Nannies - can I take you back to your student days?????

[twinklytoes]

sorry am off to bed now but if I don't do this now I will forget. will reply tomorrow ..

anyway I need your help.

I have agreed to take a student from the cache level 3 course for feb till june for 12hrs a week. she'll be a final year student on her baby placement. Haven't met her yet.

I've been told to treat her as a nanny but not really sure what she will want to learn. I want her to get more out of her placement than playing with baby. selfishly am hoping she'll entertain the toddler too! we will be weaning whilst she is with us and I'll be doing BLW do that might be a good learning opportunity.

can I ask what you enjoyed about your family placements and what you wished you could have achieved too? Am hoping your thoughts will give abit more structure to my two days with her or she'll end up on mumsnet in between feeds and washing clothes

im a cache level 3 student and i've been in a home and they do many things relating tothe children including:
Strelising bottles
nappy changing
playin with the children
goout with family ie to costa coffee or shopping (advantages!!!!)
bathing
and other thingslike me know whether you have any other questions

I found placements very hard to get... possibly due to my gender! I ended up having most of my placements with friends I already knew (luckily I knew a Reception Teacher, a couple of Childminders, a couple of Playgroup/Nursery managers).

What's BLW? (I'm rather tired after a busy weekend and I can't think straight at the moment)

A student will I expect want to learn and to play. They may not know much at all about caring for babies, so I'd suggest starting with basics and seeing how quickly they pick things up. Get them to prepare feeds (such as making up a tray of puréed veg icecubes).
Nappies - how to change a baby (especially useful if the baby moves around a lot).
Bathing a baby.
Explosive Nappies - What to do when the nappy leaks, especially if it's all up the babies back!
If your baby still goes to Baby Clinic, take student along so they get to see what happens at Baby Clinic.
Visiting toddler/baby group.
Visiting the park - can then entertain your toddler at the park, and switch to entertaining baby for a bit. Thus they are able to see the difference between what a toddler wants to do, and what a baby does!
Home safety - as you have a toddler and a baby, explain to her what safety measures are in place to keep both toddler and baby safe, such as stair gates, socket covers, knives in a high cupboard etc.
As a student she will be doing some observations on your children. She may need to have certain scenarios setup, so she can do an observation on that particular thing.

BLW = Baby Led Weaning (is my brain starting to work again, I've had a cup of coffee to wake me up) - is that right?
If so, then explain to the student about that and what foods can and can't be used... eg Honey, Nuts, Grapes. May be useful to get her to look at BabyLedWeaning Blog and other such sites. Perhaps also discuss with her from what age/development stage Baby Led Weaning is suitable for (I think it's from 6 months plus, is that right?)

nick - thanks. yes your research is right. thanks for linking to the blog - i never seem to remember to postmark it.

yes, this is likely to be her first baby experience. our local nurseries won't let the students into the baby rooms.

cherries - thanks. how easy was it to settle into the family? did you get given a list of tasks to complete each day once the mum left you to it? what did the mum do whilst you were doing stuff with baby? just wondering whether my time on mumsnet whilst ds is sleeping and dds at nursery/school will be shunned upon.

You have to be present the entire time the student is with you. But no reason why you couldn't be in the same room doing something else - mumsnetting. You are then supervising from a distance

I remember sterilsing lots of bottles in my placement (1996-1998 i trained from)

The Mum was a nervous mother and used to ask me advice rather than the other way round-she was absolutely lovely though but slightly clueless herself...Lucky i was confident as if she had someone not so they would not have learnt alot!

I myself now have a 3yr old and 4 mth old and would love to have a student here, i feel i can really help someone as i loved nannying (did so for 10years solid) but do i have to have someone for 12 hours!

ours are for 12hrs per week. so 6hrs on mon and tues. have been told they are to do the whole day at some point to get a feel for life in a family. am not looking forward to them joining us for breakfast but looking forward to an extra pair of hands at teatime / bath.

dh hates taking the dcs swimming so hoping I can negiotate a couple of saturday afternoons with her to join in the swimming.

If i remember rightly i did one day a week 8am-4pm so i may just enquire with our local college as i would love to 'help' someone as i enjoyed mine alot! Have very fond memories of the children aged 3 and 7months (so now teenagers or thereabouts!!)

twinklytoes-when i was a childcare student i used to have a Saturday job as it was two years of college without pay, as did most of my friends (except the ones with very rich Daddies!)

saturday jobs, I forgot those. maybe I'll be able to tempt her with saome paid babysitting instead

Now that was always very welcome!

erm - racks brain and looks back in time 17years

i did family placement with nb baby and toddler,tue to fri every other week - mum was about to begin with but after a few weeks she popped out to shops for 30moins and i was left alone

i did the normal things any mum would do, as in sterlising bottles, playing with toddler, cooking, we went out together to a farm, and also to shops

i didnt do any washing/ironing

i did though on my first day make mum a cuppa and , she said sugar was in a bowl - i made her aq cuppa with 2 sugars, gave it to her and it was salt

hth

she laughed but i felt awful

I did my family placement with 9mth old triplets! Was a full on placement back in 1992! I'd say let her do lots and lots of practical things as well as playing with the baby, nappies, feeding, making up bottles (unless you are BF) baths, dressing, putting down for naps etc. It's all invaluable practice, you can learn the theory side of baby care at college, but it's just not the same as hands on.

Would it help you to write down your average daily routine? You can pick out the stuff the 'trainee nanny' could do, or show it to her so she knows the sort of things you do.

Or failing that ask her if there is anything she would particularly like to do.

wat time does you toddler have nursery. the toddler at mine was in the afternoon so iwent for the morning and then went back in the mornin so just had an extended lunckbreak! whilst i was doing stuff with the baby mum did usually do cooking for baby, sort out wqashin etc! Whilst the toddler is at nursery and baby is asleep the hours will still count becuasethe baby is stillthere and you stay its her baby placement.

i settled really quickly with my family! and its much better than being in a nursery setting coz u get to go out all the time!!! As a leaving present i got a mug and snowglobe with a picture with me n them on!!! i'll never forget them and i still babysit for them now

thanks. am really looking forward to it. toddler does mornings so we have 11.30 till 3 when theres two of them and then dd1 home after 3.

i think it would help to write down our routine. am sure we'll be fine.

hope our student settles quickly too. now do I really have to buy a pressie too

students really appreciate it, especiaaly if its personlised because day nurserys can't gove personised gifts due to confidentiality.

I have lots of expectant multiple parents looking for placements. Most are on waiting list for local private nn training college. I have a ready willing and able audience so if any mn know of students looking for placements I can certainly help.
I teach multiple birth classes in Berkshire
galaxy

Try getting in touch with MNT training galaxymummy - they train maternity nannies and have specialist courses for multiples. I'm sure you'd be flooded with students from their courses.

Hi frannikin what is mnt please

www.mnttraining.co.uk - provider of courses for maternity nannies.