Nanny/ babysitter, need advice please

[nikki81]

Hi. I have just started using a local nanny on a wednesday and thursday from about 3.30pm- 6pm. She is working towards her level 3 nvq in childcare and will qualify in may. I am paying her £7 per hour and don't expect her to do much, just feed children and bath them but should I expect her to wash up or put children's washing away etc? Can anyone else give me some advice. We are in the essex area in case that helps. Thanks

it depends, do you want her spending time doing stuff with your kids eg. board games etc or doing the household chores?

TBH with around just over 2 hours to feed and bath kids and I presume chat about their day, I don't think she's got time to do much more than maybe load the dishwasher.

When I've employed a part-time nanny I've never asked for anything more than for them to play with/feed the children. Having said that, they have always loaded the dishwasher (provided that it's empty).

Depends on the contract you have with your nanny. My contract does not include domestic tasks - but, I do end up doing a fair amount of that sort of thing (except for ironing, as I am not good at that). You are the employer so you dictate what your employee does. Given the hours, I would say washing up the evening meal is reasonable to include, but children's washing is not (given that the nanny is only doing 2.5 hours per day, which is after-school care I expect). What you need to keep in mind is that anytime that they are doing domestic tasks they are not directly caring for your children.

Hi. Thanks. I didn't really expect her to do household chores as I know she wont be spending the time with my children, who are 4yrs and 6 months. I havent done a contract as it is only 5 hours a week. Also the agreement was for her to come at 4pm but I asked her to come abit earlier this week, so she came at 3.30pm. Last week I gave her £30 for both days, do I just pay her £30 a week or should I up it if she is coming 15-30 minutes earlier?

Just to answer the payment question I think as you asked her to come earlier then yes you should pay her extra. If on the other hand it was just her turning up an extra 15 mins early to get organised etc then no.

If you have asked her to come earlier then you should be paying from the time she arrives.

I would pay her extra rounded up to the nearest 1/2 hour.