questions about Au Pair duties - stay or go...???

[gillo98]

hi, ive just recently got an au pair and skyped and emailed her what was expected of her before she accepted the position. we are in ireland by the way and she is australian. Myself and my other half both work full time and have a 7mth old son. Again, she was aware of all this beforehand.

I start work at 6am, and my other half at 7am, i expect her to get up with the baby as im gone by 5.30 and himself by 6.20am and the baby usually wakes about 6.30ish. im home by 2.30pm and the rest of the day is then hers. i also have a 2pm-10pm shift (other half is 3-11) and again i expect the au pair to get the baby up but i get up bout 8.30am and take over until i leave for work at 1.30pm. As im working until 10pm, this is counted as her babysitting night (ive 2 of these shifts one week and one another week and three in another week) AS she is expected to be avl to do babysitting twice a week, i pay her extra for the week when i have 3 x 2-10 shifts. And then i have a week of nights (10pm-6am) and i would be outa bed by 1pm and again she can have the day to herself until i leave for work at 9.30pm...baby is in bed by 6.30pm every night. She has not done ANY housework, sorry, im mistaken...she has done hoovering ONCE (she's here a month) and the odd time she will unload the dishwasher and has made dinner 6 times...
We pay her ?100 a week and she has full access to a car and her own tv and internet too. I have to tell her to take the baby monitor into her room. Oh also when we are off work she is off too, we get three days off one week (fri, sat, sun) the next week is three days too (sun, mon, tues) the following week is two days (wed, thurs) and then we are back to the fri, sat and sun off....
Am i asking too much? Any advice would be appreciated on this.....
thanks

It does sound like she does a lot more childcare than would be normal for an au pair. Does she have childcare experience, because just explaining it to her before she arrived is not the same as actually knowing how much work a 7mo really is.
What you described probably sounded totally doable, but maybe the fact that she's not meeting your expectations is evidence that you were expecting too much?
Is she a nice girl? Does she care for your baby in a manner you are happy with? If so, I would thank your lucky stars.
Australia has practically no unemployment at the mo and she could go home and get paid very well indeed.
If she's not good at the childcare component then reconsider.

I would say she is doing enough to justify the poor wage.

Yes, you are asking too much.

An AP is not qualified/ experienced childcare hence the reason they should not have sole charge of young children.

Your role is that of a live in nanny so you are being either exploitive ie having a live in person who has the relevant experience but you are calling her an AP and not paying her correctly or you are risking your childs safety by having an unqualified person perform a nanny role because you cannot afford or won't afford the proper going rate. Either way I think it is un satisfactory for both the AP and more importantly your baby.

Have you considered finding a nursery or cm for core hours and then using an AP to help top and tail the shift work. That way they could do the house work as well. For 100 £ a week her max working hours should be 35 including any child care.

You mention you classify the night shifts as baby sitting. I think that's stretching the role but i do understand your predicament however on other nights you cannot put the baby monitor in her room all night every night. That is never giving her down time. You need to reach an agreement that when you leave for work you will pop it into her room so she can hear it.

Finally getting her to take the baby from 6.30 to 8.30 on the days you work late shift is explotive on your part. Why are you allowed a lie in and she should't. You are making her work the same night shift as you so as the parent I am afraid you need to step up and not delegate everything to her.

agree with most others

you are asking too much and paying to little. She is doing a nanny job for 1/4 of nanny wages IMO

A little research shows me that she can't officially be an au pair unless she has dual nationality. Is she under the working holidaymaker visa programme? Or a different kind of visa?

a little research also shows that you are underpaying her. Standard aupair plus rate for 8hour day is c. 120-180 euros per week.

Given that you are expecting her to monitor a 7mo overnight 5x a week, you should be giving her the upper rate.

having been a hostmum for several years, I am appauled at how you are treating her. Saying "she knewore she came" is just unbelievable - if I offered you £100pw to work in Sweden, would you know if it was a good deal or not? You cannot understand cost of living in a foreign country.

Also, because your AP doesnt get the same days off every week, nor does she get every evening off, she gets no opportunity to socialise and make friends. It must be a very lonely existance for her.

