Nanny 20 weeks pregnant when she started job!!

[HantsPants]

Get this... I have just gone back to work 3 days a week, started on 1st September. Found lovely nanny. DD and DS love her. She has just told me she is... wait for it... 28 weeks pregnant and due on 23rd Jan!!! She was 20 weeks when she started, apparently did not know until she was 22 weeks. You may well be wondering why I did not notice her bump. Well, dear MNers, she is very generously upholstered and you can't tell (yes, really). Nanny loves job and DC and wants to take a short time off and come back to work with the baby.

I was initially supportive but DH dead against it. DD aged 6 and a breeze but DS aged 2 and very hard work not to mention has speech delay and needs nanny's full attention for his speech development and Makaton signing etc.

Do not want to pay nanny top whack to look after her own baby in my house and put her newborn baby's needs ahead of my own children's. Cannot imagine that this is anything other than problematic.

Thoughts anyone?

Jules, thanks for support but prepare for a blasting... Squiffy, if you are still on this thread, I cannot believe you will resist.

Def cannot dismiss her for this even though she has lied to me. She tells me that she did not know she had to tell me she was pg by 25 weeks. There is nothing I can do about this and any hint of discrimination leaves me exposed to being sued. Employees have rights from first day of employment.

Of course I am very grumpy about this as my needs as an exemplary employer and the needs of my children apparently have to come second to hers and her unborn child's.

if there's a hint of discrimination, the 1 year rule doesn't apply (and a whole host of other automatic reasons)

hants, you are coming across as a bit confrontational with squiffy tbh. I feel sorry for you as I can understand how this feels but you just need to move on - concentrate on finding maternity cover for your children as I imagine she will be going on maternity leave around Christmas time so you haven't actually got that long.

I still don't know if my nanny on maternity leave is coming back from maternity leave so not only are we up in the air a bit but so is her cover. You only have to give 8 weeks notice of the date you wish to return (if not 52 weeks) and 8 weeks really isn't that long notice if you think about it.

One of the problems with this part of employment law is that when you apply it to families and add in the needs of children, all sorts of emotions get involved. However, you have to apply the letter of the law in this area so as others have advised, I would get some legal advice but ultimately, I would concentrate on the search for maternity cover in the meantime.

For employers, as we all well know, 'not being informed of the law' is no excuse. Funny it is for employees in cases like these. You could take advice I suppose but it's probably not worth it. Good luck with everything.

here is the businesslink advice page about maternity leave

business link is very good for this sort of thing...

it says

'Failure to give the required notification

If an employee doesn't give you the required notification, she loses her right to start maternity leave on her chosen date.

You only have to make an exception to this where it was not reasonably practicable for the employee to give you notice any earlier.

For example, the employee may not be able to notify you properly if her baby is born much earlier than expected, eg well before the qualifying week. In these circumstances, she still qualifies for 52 weeks' statutory maternity leave. '

The ACAS helpline (see number earlier) will talk to employers and employees about this kind of situation. Do contact them if you have not already done so as the advise is free and they are often having calls about staff being pregnant (my mum used to work on the helpline). ACAS may also be able to send you some publications which may be easier to have in printed form than being just as a PDF.

Time is short. I'd suggest getting your nanny to agree the date for starting maternity leave. If you/dh are able to take time off over Xmas, if grandparents are able to visit etc... then if nanny finishes a week or so before Xmas, then you arrange for a temp to start during Jan. Contact agencies, post on websites like Gumtree.com, Childcare.co.uk, NannyJob.co.uk to recruit a temp.

If you are not doing payroll yourself, contact your payroll provider so they know at what point your nannies usual pay needs to end. Whilst on maternity leave the nanny will still build up things like holiday entitlement but as they aren't able to claim SMP you won't actually be paying them... not sure if you will need to provide payslips during the period - maybe best to generate them even if net pay is zero value.

Point your nanny to JobcenterPlus, who can provide information about Maternity Allowance and see if she is able to claim that, or not. There is a qualifying period to claim it, so it will depend on what work she has done in the past 66 weeks prior to babies EDD.

Foxinsocks, you're right about Squiffy. Sorry. Am feeling quite uptight given everything and do not like being patronised and sworn at

Thanks everyone (Nick - you should be doing this for a living). Helpful information and advice particularly about the sanction for not telling me in time.

Told nanny last night that she could not bring newborn to work. There were tears... oh Gawd...

I'm not sure if anyone has said this but because your nanny was pregnant before she started the job she does not qualify for statutory maternity pay
"You get SMP if you have worked for the same employer for at least 26 weeks by the end of your 15th week before the expected week of childbirth (which is approx. the 26th week of pregnancy). In other words you need to have started the job before you got pregnant" - I'm Pregnant magazine Oct/Nov 2009

At least you have told her, so she can take that on board and decide what she want's to do. You are perfectly in your rights not to permit her to bring her baby to work... if it was an office job, baby would not be welcome.
Is your nanny getting support from her parents, from the babies father and his parents, etc? Is she aware of what she needs to do to start the benefits claim(s), so that she has some money when she stops work? Maternity Allowance isn't much and I'm not even sure if she can claim it (as depends on her previous work) but she should certainly be finding out for herself if she can get that. As her employer you can point her in the right direction (I'd suggest JobCenterPlus).

maternity allowance is about the same amount as the smp. have you considered she mite take longer maternity leave if she cant bring baby to wrk even though she said she wouldnt take long as that was before she knew she couldnt take baby to wrk. as can you imagine leaving you baby at 1month maybe 2 month old to go back to wrk i dont think i could.

