them. I think this is petty and ridiculous and if we want to go away we just suck it up. It’s fine, we’re paying anyway regardless whats the drama, and extra holidays is kind of one of the perks of being a SEN nanny which is a hard job.

He thinks I’m a pushover and always too worried about upsetting people.

AIBU?

Yeah I guess I never delegated those tasks

eta I can’t really understand how that isn’t something that gets done as you go along either!

DH sounds mean and petty.

I would tell him I was not willing to discuss it as his attitude was putting me off him. That should shut him up.

Aw, you sound absolutely lovely.
I really wouldn't go with pushover here. If in my aupairing days, you would have paid me extra for going to an assembly (but that was almost 20 years ago and done in cash, so easier), I would have refused (at least initially), to me it felt like being a figure in the kids life. But I would have also appreciated the thought.
Here is the thing, everyone needs to feel like they are being appreciated, so your instincts are definitely right. I would always offer to pay for unexpected lateness, a cancelled day off for emergencies, being at a birthday party as an extra pair of hands (but not if fully catered and child just really wanted me there). Even if you are more generous than you strictly speaking have to be the person taking care of your kids, I think building good will, will pay dividends long term.

We have a nanny and based on my experience and our friends, you are being more generous than average. We tell her what dates she can take holiday and it basically coincides with ours (I do take my child to my parents in Spain to work from abroad though for 2-3 extra weeks so I'm actually away for a total of 6-7 weeks of the year so she has a bit of flex).

But everyone I know with nannies is quite strict with holidays. Our child is 17 months so if she is away, we also have to be off, there is no way we can work around it.

When we are away and she has used up her holiday, she does come in for a few hours a day (not all days, 2-3 days a week) and does some chores, sort laundry, some light cleaning, sort clothes etc. This was discussed before hiring her though.

And paying for any goodwill gestures is a given, I don't think that's generous, i think it's fair. I pay her for any extra minute she spends on my child

Nannies have lives too, they’re not necessarily willing to be upended for the sake of another family’s enjoyment of a holiday. Travelling for me as a nanny was harder work than normal- in a place/location not of my choosing, dealing with tired and grumpy children out of routine, having to be hyper vigilant of pool/water safety and usually expected to be ‘on’ outside the hours of my normal contract while everyone else was on a jolly. Therefore I charged a stipend for expenses, a nightly fee for the inconvenience of not being able to do as I please or be at home and any overtime outside of my normal working hours was charged by the hour, including travel time. I’d also expect my own room and some paid time off whilst there. It’s not as easy as packing up your nanny in a suitcase and inflating her when you arrive at your destination to enable you to have a more relaxing holiday. It adds a considerable extra cost to your holiday.

What does their contract say? If the tasks that your husband wants them to do when you're not there aren't specified in their contracts, then no, they can't be expected to do them. Presumably, their role is to provide childcare and that doesn't extend to anything else outside of caring for children who are actually available to be cared for.

That's why we have contracts of employment.

Think of it this way, my job is as a teacher. I'm not expected to paint the school in the holidays even though technically I only have 28 days of annual leave a year.

Why not just adjust holiday dates and entitlement slightly? So you get to choose 15 days rather than 10. Then go away 4 weeks out of 5 in school holidays, and then there’s only 1 week “wasted” rather than 2-3?

But as a teacher, your employer tells you what your holidays are, you have no choice. And I think it's pretty standard for nannies to have less flexibility as well. Many employers dictate when you can and can't take holidays so OP may be too generous there.

But she can't change that for an existing nanny unfortunately, this is the stuff you discuss at the hiring stage.

Same with us. We did what op did and was really taken advantage of tbh. There was no give, just always take. So with the others we were very strict and just stuck to the contract to the letter. If we were 10min late she expected to be paid, but it ok to her if she was 10 mins late that we just needed to ‘understand’.
Everyone I know did the same.

I did what you do OP and regarded it as a perk of the job that my nanny got more holiday than contracted. It was part of having a good working relationship. And she stayed with us for 10 years and the stability of the arrangement was fantastically valuable to me, dh and the children. I would continue as you are, including stopping your dh talking to the nanny about it.

Point out to DH that he is suffering from luckybuggeritis.

I know MN is weird about nannies but there is nothing lucky about an SEN child and needing extra care.

The nanny is not doing anyone a favour, she's an employee. I don't know of a single nanny that gets to decide when she takes holiday. Most people who work in any childcare or personal care have some sort of restrictions around holidays.

If my nanny announced she's going to Spain in May cause it's cheaper, I'm fucked because it means I need to take time off work, I can't work around it. The more usual approach is to plan your own year, discuss with her and give some strict parameters.

If they already take 2 weeks of your choosing

And you can afford to take 5 weeks abroad each year AND cover the cost of hiring a nanny... you dont need any Incremental efficiencies.

Your DH is nuts....

Isn't this mean?
I would guess that it is difficult to find a Nanny that is experienced working with children with SEN, if the OP is happy and if the children are happy and well looked after I don't think I should rock the boat by changing the terms of her contract. Also I imagine that it wouldn't be difficult for OP's Nanny to find a job somewhere else.

Working extra is already providing flexibility even if it's paid. I think good reliable childcare, especially SEN is like gold dust and if you start trying to get every penny's worth you'll end up losing good will.

Your husband would sacrifice making memories with his children so he could make the most of the Nanny?! Bizarre!!!

I'd absolutely be asking them to do child related chores.
I used to do this happily when I was a Nanny. I'd also shop and batch cook for the freezer. Spring clean kids rooms, sort clothes, toys etc,

It is very hard to get a good SEND nanny, so I think what you are doing (current set up) is very sound (like an extra perk for them). Provided you can afford it I would continue as you are.

I agree with a lot of the posters.

Another option though could be paying her an annual salary for x number of weeks but splitting this by 12 so that she still gets paid the same each month. Like a teaching assistant in a school or even a teacher. I work term time only for the LA but get paid monthly. My actual salary is about £25k but based on my hourly rate of pay, if I were to work a full time equivalent and only take the 5 weeks holiday the LA offers is regular full time staff then I would be on about £32k or so. I can only take my holidays during school time. However in your situation you could stipulate how many weeks you want to pay over the year, include the usual paid holidays in this amount and then stipulate when some of the holidays are taken. I guess that when your children are at school the Nannie’s are on unpaid time like a split shift that some hospitality workers work?

Sorry, I voted YABU incorrectly.

Your husband has to suck it up, it is what it is. HIBU.

OP can afford the nanny and tbh I wouldn’t nickel and dime a good nanny who your sen kids have formed a good relationship with.

I know a few people who do and they go through Nanny’s at a cracking pace

Can some of the extra holiday be used for some overtime hours - evenings / weekends etc ?

How many hours a week do they work in term time and the holidays? How many hours a week are they paid for? If they normally work shorter hours in term time, do thry really need extra pay to go to an assembly?

no way, that’s banking hours, it’s not done. At least not by a just and fair nanny employer.