Au pair disaster? - advice please!

[FeatheredHeart]

Our au pair has to help get one 2 year old up and dressed, make breakfast and clear away and take him to nursery on nursery days, which is 2 mornings/week. Ideally she would hang out any washing. She is supposed to play with him while i make lunch, clear away lunch and then in the evening clear supper and bath him. She doesn't have to do anything for the baby and almost never any cooking.

She is supposed to help in the house for a 2 or 3 of hours one morning a week and in the garden one morning a week. Weekends are free, Mondays are free from after breakfast til bathtime. Tuesdays she comes out for the day with us or is free. Ditto Fridays. She has everything paid for if we go anywhere and gets 70.00/week. I have a cleaner and she has her own level in the house with bedroom, bathroom, loo and sitting room.

In reality, she makes breakfast (toast and jam) and clears it and she can clear away after meals. She often forgets to switch off the oven, clear the draining rack, sweep where we've been eating etc. Besides that, she needs help with everything - I often have to walk them out the door if they are going to nursery (usually 1/2 hour late). She will help, sullenly, in the garden for a an hour or two once a week and does maybe an hours dusting (not brilliantly) on the other day she is supposed to help. On the occasional day that she does bath ds1, she uses the wrong towel for him consistently, doesn't clear up the bathroom, forgets to put his eczema stuff in the bath, forgets to brush his teeth etc. Some days like this morning, when i'm holding the baby and trying to change a bed including mattress protector one handed, and encourage ds1 to co-operate with her (he keeps calling her "baddie") she just looks on, despite my asking her to get ds1 dressed.

I have shown her dozens of times and explained how to make things like dressing into a game so ds1 cooperates and she did brilliantly one day but otherwise just resorts to asking him / telling him and then getting annoyed with him. I have arranged for her to go to nursery to see how they manage him (he is very affectionate and no trouble there) but she only stayed an hour saying there was nothing to see. I can't afford him to dislike her as he is already treated erratically by his father and needs love, kindness and stability.

I explained everything she had to do at the start. We did a review after 10 days and have another review coming up tonight. I didn't say anything negative - just highlighted the things in the routine she needed to work on (i.e. remember) and said I was getting quite tired doing both kids and was relying on her to help with the older one. (I had been ill after c-section with infection for 2 months until the week she arrived). She has a checklist to tick off - ie. sweep floor after breakfast, empty dishwasher etc. I never criticise her.

Is this normal au pair behaviour? I am getting exhausted managing two kids on my own, up at night with one or sometimes both of them and trying to teach / get the au pair motivated / participating. I quite like her outside of au pairdom and she never refuses to do anything but I am getting really tired and frustrated doing everything myself. She is 18 and doesn't have any experience of kids. She goes out every night often quite late to see her cousin and boyfriend. She has been here almost 3 weeks.

Our last au pair was not that great, but she was more help than yours! From that experience we have learnt to trust our judgement more and would be much more willing to ask an au pair to leave after a few weeks if it obviously is not working out. You have done everything I can think of to try to help her, I would look for a replacement now.
On the age thing, our first au pair and our new au pair are both 19/20 and are both lovely girls who really enjoy being around children (also thoughtful and nice to live with which also helps).

Jeez, she sounds terrible! Personally I wouldn't like to change nappies, but I don't think any of us would given the choice

Get rid of her, the package you're offering is brilliant, allows her time to work in her free time and seems really good, but she's taking you for granted by the sounds of things.
I must ask, is this boyfriend new? She's only been there three weeks but has a bf who lives close by (and who she speands a lot of time with) already? Does that not seem odd to anyone else?

Please, please get rid of her, there are so many other, better girls out there who want to work for a nice family.

Oh, and on age, I'm 20 and I think I'm okay at my job, I love kids too Age isn't a huge factor!

