What would you do?

[Minismama]

Hello all, I would really appreciate your views.
We have a live in nanny, she has been with us for three months now and she is absolutely lovely, our daughter adores her and we really like her too. She is friendly, chatty, even though very young (22) is experienced with young children as worked in a nursery as well as nanny before.
This is her first time of living abroad.
The only thing is, she never goes out, I mean never at all and spends every evening sitting in our living room (often in the middle of the sofa betwen the two of us) watching tv with us. She has a large bedroom with tv in it but is never there and is always with us. Even at weekends she hangs around the house and the only way for us to spend some time alone is to leave the house! I am now getting a bit annoyed (well very annoyed by it) and am not sure what to do. I don't want to upset her but I feel it is reasonable to expect her to spend some time in her room sometimes so to let us be alone, especially since she never spends an evening out. She lives with us so this is her home but I just never imagined that she would want to spend evenings with a couple! Our previous nanny was out at any given chance (which I thought was reasonable and to be expected from a young person).
I have tried hinting that she should make better use of being in the UK to go and see places etc but to no avail. I don't know what to do.
Any suggestions would be very gratefully received as I feel I am getting more and more annoyed and need to do something about it.
Thanks

I would suggest a review. I would tell her everything that you think she is doing well - praise her for how well she's doing with your DD etc. Then say DH and you are struggling a little with no private time as she hasn't built much of a social life, got any hobbies going - ask if you can help her with this. Say she is of course welcome around the hosue but that you and DH also need some time to yourselves in your own home, and you don't mean she isn't welcome around, but to sometimes give you some time. Specifically say about the sofa - because that is just nuts - make it lighthearted though. Then finish off again with how great you think she is doing, how pleased you are etc etc. AKA Sh%t Sandwich conversation. And see how it goes...

yeah, makes sense. I just worry so much about upsetting her. My husband asked her to move down the sofa the other night so he can sit next to me, and she did and then the following night again she sat on the armchair which was encouraging but now again we are back to her sitting in the middle!
YOu are right, I will just have to say it straight out.
Cheers

Our one before this one was super-sensitive, very easy to upset, but fundamentally a very good AP. Just before last Christmas she was driving me loopy by never giving us any time to ourselves - I was really starting to resent it. So I did exactly what I described above (along with giving her her Christmas present before she went home for a short stay) and when she came back it was fantastic. I was so worried about upsetting her and making things worse, but she took it really well (because of the praise) and we then had a further 6 months of really good AP'ing from her. So try not to worry. Let us know how it goes!