Au pair drinking my wine!

[Vincenza]

I have had an au pair for the first time for about a month. I am a single mum so when she started I would invite her to have the odd glass of wine or two with me in the evenings. Then she took to opening bottles herself and drinking the lot. When she necked 2 bottles of my boyfriend's cider I finally blew and asked her to replace them and buy her own in future. She did replace them and seemed to be doing this but I have been monitoring the bottles and she has been sneaking bits here and there. She finished a half bottle of wine yesterday. It has not been overly excessive and she was babysitting for me yesterday so I feel slightly mean to pick her up on a few glasses of wine but I am still outraged. Has anyone else had this problem with au pairs. I want to check it is not normal to provide your au pairs with alcohol before I blow my stack!

I have had 4 au pairs, and none of them would have dared help themselves to wine! OK, there may have been the odd Friday night when dh and I were drinking and offered her a glass too, but mostly they would decline anyway.

I'm a live-in nanny, and food and board is part of the deal - that includes wine and beer in this house. I wouldn't think twice about helping myself to wine or other treats unless explicitly told not too - the posh wines are gathering dust on a top shelf so I wouldn't touch them anyway. And I always have a couple of beers or glasses of wine when I'm babysitting!

That said, if you've specifically told her not to touch the wine and she still is, she's in the wrong. Maybe you could suggest some limits to her - tell her that wine is expensive, so it's ok to have a couple of glasses but not a whole bottle? Or that it's ok to drink from bottles that are already open, but not for her to open new bottles herself?

But, Slim, these are live-in AP's... I would feel a hypocrite telling someone who lives in my own house that they couldn't do something that I do myself.... I certainly don't have a problem with an AP having a glass of wine with dinner when we are doing the same, or having a glass in front of the box of an evening. Setting the limits is pretty straightforward - if I don't do it, then they can't do it - except of course when I'm not sure and have to start a thread on the subject to get views

Now if it were a live-out nanny, that would be totally different of course, as the pay is for set hours, we don't have the nanny with us when she is 'off-duty', we don't have the nanny having an evening meal and so on. It all becomes much more blurred when they are with you 24/7 which is why the "do as I do" is a pretty good yardstick to me.

Thank you once again for your responses...

At the end of the day, I think I would be much happier to let her drink what she wanted (within reason) if I felt she was pulling her weight. She is getting paid and I do still think wine is a luxury but at the moment she just seems to be dropping my son off at school and then coming home and spending all day on my laptop in chatrooms.

She has lived in this country previously with another family so I don't think she is homesick and she does have friends here. I think she has just tried to push it and I have not pulled her up on it.....UNTIL NOW!!

I had already thought of the one shop a week thing (which is what I always used to do but now I seem to be going two or three times). I think I can also monitor then slightly better what she is eating/ drinking.

I also like the idea of the posh cupboard thing. Will definitely be giving that one a whirl!