I have to say the gardening thing made me laugh. I recently went through trecruiting process for a new nanny. One of my questions (as if you don't all already know) asks the potential nanny what things she would not be willing to do. Normally they say they are happy to muck in here and there but they want to primarily be a childcarer and not a cleaner. But, this one girl said. "I am not willing to do the gardening" and I laughed and hmmm that one has never even occurred to me.

Although I do think an au pair is a different kettle of fish. And if you agree that before hand it's fine.

I only took her on for a couple of months as I knew, this being our first a/p, there'd be things we wanted to change for the next 'proper' one. I had met her cousin which seemed the next best thing to meeting the a/p in person (we'd had difficulty finding a/ps we could meet first).

Can't change her as I have plans for August which I have to have someone around for so am going to sit it out til September. She is making efforts but is just unbelievably scatter-brained and needs to be reminded about everything. She is getting a bit better - I think?

Am changing our review to make it a quick one daily from this week (great tip!) - she liked this idea too.

Am giving her more playing (as opposed to coercion) time with ds1 to try to get over the baddie / hitting her thing.

The gardening was agreed upfront but this is changing with the next one as ds1 is coming out of nursery so s/he will look after him 2 mornings a week.

She doesn't really change nappies (at least not the bad ones!) and i am always in the house with them unless she takes him for a walk. There is rarely any solecharge as she is primarily there to help me with the morning / evening / lunchtime "rush hours" and lend a hand around the house a bit. But I think it's ok for a/ps to do it provided they understand / agree beforehand.

Next a/p will be 24+ or have previous experience caring for 2 year olds with good refs. The younger the child the older / more experienced the a/p - another good idea: obvious with hindsight. Thanks for your thoughts.

She sounds very lazy IMO (we had APs for 22 years in total). However this is state normal for many of them now. We have found that there has been a real decline over the last two decades in what APs are able to do - so few seem to have really helped around the house at home, and in addition they have unrealistically low ideas of what is expected of anyone living communally, let alone someone being paid to help out.

I have also found that there is little correlation between age and competence. I had two over-24s in the last five years, one of whom was fully trained as a nursery nurse in Germany and had worked as a Deputy nursery manager, and the other had already been an AP in America for a year. They were both rubbish APs - very self-centred, sedentary and lazy girls, with hindsight. My best AP was 18 going on 19, straight out of school, and really was a joy to have around. She still visits.

The moral is that it is really difficult to get this arrangement to work, and it can be exhausting. We have just got rid of our last AP, who was 22, after six months of chasing her to do what she was being paid to do, culminating in a moderately serious bike accident with DS1 entirely of her own making. I am switching to nannies now as I am simply too knackered to even pretend I want these silly girls in my house any more.

Thanks Boffin. Food for thought. Maybe I should review my new rule about age.

The thing I like about this a/p is that she can be quite willing (apart from gardening and the willingness can be a bit erratic). She has worked pretty well today, hung up the washing unasked and even cleaned the hob and has been on the go for most of the day (apart from leaving the oven on again, taking ds1 out without his mac and getting soaked and supper, which as a one-of she is doing tonight, being an hour later than it should be...)

Perhaps willingness is characteristic of younger girls..

I don't think the younger ones I have had have necessarily been any more willing. I think one thing they have all had in common is that their mothers worked them quite hard at home before they came, and their mums were at work most of the week, so asked a lot of them. Thinking about it, they were also the eldest in the family as well. most of them had had to earn their pocket money back home doing proper jobs, i.e. 10 hours a day selling ice cream and so on. So they knew what it felt like to be tired and need help.

BTW when I was 18 I could have quite happily worked for six hours straight cleaning and rustling up a simple pasta-based supper on time, whilst remembering to put a raincoat on a child. But I did leave lights on everywhere which drove everyone absolutely mad, and I tended to use up all the hot water regularly. So nobody's perfect!

Well your problems today were related to foresight, really, which is fixable so that's good news! If she's willing then she probably just needs a bit of micromanaging for a while.

