We have had our nanny since January. Her hours are five days a week, 8am until 2pm. She looks after my 19 month old son while my four year old is at preschool.
I think she is good with my son and he seems to love her, but she is impossible with me and my husband.
She always arrives late. The idea is that she comes at 8am and looks after the little one so that my husband has his hands free to get my daughter ready and take her to preschool (nanny says my daughter doesn't want her to take her to preschool - and to be honest, she's right). However, she never gets there before 8.15 so my husband always gets dd ready late so he's always late for work. We spoke to her about this together and explained to her that it was really a problem for him. Her response was "I won't come at 8am until you get your child ready quicker". The contract does say 8am but we didn't push it as we didn't want her being angry with us and taking it out on ds.
Most mornings she arrives and announces to us and dd that she is in a bad mood. She tells me all about how the world is against her - and usually I am the cause of this. She then snaps at dd to be quiet because she's in such a bad mood. She criticises me constantly to my face and she has also spoken to my neighbours about how "problematic" I am (for example, I took ds out in the pushchair without a cosy-toes foot bag thing when she thought it was too cold for him, my neighbour replied that in her opinion it was still too warm weather for a cosy-toes and nanny replied to her that she would have to see how she should deal with me). She has even told me that a picture we have on the wall is "stupid".
I try to be friendly to try to get her to be a bit more cheerful. I listen to her problems.
I have now finally (after 9 months) found someone else who seems like a good alternative. The thing is that with my son, the present nanny is lovely. She is cheerful, caring, plays with him nicely from what I have observed. She won't go out for trips really because she can't manage it (if you lived somewhere else I could take him out for trips more easily) and she won't go out when the playground might be "dirty". But, he really likes her and is used to her. She takes him to a playgroup, reads loads of books with him, dances round the house with him. She never makes him lunch (although this was in the job description) but she says that in her opinion it's ok if he eats at 2pm when I get home - she gives him banana and bread roll during the morning.
Is it better to change because then I will be more relaxed and feel less attacked, or is it better to stay with her because after all ds is the important one here and a) change will be disconcerting for him and b) I don't know if the new nanny will be as good with him?
Sorry for writing so much! Please help!