Does your nanny do any activities with your kids?

[0wlmummy]

Hello,

I just hired a part-time after school nanny to play with my 4 year old daughter. She hasn’t got any cooking, cleaning or school runs to do, just hang out and play with her until someone can take over after work. Both me and my partner are working from home and thought it would be better for our daughter to have someone to give her attention, play games, do activities etc. However, she doesn’t really do anything, she watches my daughter and interacts with her a bit but my daughter mostly occupies herself and plays independently. I thought she would be more entertaining and get involved with my daughter more, maybe play some games, do art activities and the like. I know my daughter would enjoy this. Do I need to tell the nanny that we want her to do this or should she be using her own initiative? We’re coming to the end of her trial period and I don’t know if a nanny is what we really need if this is what to expect or if other nannies work differently?

Mine is the same as yours. I've asked her to sit down and play lego. She does for a day or two but then defaults to her back to sitting on the sofa habit.

I'm quietly looking for someone else in the background but until I do, I just walk in the room periodically since I work from home, and ask her to do x, y or z if I see her just sitting there watching (or on her phone).

Children need some independent play but they do like to play with others. I was the patient earlier today whilst 3yr old was Doctor. Then for some reason I had to have a pet, and 3yr old became a Vet.

We did some colouring in a colouring book together. I built a train layout, 3yr old played with it a short while. We went to a toddler group, we went for a walk to the shop and playground. We read some stories. We did a jigsaw. We played with dolls. We played with a ball outside.

With children around age 4, I would expect these sort of activities but with them being longer lasting then they are with a 3 year old. Some may still be only 5-10 minutes, then they move on to something else, other activities they may spend ages doing.

Your nanny should be using her own initiative. I'm doing a temp nanny role, today was the second day, so I am still finding out what the children like/don't like to do, and where things are located. It takes a while to find out where everything is and what children like but it shouldn't take too long to know where things are in the house, and what the child likes to play with, what they spend more time doing and shorter time doing.