We have just found a new nanny to care for our two sons four days a week when I go back to work from maternity leave.
We have not yet signed contracts but we're about to draw one up. The nanny has now emailed to ask for ten days' holiday in a few months' time. It's not yet booked but she would like to arrange the time off. Obviously in principle this is fine, but the time she has requested is in the middle of term time. As we are both university teachers we need someone who can agree not to take holiday in term time if at all possible. We explained this at the interview and she agreed.
As it turns out, the period she has asked for is especially tricky for us as my husband will be out of the country, so even if I can get a day off here and there, he won't be able to help out, and we have no back-up cover.
I have two concerns - firstly, that if I tell her she can't book the holiday she'll feel annoyed (she's clearly done the right thing by asking us in advance and before booking). But secondly, I'm worried she doesn't realise how important the term-time thing is. It's really vital to us to have someone who can be completely reliable in term time, which for us is effectively only about half the year. In our previous nannyshare we had an informal (not contracted) agreement that the nanny's chosen weeks of holiday (two out of four) would not be taken in term time and this worked fine.
I feel we've already made some concessions - for example after we offered her the job she asked for more money - only a small increase on what we were offering but we were already pretty much at the limit of what we could afford. We agreed to the increase because we liked her and figured we could make it work financially, but we are in no position to pay for back-up care during the period in question.
So, what do you do when you just can't be flexible about holiday? How do I communicate this without sounding like a dragon but making it clear how important it is? Any other thoughts on the situation? Thanks in advance and sorry this is so long.