Nanny not suitable for twins

[Namechange4413]

Hi i employed a part time nanny a couple of years ago and shared her hours with another family until our twins were born. I am now due to return to work in July but I can see over the last few months when she has done mostly sole days with our son (her other family work is almost complete) that she isn’t the right choice for looking after more than one child and especially twins. We have been employing her for 2.5 years via a share and now almost in a sole basis but I feel terrible telling her that I just don’t feel she is right for us now, can anyone offer any advice?

Happy to go into a bit more detail on why but some of it is a bit long winded, none of it disciplinary.

Thank you

Well as is a nanny share, you could say that you would just rather do sole charge now, due to the fact that you'd rather someone focus on just your children as you think it's too many, and suggest they find another family to fill the share. A nanny doing a share would rather keep earning the money than take a pay cut to do sole charge work anyway, so I'm sure she won't be too upset about it for long, nor would she want to work sole charge just for you

If you are only seeing her doing one to one stuff with your older DC, you can't know from that how she would be with all 3. As a practitioner you adapt to the child/children you are caring for.
Without knowing your reasons for feeling this way, my first thought is that I would start paying her for a day a week earlier on perhaps to start building that relationship so you can hopefully be reassured.

If you are definite I'm your decision though do it sooner rather than later, while you can take care of your son yourself until you find the right person for the job, you don't want to have to uproot him from one relationship to another, to potentially another if the next doesn't work out either.

in your decision

This looks like it could be an unfair dismissal situation. Your nanny has been employed for over two years so any dismissal needs to be handled very carefully. I feel you would need to give them warning that whatever they are doing wrong is unacceptable and give them opportunity to improve.

In the nannyshare I would presume they have been caring for more than one child at a time... a nannyshare being when two families employ a nanny to care for the children from both families at the same time. Maybe you don't mean a nannyshare in that sense - maybe it's two completely separate jobs with no time spent caring for children from both families simultaneously.

If you decide to go the route of dismissal then talk to your nanny payroll provider first as you may need to be referred to their legal support team to help ensure you follow the appropriate procedure for dismissal.

Hi all thanks for your responses. I should clarify the nannyshare is on different days so the children aren’t looked after at the same time. I’ve been doing set full days of “trial” runs over last couple of months every week with how it would be when I return to work, and also days where I take my son to his nursery group and she has time with the babies by completing some kit days at my work. Prior to that we were spending full days together so she could get to know them and the routine a bit better. On the days on her own and with me she did seem to lose her patience which surprised me and getting stressed out about minor things ie shouting at my son for not putting his shoes on the shoe rack and leaving them in the hall. He actually left them with my shoes rather than his own little rack so no big deal in my opinion! She hadn’t realised I was actually home in the kitchen prepping their dinner as I thought she might want a breather so when I heard her raised voice i came out and thought something quite significant had happened. She was mortified but then said my son had run into the house with dirty shoes but I had seen he hadn’t. I did at that point explain to her it’s not a big deal if he doesn’t do it every time and indeed if he ran in wxcited to play with shoes it doesn’t warrant being shouted at and if there was anything else stressful about the day or did it go ok. She said it went fine. Most days it’s been a bit like that with something minor happening which changes the mood and I absolutely get it. The juggle is quite something and it’s not for everyone but perhaps she feels stuck between a rock and hard place? Knowing it’s not for her, but not really wanting to leave? I don’t want to dismiss her unnecessarily as she generally does do a good job and we have a nice working relationship but you know when someone is out of their depth, it really does feel that way.

I’d also like to add I am not taking any decision lightly as I take my role as an
Employer very seriously, being a nanny is a hugely responsible job and I earlier without a HR department for them to turn to it must be tricky to approach situations where you feel overwhelmed? I would hope she doesn’t feel she can’t talk to me about it if she is!

The shouting is disciplinary IMO but may be too late to deal with now. Can you give her notice to quit and say that you are rethinking childcare options and don't want to continue with the current arrangement?

Your ideal situation I expect is for her to resign. Then it's not you dismissing her for incompetence, failure to improve following warnings. End of the day she wants a job and if this is not the right fit she wants to leave this job with a good reference.

Fourcanaries - I think you mean making the position redundant. That's a possibility but does Namechange want to use another form of childcare with three children? They could not just hire another nanny as that would make the redundancy invalid.

It's a tricky situation. Your nanny can talk to her association/union if she is a member and they may well suggest to her ways to improve her conduct at work (how to cope with three children, how to not be too fussy about things like dirt, communicating with parents, having reasonable behaviour expectations from eldest child who has recently dislodged from being sole attention to sharing with twin baby siblings). Namechange likes the nanny and the nanny generally does a good job, it's more a case of will they adjust quickly enough to the new situation or is it overwhelming.

The "trial runs" sounds a good thing to do and the more feedback the nanny gets about how that went from the parents perspective the better as then perhaps the nanny will decide that they need to move on to something they can cope better with if they are struggling.

Thank you so much you have all given me. Lots of things to think about. You are right nick it is tricky as I’ve been really trying very hard since post Xmas to mentor her through this and work as a team. I think I’ll have a chat with her towards the end of this week and suggest to her we do a few more trial run days then have another formal review. I’ll also speak to payroll as I do need to understand legalities.
It’s hard as of course she has become such an integral part of our lives and everything ran like clockwork prior, but it definitely feels not the right fit now the dynamics have changed hugely. Four we are actually thinking About doing that as we could fudge some days whilst I work shorter weeks using annual leave but long term we do need a nanny as 3 nursery fees are impossible to manage and the local Childminders said no to twins!

