Hi there,
We have been using our nanny for around 6 months and on the whole we're very happy with her. There were no teething problems and the children settled quickly and day to day things run smoothly and everyone is in a routine.
There have just been a few niggles at how she speaks to DD1 who is 3. She seems to deliberately try to antagonise her. An example would be deliberately telling her she has to be a big girl and sleep in her own bed, when I have repeatedly told the nanny that we are happy co-sleeping for the time being for various reasons. Poor dd is getting mixed messages now and it's making her anxious.
She also tries to make her sound silly in front of us, in a way that undermines my dd and confuses her.
I suppose it is low-level bullying behaviour, but I don't like it and I don't really know what to do about it.
There are other issues around food that annoy me. I realise that I should just talk to her about that and get it all out in the open. But there is a lot of pressurising around food and punishing too, such as making a big deal about not being allowed fruit for pudding because she didn't finish her meal. I know that's how lots of people do it, but I'm really against putting emotional pressure on food. But I realise in this case it's my fault for not communicating it to our nanny yet.
Does anyone know how I should address the other issues? It is such a subtle thing that its hard to bring out into the open. But me and DH have both noticed it and felt uncomfortable about it for a while, so I feel we do need to address it.