"she knew the deal before she came" - oops

Having played on google further I'm also coming up that as she can't be an au pair you need to pay her minimum wage ?7.65 per hour but you may deduct board/lodging and the recommended rates for hotel staff are those the the ICTU recommends for other live in employees, currently ?54.13 each week.

However 40 hours at ?7.65 minus the ?54.13 definitely isn't ?100.

And by having her take the baby monitor you're breaking the rules which state she should have 11 hours off.

Snapfrackle, I suspect minimum wage may not apply if they are living in house as part of family - that is how the law is in UK at least.

That's by the by. this isn't an AP role in any way and you are exploiting her. Which of course you may well be free to do (depending on law in Ireland). Just don't be surprised when you return home one day soon to find her with her bags packed.

heya, i found this online so it isnt my own words,im just pasting it on!! :-)

"The Au Pair programme is a cultural exchange for young European people aged 18 -26 years of age, single with no dependants, who want to improve their level of English whilst living as part of a host family. In return for childcare & light housework, they can expect to receive a minimum pocket-money of 85 Euros per week. It should be noted that an au pair is not an employee and is therefore not liable to tax/national insurance contributions.

Duties of an Au Pair

Au Pairs are expected to help with childcare i.e. playing with the children, taking & collecting them from school, babysitting. They will also help with light housework chores including, vacuuming, ironing, washing-up and simple cooking.

What the Au Pair can expect

An Au Pair should not work more than 35 hours per week (these hours do not include 2 nights babysitting) They must have 2 free days per week. Basically if the Au Pair is not allowed to go out, this should be considered as working time. Au Pairs should have their own room, full board and the opportunity to practice her language skills in a family setting & to attend a language school if wished.

They should be treated as a member of the family & most meals should be taken with the family when possible. If families and girls want extra hours they can agree it between themselves However, Au Pairs must not be expected to work excessive hours and families must be considerate. A simple rule of thumb is: If your child was an Au Pair how would you wish them to be treated.

it just ive read the posts and although the au pair appears to be doing more than some au pairs there are other things to take into consideration....

you are expecting her to work as a nanny and do the work of a nanny AND an au pair - what she is doing is acting as anny and being paid au pair wages -
what you really need is a nanny AND a cleaner/housekeeper but you expect an au pair to do both jobs at minimal wage

This doesn't sound like a good working relationship between yourself and someone you happily trust your 7 month old to. You sound like you have so much anger towards her.

Does she have a childcare qualification? I'm a bit shocked that you would leave a 7mo with an au pair full time if I'm honest. It's a lot of work and a lot of responsibility, particularly if she's not experienced in caring for a baby.

The others are correct when they say you are expecting her to work as a nanny for an AP's wages. Having a baby monitor on in her room all night is also not on in my opinion - she probably finds it very hard to relax with it in there and it probably disturbs her sleep. Overnight is part of her time off duty but by giving her a monitor you are effectively putting her "on call".

I agree with whoever suggested you should use a CM or nursery some of the time and use the AP for pick up/drop off. That way she would have child free time every day to do some cleaning etc.

Worksucks - is that from an Irish website? The OP is in Ireland and the au-pair is from Australia so not part of EEA. Therefore I would have thought the au-pair would be subject to having an entry visa, possibly a work permit. So what is considered to be an au-pair in other parts of Europe may not apply, as the person isn't from Europe.

OP - be very careful regarding the persons right to work in your country. Is there such a thing as an au-pair visa in Ireland for someone coming from outside of the EEA?

Still hard to see exactly what working hours your au-pair has... How many on-duty hours a week are they doing?

As a nanny I manage some domestic tasks at same time as caring for a baby and 3yr old - but not that many tasks, just things like a wash load, dishwasher, make a loaf of bread, tidy up a bit, make childrens beds.

You don't have a job for an aupair, you need a nanny. According to the British Aupair Agencies Association, an aupair shouldn't have continuous sole care of a child under 2. I know you are in ireland, but it's still not what the scheme is aimed at or intended for regardless of what she said across Skype when she was thousands of miles away. You need a nanny and a cleaner, you are exploiting this girl by expecting her to be both of those things.