Age is just a number really. At 18 I was left in sole charge of a 2 week old baby. My mother couldn't face being left alone with a 4 week old me for more than an hour. She was 34. IMO it's much more to do with position in the family (being used to reminding younger siblings to do obvious things/helping out around the house), having lived away from home before (preferably with other people!) and actually having spent time in a domestic setting with children whether they were actively caring for them or not.

I speak from the other side of the fence, of course.

Yes, experience at the sharp end basically!

Our nightly v short reviews of what she needs to remember are going really well. What a difference! And they also let us both reflect jointly on what worked well, what i really appreciated her doing and to do a mini planning for the next day which helps focus her (and me for that matter).

I have various checklists pinned up around the house (bathroom, kitchen, laundry etc) but in the evening have started a tally system where we note down each evening anything she needs to remember and if she forgets on another night the idea was to put another tally stroke next to the item. Since we started it she hasn't forgotten any one item more than once! I keep feeling it's more suited to 5 year olds but she seems quite happy about it and so far it's working wonders.

There wasn't really anything she had to be reminded about tonight. She did things without being asked and made a huge effort with ds1 which went really well in spite of him starting off the day sounding like a broken record with his "baddy X". And she even made us a Spanish dinner.

And I've stopped being embarrassed about the "and another thing" syndrome (though I don't actually say it). And as a result I feel more in control and in charge.

Brilliant advice here - thanks so much.

I wanted to let you all know - you were all right. I have written out and gone over lists and walked her through things til I am not blue but purple in the face. She is still hopeless and I am exhausted, frustrated and stressed. Thursday and Friday were unmitigated disasters - and on top of that I found she has been using the phone (to Spain!) without permission when I am out and lying about having done things that I have then proven to her she hasn't.

If anyone has any other hiring tips before I take on the second one for our 2 year old, then the advice will be very much appreciated! In our letters to the candidates I spell out really clearly in advance what they will have to do and send them our routine lists that I made for the first one so there's no misunderstandings.

Best of luck with the next one, FeatheredHeart. Despite your plans for August, I hope you have given her marching orders, how can you trust her, knowing that she has lied to you? Most contracts/agreements state deceit as a just cause for dismissal.

Thank you I have put that into the next contract - it stupidly didn't even cross my mind to put it in this one.

She is going as soon as I have found a new one. She thinks she has to do a lot. It has got to the point where I am almost afraid to ask her to do jobs in the house in the morning, she looks so put out. She said she didn't think there would be any housework. I said there's barely any - we have a cleaner! And I told her all she had to do was read the profile properly that I put up on the internet before she came. It's not as though we didn't discuss it before she came. Aaagh! And it's part of the normal spec for "au pair" anyway. I told her try going to a family where there are 4 kids, plus housework, no separate accommodation, no days out with the family, less free time and where she has to eat separately!

I should've been a lot tougher earlier on rather than trying to make it as nice and easy as possible for her. Lesson learnt I hope.

It has got to the point where I feel I am paying her to stay with us and learn english. I kind of forgot I was supposed to be getting a service!

You poor thing. It's not always that bad, but I know what you mean, we've had a few that just haven't worked out. Don't blame yourself, she just wasn't up to the task. And you're right - it wasn't a toughie - as AP jobs go.

featherdheart where do you live I may know someone who could help youn until September if that's any good?

oh what a nightmare,cant you get rid of her? would your life be easier without her?

I am so sorry we turned out to be right. I was hoping otherwise.

I have had a couple of liars and one minor thief. I wish I had got rid of them immediately. I was much too tolerant, perhaps a bit like you.

Hindsight is the greatest gift, as my old dad says. But don't put up with the feeling that you are paying her to be a guest - bite the bullet and get rid. Your home should be a source of strength, not exhaustion.

Very wise words! Thanks all. Thanks navyeyelasH - I have fixed up a temporary solution.