Nanny Food

[Janeyraemer]

Hi our new nanny is due to start in October. What normally happens for lunch. Do they normally bring their own or should I provide food for her?

You would usually provide food with the condition that they eat with your child/children. It will depend on the age of your child/children as the food that your nanny cooks for a baby/toddler may be a bit different to what they eat as an adult but not much different - often just the quantity and mushiness.

Your nanny does not get a break during their day to go out for lunch themselves, so you providing food is often in exchange for the nanny not moaning about not having child-free breaks.

Sometimes I take my own lunch, but I usually eat food that my employers buy - I write a shopping list each week of food I want for the kids meals and they've always said to add anything I particularly like to eat or drink (within reason of course! I don't order smoked salmon etc!).

It does not mean that nanny can have smoked salmon whilst your child has fish fingers, broccoli and potatoes. Your nanny needs to be reasonable and eat the same things and may do batch cooking of some dishes such as cottage pie, fish pie, macaroni and broccoli cheese, pasta sauce.

I started a job when the child was 4 weeks old, so I brought my own lunch. Now nearly two years later I'm still bringing my own lunch even though she eats mostly the same things as I would. So you may find that how you start out doing things does not change over time but perhaps should be reviewed every now and then.

Whatever you do you need to come to a workable agreement between you and your nanny and you need to take account of any allergies - sometimes it is not practical for nanny to be preparing separate meals avoiding cross contamination. So consider your individual situation and discus with your nanny as to what they feel is reasonable... then review that - you will have an end of probation review so that's a good time to review how things are going regarding food/meals.

Thanks both. I shall ask her before she starts about what she would like to do. I also like the idea about asking her for any likes or dislikes to the shopping list.

Our Nanny has her breakfast, lunch and dinner with children. When she started I made sure we got things in she liked for lunch. She also has kitty money and she can always pick up something if she particularly fancies.

We always provided a ‘sandwich type’ lunch for our nannies. Although we made it clear this didn’t entendres to eating out. They could also help themselves to snacks.
They’d just wrote what they wanted on our shopping list (although I did provide smoked salmon!)

Entendrees = extend.

Always had 3 meals written into my contract tho rarely had tea

But always lunch and often breakfast. Esp If starting at 7am

B Cereal toast fruit
L what kids ate - jacket Sarnie pasta etc

My boss kindly tells me to help myself. Obviously I’m very respectful but it’s nice to have the option.