If you have a nanny who does your kids laundry and meals...

[AbbyCat]

Do you routinely separate laundry into a kids pile then? How do you ever have enough to justify a full wash is your stuff / household stuff isn't in it??
And re meals how do you ever eat dinner together/ the same food??
Am I just being really thick?

DS's laundry just all goes in together as mixed colours.

Batch cooking means we sometimes eat the same (big lasagne, double quantities of spag Bol) but we do sit down together of an evening. If your nanny feeds the children early you may find you don't eat the same. It depends what your family setup is.

Im not sure if i know what you are asking?

I'm a nanny;

1. I look after 4 DC's, there is plenty of washing without including anything else. The children have their own laundry baskets in their rooms so I just deal with that. It would be ok to ask the nanny to do the kids bedding/towels as well.

2. The parents and the kids don't eat together. The kids eat at 5pm, when the parents are still at work. By the time they come home, the children are ready for bed. If you want to eat the same food/at the same time then you need to cook it and be there to eat it.

I'm a nanny. With my charges I generally do their laundry but try also have someone who comes in once the week and does everything there at the time so it's just keeping it up. No one irons. Kids have a laundry basket in room and that's what I sort mainly

Food wise I cook all meals for children. If its something that is just as easy to make a large portion I will do and leave some For parents ( ie lasagne/ roast chicken etc). So out of 5 days a week I approx leave something for parents 2/3 days and not the others. Or I might leave half a meal ( cooked meat/ fish/ cauliflower cheese), that they just add what they like later.

Thanks outraged. Sorry if i wasnt clear. How does it work in a smaller family though?? With laundry anyway- at the moment all our clothes (me, DH, DS and dd) are separated into colours whites etc. I don't think we have enough clothes to justify a kids whites/darks/coloureds wash. And I can't imagine it would be acceptable for a nanny to do general laundry (I don't want her hanging out my knickers!). Would she just not do laundry in this instance?

Our nanny does all our laundry

Our DCs are 15 mo twins. I work 3 days and don't get in until 630 ish, DH works FT and gets in from work about 730/8 most nights so we don't ever eat together during the week. Cooking is a team effort. Most nights, I cook dinner for me and DH and save leftovers for DCs lunch the next day (and sometimes for nanny if there is enough). Some evenings she will cook for the DCs tea and save us leftovers for us to eat later. Sonetimes she just does a light tea like cheese on toast. And then she and I both batch cook now and then for the freezer both for the DCs and us..

I wash the childrens laundry and linens. It's in a basket kept in their room. If mum wants something washed by me she puts
It in the childrens basket. I've no problem with sticking different loads on and putting them on the line/ clothes basket.

I sometimes cook enough for mum and dad to reheat. Sometimes not. Depends how I feel and what is in. It's not expected though, but I know its appreciated.

We dont have a nanny or an au pair, but dd has a hamper in her room and once theirs a loads worth, I bung it all in together. No separating it for me!

I don't have a nanny but with 1 toddler DS, I easily have enough of his washing for at least a weekly wash, sometimes two. I don't separate his stuff except for whites (I have one household white wash each week as we don't have that much), I use colour catcher sheets (reusing 2 or 3 times to get value: once with the whites, again with our lights, and then with the baby wash, and lastly with darks if I have lots of stripy things).

see, id say - just get her to bung all the washing in together, then fold, iron and put away the children's clothes, if thats what you want/pay her to do, then just put yours in a washing basket in your room? As for food - if the children eat before you are home then its all sorted.

If you do not want your nanny seeing your knickers, have a special place you put them and make it clear to nanny that they are not to be touched.
However, is it really worth doing just a knicker wash?

I wouldn't want a nanny to do knickers for sure. Would most nannies agree to do general laundry? I.e me and dh t-shirts jeans etc?

If you are doing a wash for your stuff anyway and there isn't that much DC stuff then just put it all in together. There seems little point in getting the nanny to do it if you already have a system that works.