I’ll update when I’ve had a chat with her. It’s a horrible feeling this as I do want it to work but it just doesn’t seem to be right despite my best efforts I just feel like it’s the wrong decision to continue. The children would be safe but I think they would feel anxious if she continues to be snappy or stressed.

TBH she probably just needs you to go to work, stop micro managing and leave her to it. She doesn’t need ‘mentoring through it’. If you think she’s that incompetent you shouldn’t have left your DS with her.

Oh and you didn’t have a ‘nanny share’ you had a part time nanny and she had two jobs. A nanny share is very different.

How old are twins?

Has she had much time alone with them?

For any nanny going from one 3yr to then 3 under 3/4 including baby twins will be a challenge

But a competent nanny should cope easily

It is hard having a mb at home on ml

Maybe leave her alone with all 3 and go out for a few hours

And yes your nanny has 2 part time jobs. Not a nannyshare

I think you just need to leave her to get on with it and review after a couple of weeks.
If she’s not coping it’s posdible she’ll resign then, otherwise you will need to go down a disciplinary route.

Thanks all. Loud and clear on the nannyshare clarification! Shared nanny?! I do realise she is employed as part time nanny i stayed that from the start it’s just we shared holiday dates, days worked, Xmas bonus and quite a bit of bonus annual leave when each family had family members staying etc, so with her other family so we were all used to calling it that. She did have it all set up nicely in that respect but I guess things change as kids get older and new babies are introduced.

She has had 1 day a week with all 3, some
Mornings with Just babies since january and a day where we all hang out together go and do activities so I can join in and give the twins the baby groups it’s hard to do on your own and swimming! I’m leaving her as much as possible but can’t do that a lot yet as I’m not back at work, so not earning.

She asked me to spend this time with her as she hasn’t looked after 2 babies before and held her hands up and said she would like to structure the weeks that way for a couple of months. So I did!

She is competent I’m absolutely sure of that, and a lovely person too, but I think it’s just that she preferred being a sole nanny across two families and the extras that came with that (Who could blame her!) especially as she does say things like she will be limited in nanny activities with twins.

I’ve asked her to come in for extra hour s next week and gave her a heads up that we need to discuss if she is happy to continue and she replied saying that yes she feels now is the time to decide and that she has discussed with another family some work. So I guess the vibe I was getting is correct.

Thanks again for all the input.

Sounds like she may decide to leave you... which is probably for the best.

Good luck with recruiting another nanny once she does hand in her notice. Plenty of nannies out there who have experience of caring for several very young children.

Thank you nick. I’ll be very sad as she is a great nanny but I guess it would be for the best in the long run for her career and for me to find someone more used to more young children

You have employed her for over two years, so it’s tricky. It does sound like her performance isn’t up to scratch.

She’s not a great nanny for three DC though.

No. Great, awesome for one but three has been revealing. I guess it’s someone special with a broader experience of 3 or multiples I need. Patience of a saint perhaps!

You don't mention this but how much has her pay increased to cover the extra workload? If she isn't happy with her basic pay and conditions that isn't going to help.
Multiples are definitely their own challenge!

They definitely are! We are in a great routine now, sleeping at same time, and day time naps are working well so I’ve really tried to get that in order so she or anyone else isn’t left with a poor routine to contend with!
The pay actually that’s a very valid point above all else, let’s face it none of us work for the love of it truly! Net pay remains as has done so £12 per hour. However we have a one off bonus of several hundred pounds to put in pension pot (we have a pension up and running already since start) , a zone 1-2 travel card for getting around which we said she can use for her daily journey from home and back and an extra 5 days annual leave for a holiday next month.

We Said we wanted to review the annual salary after 6 months period of new duties. Extra family kids were written into the original contract but we are (were?!) planning on a pay rise should all go well. In fact we were planning on doing it after 3 months but my friend who has in the past worked in nanny recruitment said 6 seems more suitable as anyone in any job can fudge performance for 3 months. It seemed a fair point!

Ps I should add the travel card and extra holidays she was over the moon about. The bit about putting money in her pension made her eye so glaze over. And mine as I left my husband to explain that bit. Apparently it was a good idea as not taxed earnings.. or something.. I’m not the numbers one...

So this week is your discussion op

Hi blondes well actually it ended up being today as we had to swap Thursday for Monday so she could go to an appointment.

So it turns out she hadn’t wanted to disclose it to me this soon as she was deciding whether or not to juggle our job with it but she has applied for teacher training and it’s going to start after the summer. It’s not full teacher training but part time so she said she was considering over the summer to take on a lucrative rota nanny role with an agency then do emergency nannying.

She said it was her new year resolution to start a new career path so later this year she is commencing her studies.

She apologised for being stressed recently but that she kept going backwards and forwards in what to do and felt she didn’t have chance to properly discuss with me as I’m always so busy with the babies. I did actually disagree with that as anytime they nap we usually have a cuppa and a chat together about everything on our joint day but I guess she wanted to wait until she could be sure of her decision. It does explain a lot and we haven’t agreed what to do next as she said she may still be able to juggle this job and her training. So at this stage I guess I need to understand the legalities of this as I don’t really want her mind elsewhere when I eventually return to work! It’s hard enough nannying as it’s long days and very hard work but nannying plus X number hours studying surely would be very draining.

What do you think?

If she wants to study in her own free time /evenings that’s up to her

As long as doesn’t impact on her working life

But if you think she’s not capable of looking after 3 /twins the. You need to be honest and ask her if she is struggling

So she might resign in the Summer. Hmm, not that helpful to you right now. I would keep an eye on her performance, can she do this job now or not. Then go down the written warning process if necessary.