Does au-pair doing enough?

[newmuMM111]

Hello everyone.

Since January I have lovely au-pair in my family, she has been okay with her duties just lately it seems to me that she is getting lazy but also I am not sure if I am not asking too much of her. I am single mum with a single child.

I pay her 80 pounds a week and her duties are:

1hr in the morning with my only child - breakfast, doing HW, get dressed, brush teeth, play in the spare time, then take to school (walking distance)

2.5-3hrs in the afternoon - collect from school, give a snack, then play, make a simple dinner for him, prepare a bath/shower and that is it.

She is making breakfast and dinner for my son most of the days, cleaning kitchen and floors after meal, loading and unloading dishwasher, tidying up living room/my sons bedroom every day, making him a bed of course, preparing his waterbottle and books for school, helping him with homework, doing most of the washing and drying clothes, feeding cat sometimes, just small bits and pieces around the house that really dont take a lot of time.

Plus she is cleaning my house every week for 3hrs(kitchen, bathrooms, living room, her bedroom and my sons bedroom), does 3 hours of ironing a week, babysitting about once a week + every second Saturday.
Sometimes I am going out more (maybe 3 times a week but it is not really often) and also about once a week I am a bit late from work so she stays with my son 2/3 hrs more - until 7/8pm instead of 6.30pm and sometimes she babysits overnight - I am coming back arround 9am in the morning next day.

Totally it is 26 hours with cleaning, ironing + as I said babysittings and little bits and pieces arround house.

She has own bedroom, she can help herself in the fridge (My grocery bills are around 10 pounds higher (per week) since she came), TV in her room, Wi-fi, etc.

So, what do you think? Should I talk to her? Mostly she is not doing all the ironing and cleaning properly.

I think she's doing plenty.

I think that's quite a lot tbh. I'm not surprised she is slacking off.

It sounds like she's doing more than enough for £80 pw

If you need a cleaner shouldn't you hire a cleaner?

I think she is doing plenty she is not a house keeper

What would you suggest then?
I had a cleaner before, so do you think I should hire her back instead of AP doing it?

I have talked to her two times about that cleaning not beeing done properly but she is still doing it really lightly, not like deep clean and sometimes she just skips some things so this seems to me like this should sove the things?
Or should I pay her for doing it lets say 20 pounds?

She is not employed as a cleaner. As I understand it an Au Pair should do child related tasks such as preparing and clearing his meals, making his bed and washing his clothes, babysitting etc not general housework. Not sure she should have sole overnight care really, is that additional to her 26+ hours ?

She is doing a lot and you sound quite mean complaining about a £10 increase in your food bills. That is nothing for one person.

I used to be an au pair.

Pick the child up after school and look after her for about 2 - 3 hours.
Clean house weekly.
Feed tea to the child.
I worked 5 days and baby sat about 2-3 nights a week.
All washing.
Help with homework if possible.
Some grocery shopping.
Cook for family and guests sometimes.

Oh I didnt mean to sound like that, I just wanted to make it clear that I am buying her food and ask her if she wants something special (she usually just eats what is in the fridge or buys her own stuff)

She is a bit shy person, but amazing with kids, patient and really bubbly personality - but just arround kids, you can really see she likes working with them. She doesnt go out evenings at all which I was worried about from the beggining but it is just how she is, likes spending time by herself, sometimes goes out with friends during weekends but always back home before 6pm, which you dont see very often (she is 20 years old).
So I am happy with all of that.

LIZS - yes this is additional, but I give her usually one free afternoon a month, when he is going to his friends house after school so she works just morning....

Madrigals - well that is basically what I ask, vaccuum, mop, dust,...but also doing all the mirrors, emptying bins and cleaning bath and loo as well emptying all the bins...I see that I will have to hire my cleaner back probably.

Thing is she wont say anything, she is really shy and polite, which is good but sometimes I would be happy with her feedback...

Definitely enough for an au pair. Always astounds me how people want SO much for next to no pay. Hire a cleaner.

26 hours a week is on the light (but normal) side for one child. £80 a week is a fair wage. You can find another aupair if this one does work out.

I would set out a cleaning roster and indicate which rooms she must do each day. Then check at the end of the day. That way she cannot wiggle and say, oh, I was intending to do it tomorrow .

If you think she is still not doing the job properly after frequent reminders, then you have a decision to make. But you need to fix her duties more (and have a less fluid arrangement) in order to monitor.

I pay my cleaner £40/week just for cleaning. Get a cleaner. She's not lazy, you're being cheap

OddFodd, you cannot compare a cleaner's hourly wage with an aupair's hourly wage. A cleaner does not get food and board. An aupair is not a skilled job either so OP is not paying for a professional.

blueshoes I have the same opinion...

If she is going to do 26 hours of childcare or 23 hours childcare + 3hrs cleaning really doesnt matter I think...

That is my opinion....

Wow she must eat like a bird if it id only. 10 pounds pw.

Or there must be mostly bread, pasta, rice not much fruit or anything exciting :-(

An aupair is not a skilled job either so OP is not paying for a professional. but she is expecting her to babysit overnight. I really don't think you can expect much deep cleaning. Quick wipe over a bathroom or sweeping up the floor and table after breakfast maybe.

OP, 3 hours of cleaning a week is no hardship. Most aupairs prefer to do childcare to cleaning but every job has its good and bad. If you made it clear she had to do cleaning before she accepted the role, it is not for her to decide she will cherry pick the bits she likes and ignore (or be passive aggressive) about the bits she does not.

If you relieve her of cleaning duties, you will then have to pay a cleaner to do those 3 hours. Is she happy to have that amount deducted from her pocket money? That is what it means to you if she does not want to do cleaning.

No of course not but I don't consider 6 hours a week of cleaning and ironing to be 'light' cleaning - which is what I understand is what APs are supposed to do

Its not 3 hours, it's 6

if you want her to clean, you need to pay extra for that.

ime (was an au pair a long time ago) housework relating to the job (children's laundry, tidying up together with dc, homework, making food for dc, clearing the table after meals, loading/unloading dishwasher, school run) is fine but anything above that is not without the extra agreement and pay.

3 hours cleaning a week is very light IME. 3 hours ironing is also light - most of my aupairs just watch TV or leave their computer on or have music whilst ironing.

My heart is not really breaking.

Since when are aupairs such lilies. There is much harder unskilled work out there (waitressing, factory, shop jobs) which pays more but once you factor board into it, does not give them much more than an aupair's easy life.

She eats maybe one/two pieces piece of fruit a day, veggies, toast with beans, cereal w milk, maybe one yoghurt a week and biscuits and nutella,jam. She doesnt eat meat so that saves a lot...
I was also surprised that my shopping havent increased a lot, but she eats a lot believe me, just not expensive food like exotic fruit (she likes bananas, apples), just white plain yoghurt, very rarely some pasta with veggies, usually just salad and bread that is it.
That are things I am buying on weekly basis and when I ask if she wants anything else she never does.

Housework that is related to childcare only applies to nannies. They are paid childcare professionals. And even the best ones (the ones that make their employer's lives easier) are flexible.

Aupairs are not nannies.