I completely agree with HattiFattner

I feel for this aupair as she is still settling in with your family with a very unsociable work pattern where a balance has yet to be found and yet here you are trying to decide whether she should go over not doing a bit of housework!!!

I have a fantastic aupair who doesn't do as much housework as I would like but you know what she does a smashing job with my son. They go to playgroups, parks , music group, meet with friends & today they are off to the farm. Would I want them to stop spending time doing these things so I had a cleaner house - NO as the welfare & happiness of my son & aupair far outweighs a cleaner house.

Irish labour laws look complicated but I can't find a specific NMW exemption squiffy. They all talk about the ICTU recommended dedduction of ?54.13 but NMW always applies.

Anyone with a Working Holiday Authorisation seems to be automatically subject to that, unless this girl is a dual national in which case she could conceivably be considered an au pair.

This is from 2005 but I can't find any recent changes to it. It definitely says they'd be entitled to minumum wage (and in no way is the OPs job considered as an au pair by them) and makes reference to deduction which isnt set but is based on the ICTU maximum. IMO a deduction of nearly 4x the recommended amount isn't going to be seen as a reasonable charge and the OP is more likely in breach of minimum wage legislation.

But as I said in my first post, it's not necessarily about the money - it's more to do with how the OP is managing this person and we need a bit more clarity on the arrangement to be able to comment.

I have a live in nanny/housekeeper who does no more than 40 hours a week (3 days childcare and then a day without kids to do the cleaning, I do not expect it to be done while with kids) with three days off a week and I pay her £300 net ie I pay her taxes on top of that. Prob about 500 euros in other words. Oh yes my youngest is almost three and others in school 9 to 3.
I have no complaints, she's fab, but she then has no complaints either...

We have employed au pairs for four years now, and, based simply on what we expect from our au pair (and what s/he expects from us), I feel you are asking a lot of hours for relatively little pay. I'm not sure which websites are being quoted here, but from hours of research a few years ago, this is what I understood to be fair:

• 25 hours a week for minimum of £70
• 30 hours a week for about £80 ("Au Pair Plus")

We pay our au pair £80 for 30, plus a per-hour payment for any hours over that, which we agree to mutually. No housework.

40 hours is a phenomenal number for an au pair - really

OP has got a pasting on here, perhaps justifiably, but to be frank I can't make heads or tails of the schedule and exactly how many hours AP is working/has time off on an ongoing basis from what she's written.

Purely on the basis of the fact that the baby is seven months, though, I think you should be considering a combination CM and AP.

Are there any days that you work that are the same each week which you could allocate to a CM? I am thinking that maybe you have an AP not purely for cost but because your schedue is so variable that a nanny/cm wouldn't be flexible enough for you the way an AP, in theory, might be willing to be.

You may well end up having to pay for a bit more childcare than you would normally use to tie up the carer's time in order to get that flexibility, ifyswim.There's really no way around this though for a baby so young.

We've all been there, I'm afraid. Childcare at this age takes a huge amt of most people's salaries given the skill set of the carer required to look after a baby this young and many of them, for perfectly valid reasons, just can't be as flexible as you might need them to be. It's just the way it goes.

Agree with everyone else. This is NOT an au apir job. It's a live in nanny. And a very flexible one at that. You might think its ok because it is "only" 40 hours a week. It's NOT though. Here's what my take on the "best case" schedules are:

5 Nights per week: baby monitor overnight = ON CALL therefore working
4 days a week: 630am start time (unsociable) THEN a combo of
A)working to 830am, then working again 130-1030pm = 11 hours/day
B)working to 230pm = 8 hours/day
C)working to 1pm, then working again 930pm til OP "takes over" at 1pm the following day!!!!!! = basically working 930pm til 1pm the following day.

You need a Nanny OP. You are crazy if you think your requirements are reasonable for 100 measly Euro per week.

Harriet - I agree, the schedule is not clear so we don't really know yet what hours the au-pair is working/on-call.

The OP said the au pair works 'maybe 32 hours a week up to a maximum of 40 hours a week' in a later comment.

I can't understand the schedule either, but that seems to be the number of hours the au pair is working (not including the times when she is off, but has the baby monitor).