Help my AP is eating me out of house and home and now dh had enough- advice please

[Julesnobrain]

We have a nice Czech AP who has been with us now for about 3 months. She's a big girl but not fat.We noticed straight away how much she ate but that was compared to the last one who was anorexic !! After todays eating dh has told me to get rid of her but she's actually really good with the kids, very reliable, steady and good at cleaning. We have just got back from our hols. She stayed in the house (it was OK thank you ladies for your advice on this one). I left a freezer full of home cooked meals with a day by day schedule plus snacks plus an additional £20 for milk, bread and salads. When we came back we spent £200 and stocked up and she has literally spent all day eating aghhhhhhhhh. Today she has had 2 bowls of cereal, a proper cooked lunch (chicken, veg, mash etc), a loaf (yes a full LOAF less the 2 crusty slices) of bread, half a family size/large block of cheese, a quarter large jar of mayonnaise, 4 apples, 3 yoghurts, 2 muffins, 3 packets of crisps, 1 tin of tomato soup, half a packet of rich tea biscuits and a 2 litre bottle of lemonade. Now I know its deeply sad that I know all this but due to her eating 2 family sized jars of mayonnaise in a week before we went on holiday dh had asked me to monitor what she ate. We are honestly not a mean family and I think we eat heathy sized portions ourselves but this does seem an awfully large amount of food and it is costing us a fortune. I don't want to get rid of her and I don't feel its appropriate to change her conditions and request she take a food allowance ( I think £25 - £30 a week is going rate?) but have any of you had this problem, how did you handle it, did you start a special ap shelf of food? dh is threatening to start buying tesco branded mayonnaise and label it just for her which seems really mean. I have asked her if there was special food she would like me to buy but she has said she likes everything... which she does......... any advice please. sorry its such a long post

Difficult. The expense would horrify me (but then I wouldn't have an au pair in the first place, the idea makes my flesh creep)

BUT if it is an eating disorder the worst thing you could do for her would be to charge in like a bull in a china shop making her feel like a greedy bitch or worse still, let your dh do so!

I'd probably consider talking to her family/the agency/her close friend. I don't know what else you can do.

Thanks for your very helpful contribution, snarky

come again?

I think somebody is being sarky, snarky
ps - your name makes me want to re-read 'haunted'!

Atlasss, I am ignorant. I dropped geography at 14, left school at 16 and have done nothing but wipe other people's arses since. I looked on several maps on t'internet, most of which seemed to agree that Czechoslovakia is Eastern Europe. I am not up to the minute on the hotbed of political debate that is the Northern hemisphere, and Why It's Important Not To Be In The East, so forgive me if people, including find it offensive that it is assumed their country is in the same place it was 20 years ago. Czechoslovakia has had God knows how many changes of name since the first world war -

• 1918?1920: Czecho-Slovak Republic (abbreviated RČS); short form Czecho-Slovakia
• 1920?1938: Czechoslovak Republic (ČSR); short form Czechoslovakia
• 1938?1939: Czecho-Slovak Republic; short form Czecho-Slovakia
• 1945?1960: Czechoslovak Republic (ČSR); short form Czechoslovakia
• 1960?1990: Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR); Czechoslovakia
• April 1990: Czechoslovak Federative Republic (Czech version) and Czecho-Slovak Federative Republic (Slovak version),
• afterwards: Czech and Slovak Federative Republic (ČSFR, with the short forms Československo in Czech and Česko-Slovensko in Slovak)

• so I could perhaps be forgiven for not knowing exactly where it is and what part of Europe it wishes to be referred to as coming from!

Just to be accurate:

The Central European
Austria
Czech Republic
Germany
Hungary
Liechtenstein
Poland
Slovakia
Slovenia
Switzerland

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe

In the English language, the concept of Central Europe largely fell out of usage during Cold War, overshadowed by notions of Eastern and Western Europe. However, the term is increasingly returning to everyday usage again, partly due to the recent expansion of the European Union, but mainly through the attempt by post-Communist governments in former Eastern European lands to create national images distancing themselves from their predecessors. An example is found in one of Europe's trading blocs - CEFTA - which is labelled Central European, and yet only includes nations which were previously Communist ruled. In 1992 the founding members were Czechoslovakia (now two countries in the EU), Poland and Hungary, followed by Slovenia in 1996, Romania in 1997 and Bulgaria in 1999, while its current members include Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania and Moldova) .

jesus i hope my daughter is never an au pair in a family where food is grudged. or where she is expected to eat the value ranges while the family eats dorset cereals or whatever

as to the op, "she's actually really good with the kids, very reliable, steady and good at cleaning" - based on what i have read on mumsnet you should be delighted with her! surely some additional grocery costs wouldn't be a deal breaker if she's good at the important things?

ah, so maybe catepilarr and Atlasss are working for a government trying to distance themselves from the Communist predecessors

....and Bellinda. All first-time posters, I see....same person?

