Hi everyone, I"m really hoping there are some nannies or parents on here who may be able to give me some advice.
Our lovely nanny started working with us 6 weeks ago. We hired her after I went back to work from ML to look after our just turned 1yo DS and nearly 5yo DD. She has sole care of the 1yo 4 days a week and drops off and picks up our DD from school two days a week (on these days its 7.30am-7.30pm), and care in the holidays.
Whilst she has formed a lovely bond with our DS, our DD is really struggling. She is very angry, a lot of tantrums, no co-operation, a lot of I don't want nanny name I only want Mummy and Daddy. She's a wonderful bright loving child but the nanny, and myself are really getting the brunt of it (not so much her Dad).
Our nanny has actually known DD for a few years, she was her key worker at nursery and continued to sit for us after she left. They always got on really well, until now. She is very calm but DD just won't co-operate with her and as this is her first nannying job I think she's struggling.
I'm at my wits end. We were lucky enough to plan DS1 to arrive so I could take nearly a year off on ML to settle DD into school (she is young in the year and I wanted to be around). DH also took 2 months paternity leave following me. We have a nanny because we both commute and have enough flexibility in our jobs to work some strange hours so that we can still provide DD with our care 3 days of the working week and have the contact with the school (this means we each work 2 x 12/13 hr days which is hard going). I thought I had it all planned perfectly - time off when DD needed me the most, flexible working, quality time with the kids, a nanny they knew and works with us rather than for us, but it seems to not be going well at all from our DD's perspective.
I know part of this is about being 5, part of it is getting used to the new normal. But we need some strategies to get through this period and to support our poor nanny. Any advice? (fingers crossed)