Fabulous au-pair is leaving, am so sad :(

[starrystarrynights]

Just having a moan on here really, as have posted a more constructive thread actually looking for childcare a few moments ago.

In a nutshell, absolutely fabulous AP is leaving after 6 months having recently got engaged whilst in Germany for Christmas.

I'm presently on my own with DD, starting a new job in a fews weeks, moving house next week, and hundreds of miles from family. I do have a DP, he lives on the other side of London and works abroad during the week and practically would not be in the country to assist at the moment.

I've had one fab au-pair and one not so good in the space of 18 months.

Is it just me or do au-pairs tend to stay for less than a year? Present AP has been so happy with us, I just know that I'll not find anyone as good and I just can't face going through the sifting process again .

Our German au pairs have both been happy to stay with us for a year (at least, we're five onths in with the second and it is going well so far). What are your criteria when you look? We've gone for students who'll be finishing their Abitur and are looking for a gap year before uni - they have a natural time period to be away and are usually looking for that one-year period. We have other criteria, of course, but this is a key factor for us, as we don't want more frequent chopping and changing. We look through AuPairWorld how about you?

For some reason, there are always some girls saying that they finish their exams before June/July - I've seen February as well as April. You might find someone to do the six months until the summer, then start again looking for August to August periods.

I've had 4 au pairs and mine stay for the school year. They start in mid August and are with us until the end of July.

As previous poster has said they come for a gap year after their final exmas and before they start Uni in October.

HTH

I'd look at Romanian or Bulgarian candidates. When the EU grew a lot in the mid 2000's we started to host Romanian girls and I think all of them have been with us for 12 months or longer.

We seem to average about 9 months.

We just had a truly fantastic AP leave after 12 months and you notice the difference when that are gone.