I wouldn't want to do general laundry tbh, but if it was a great job in other respects it wouldn't completely put me off, but would definitely be a negative point. I think this would be true for most of the nannies I know.

I only have one DS, but I still do a wash just of his clothes every week! I do his whites with ours though. And I wash his sheets/towels once a fortnight. Surely 2 children produce one load of coloured washing between them a week, or are they very clean? Sometimes DS goes through 3 changes of clothes a day.

I did childrens/family laundry. Whatever was hanging about really. So long as mum knew that the children took priority over the washing.

I look after one little girl. I do her washing, including bedding and towel on a Monday, I do three loads, a darks, a lights and a coloured load. I also wash my bosses towels on a Monday. If it is a small load then I do a half load wash but they are generally pretty full.

I will also do a load later in the week if we go through lots of clothes, food spillages, poonami, vomiting as she's slightly travel sick.

I will hang out my bosses clothes if they wash them but I won't take them out of the laundry basket and put them in the machine, this stems from early jobs where I have stuck my hand in laundry bins and pulled out used condoms, used sanitary protection and a king sized sheet balled up with vomit inside, pleasant surprise when I shook it out to put in the machine!

Your DCs are all very clean - I reckon we do 3 wash loads a day in total for me, DH and the twins!

I was a nanny for 10 years for the same family. Initially I only did the dc's laundry but eventually I was doing it all plus the ironing (all 3 dc were in school by this point).

With regards the evening meal, I did as pp above. If it was a lasagne or such like then there would be food left which parents could have for their evening meal too. Otherwise I fed dc and parents sorted themselves out later on.

Ceeveebee-3 loads a day? ( 21 a week?). Work, with 2 under 3, and 2 adults with both myself and housekeeper is prob max 6 loads a week. Do you all rewear items? I would refold my charges jumpers/ jeans etc if clean to be worn again etc

Small washer for one thing - Can only get 2 towels in at once so probably 3 loads a week for that, 2 for bedding, 1 DHs shirts, 1 my work dresses and tights (30 degree), 1 a day of DCs clothes (2 x pjs, vest, outfits - and despite me using big coverall bibs they get food everywhere when eating so can't be reused very often), and maybe 3 a week for mine and DHs clothes - so 17 a week - so 2 or 3 a day. DCs have had D&V for 5 days now so have had to change clothes at least twice a day this week as well

Don't iron much though

I'm nanny to two school age children, and do all the families laundry, including underwear, bed linen and towels. This usually equates to 1 or 2 wash loads per day. I also iron all clothes (apart from underwear).

The children usually eat before their parents come home from work. The only time they eat together, is occasionally if Mum or Dad are working from home.

I am a nanny to a 4m old and her dad, I live in, one of us puts a wash on and whoever is around hangs it to dry. So I do his smalls and he does mine. No problem.

i also refuse to do parents washing after like callaird have had to deal with blood and poo stained knickers and white y fronts (poo not blood) and also condoms in bed sheets (years ago but not a memory i want to repeat) so i always say nursery duties only

saying that doesnt mean i have missed the sick sheets by washing machine - if parents can manage to strip the bed and place on floor by machine, why cant they put in machine, rather then leave 5/6hrs till i search out the smell (as no one told me charge had been sick in night)

if you are happy doing all the washing op, why not continue and put wash on when you get up and nanny can hang up/put in dryer

but you have 2 kids, so by the time do a white wash and colours plus towels/bedclothes for kids depending which colour, then that is near enough full loads so the nanny can do it

regards food - unless you get home early enough then the nanny will feed the children, sometimes i make a huge dish like lasagne etc and leave/freeze - other times not

Interesting. I as never a nanny but whne i was a student I used to clean for a family. It included handwashing the knickers (and scrubbing the knicker gussets) belonging to the lady of the house. I didn't question it - well I was young and knew no better.

scrubbing the gusset of your employers dirty knickers

'blondes heaves'

that is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay in the no duties list