Personally I would be worried about someone who eats that much and isn't fat or doesn't put on much weight - i think it was the mayo and bread that did it for me...

Do you know if she has any medical condition that causes her to eat so much? Perhaps have a quiet word with her and maybe take her to see a doctor? All that fat can't be doing her any good.

Maybe she has something that causes her to eat like that or maybe she is comfort eating, I don't know but I wouldn't write her off just yet especially as she seems to be really good.

JJust a friend of mine sent me this link..... We are laughing and laughing [ grin]
Sorry couldn't resist and just only read... so many funny posts on this website... [girn]

I am so glad I have come to UK otherwise I would have never believed it and could not have so much fun anywhere else

just wondering what happened to the ever-hungry ap?

Hi Catepilarr. We decided not to say anything as DH thought she was probably going to toilet and vomiting so then we were worried she may be bulimic. As we mentioned in our post she was great with the kids so we decided the best course of action was to just buy the cheapest food possible (tescos value brands) and grin and bear it. In the end she left us a month early as she got a job as a sous chef in a restaurant [The restaurant is still in business although I'm sure she'd have dented the profits]. 2 other au pairs later we still talk about XXX's awesome appetite.... it's now a family legend !!

I was as an au-pair already and I have similar problem:-)But I did not eat in the family as they never bought me anything. I bought really everything alone - bread,salami,meat etc.grrr

I'm pleased someone else posted this here. We had a similar ap. she was a very good housekeeper and went above and beyond the call of duty in keeping the house clean, she loved the kids and looked after them but she ate quite a bit. and weighed 23 stones.

She always had breakfast cereal with a casserole dish. before breakfast with was usually chips. Dh once roasted 2 chickens for a 7-person dinner and she polished off a whole one beforehand when we went out to get some wine. Then she later joined us for dinner to share in the other! I suspect it would have cost us the same amount to put the kids in nursery if we considered the increase in other costs. After a lot of agonising about the rate at which we were replacing food and going without food in order to balance the budget, we decided to overlook things for a few months. especially as the poor girl had been embarrased and upset that she sat on and broke one of the kids' little chairs while plating with them.

Our other problem was fitting her in the car between two car seats whenever we had to go out. we tried once and failed to fit her in the back and dh would not have her in front and me in the back for any reason. I turned out that she was asthmatic and denied having any health issues because she thought we wouldn't take her on. she had to leave us because the flu/swine flu issues affected her pretty badly.

I know she's not coming back to us put we actually think about her when we discuss what car to buy next year and we haven't found a good one in our price range that would fit the kids and a large kind hearted person in the backseat.

We noticed with our aps from Eastern Europe they eat like horses, seems they never see a piece of fresh fruit because they used to clear the bowl and the fruit juice - they would drink the lot and put it back empty in the fridge. One of our aps had an amazing figure but used to pile her plate so high we used to stare at it in amazement. Its pathetic but we started hiding food so she would not find it!!!
In the end you have to just say we expect you to eat meals of similar portions to us or you have to use your own pocket money to supplement it.
Went to look in the fridge last week to cook a chicken I had bought and it was nowhere to be found, we found the wrapper in the bin but never found the carcass!!!!

I am sure it is not BECAUSE they are from Eastern Europe (whatever that is), come on!
Some people just eat a lot. Providing the same food as the family eats (not significantly more, not less) and AP paying herself for any extra sounds a good solution to me.

Stop stocking crisps and biscuits. Oh, and lemonade. No-one needs them. You'll be healthier, too.
Tell her to grate, not slice cheese - this cuts it down a bit.

And then ask yourself; if she was your teenage son, what would be your attitude?

Echt
I'd tell him to be a bit considerate!!

I have to say I'm never convinced when people use that argument here. I would be mortified if my child went to another person's house and behaved like Jules AP did. Wouldn't you?

She lives there. This is how much she eats; and young people often eat a lot. What I am suggesting is that her being an an outsider and girl is lending a bit of weight, though unexpressed, to the irritation felt here.

I doubt if she's being inconsiderate, just eating how she would at home; a lot. It's difficult to stop providing the basics; like bread, cheese, etc., which is why I suggested getting rid of the unnecessary stuff.

i have to say that in most of the families i worked for i noticed that the amount of food the family eats is less then a typical person in my country would eat in a day. on the other hand we would consider the amount of food eaten by your aps highly accessive too.

one of the problem for us is the uk bread - apart from the taste and structure it's far less filling so you can actually polish half a loaf of british bread without feeling full however strange it may seem.

another issue often is the absence of a cooked lunch we are used to. that just makes one hungry and snacking all day and still stay hungry.

not that would help to solve your problems, just something what i have discovered in the past ten years.

btw have you ever tried to ask whether they eat the same amount of food at home?