well done for telling your nanny she cant bring baby

i am suprised there were tears from her, surely she would have guessed she might not be able to bring her baby back,as she is just in her job plus your eldest needs more care then a nanny with nb can cope with

lets see if i have got this right in employment law

if i have a baby and my mb says i cant come back with baby (fair enough) but she has to leave my job open for a year,(and i say that i will get childcare/gp's etc to look after my baby)

so mb thinks i will come back (without baby), yet if i decide not to, i can leave her hanging for a year and only say 2mths before i would come back that actually i dont want to come back as i have found a job where i can take my baby

and there is nothing she can do - she has hired a temp and then can see if temp is free or that she has to find a new nanny

does seem a little unfair - surely the nanny should say if she is def coming back/can/cant find childcare or else the parents and charges are left not knowing what is happening for a year

or have i got hold of the wrong end of stick im blonde

Surely the baby won't BE a newborn when she returns? Or are you expecting her to arrive straight from the maternity ward?
She may not be entitled to SMP, but she is probably entitled to MA. She might well decide to take maternity leave, in which case the baby will be older when she returns to you.

As for not managing to care for 3 children at a time, that's ridiculous. Countless mothers do it and many of them have children with special needs. We're talking about a professional nanny here. She must be well used to caring for all kinds of children, special needs or otherwise.

But shared care is not what the OP is paying for. The nanny may be capable of doing it but the OP wants her children to have nanny's full attention and that, as an employer, is her right. It's impossible to say that the OP's children would have the same standard of care that they previously had if nanny brought baby with her. And being a nanny and dealing with children you nanny for is, I suspect, very differnt to dealing with your own child.

course nannies can look after 3 children - i do

but

why should the op have to share her care with another child when she wants a nanny to give 100% attention to her children?

yes all nannies want to go back to their jobs and take their baby, but a professional nanny should be able to see why a mum/their mb may not want this

she sounds very manipulative. Doesn't tell you she's pregnant for two months, then wants to bring baby to work then cries when told no...

Why did she leave her previous job, do you know? I wonder if perhaps it was because her previous employers told her she couldn't bring her baby to work? . I'd be inclined to give them a call and ask tbh.

Yes, Blondes, that is the gist of it. But, I thought it was 4 weeks notice, not 8. Has it changed in recent years or is my memory already failing me?

And I would like to add that Squiffy is lovely.

wanna be- thats a very good point

op -did you check ref from job before?

any mention of pregancy/why did she leave previous job?

athene- i have 2mths notice in my job as thats what i asked for

sure squiffy is lovely

No, I meant 4 weeks notice to current employer that you are returning from maternity leave. So temp nanny continues on basis that she can be let go with 4 weeks notice at any time.

Anthene, it's an amendment to Regulation 11. See SI 2006 No. 2014 - An employee who intends to return to work earlier than the end of her additional maternity leave period, shall give to her employer not less than 8 weeks' notice of the date on which she intends to return.

If they intend to return at the end of their maternity leave, then I don't think they need to give any advance notice.

Not sure how it effects Ordinary Maternity Leave.

Tanith, the OP has not said the nanny will not cope with three children. She simply does not want the nanny to bring her own child with her. Quite why the nanny presumed this would be fine is beyond me given the she has only been employed for two months not to mention the late notice re the pregnancy etc.

A nanny bringing her own child is not what the OP wants, she wants one to one care for her children not shared care. A newborn/toddler will need a certain level of care, equipment, may impact on activities/appointments/play dates and when the child is older school runs/activities etc may clash.

Financially, why should the nanny expect not to pay childcare costs for her own child? The OP is paying her to look after her children not her own baby.

Aha. My last child was born in 2005, so I'm out of date.

I suspect nanny's tears are not so much about having assumed anything in the future, but about the distress of suddenly findin gherself very pregnant with no maternity pay and no job to return to. I'm sure she is very stressed out.

But it sounds as though she will be looking for another job soon after the birth. And if this bit of maternity law hasn't changes in the last few years she can do this when the baby is two weeks old. Perhaps not ideal, but she will be neither the first nor the last. I would be more worried about putting a roof over our heads than I would about my right to stay home alone with my first child. As I have heard no mention of them I am sort of assumming there is no father and extended family in the picture.

I feel sorry for this nanny (oddly as I don't know her), but OP is of course within her rights to say she didn't sign up to having another baby in the house. She has to do what she feels is right for her own children (of course!).

Hi all. Back again. HappyMummyofOne, you have captured this perfectly. Actually tears I think because Nanny does love job and DC. I am a good employer and not a complete bitch! Athene, she has partner she lives with who works and a stable home plus supportive parents. She will not be destitute.

Various people right to say I employeed Nanny to provide expert, qualified childcare in my own house on top whack pay, NOT to pay her to look after her own newborn baby in my house whilst my children come second to needs of, as we all know, a demanding newborn. Plus fact that she does some light housework while DC at school/ nursery which again is paid for on considerably more than cleaner would earn. This is not going to happen with newborn with her. We also know that one's brain chemistry COMPLETELY CHANGES when baby is born and she will, quite naturally, be inclined to put her baby first. There are also practical problems with taking DS to speech therapy session with newborn in tow, question of double buggy and inability to do school run share with not enough slots in car.

Nick, again eminently practical and helpful advice, thank you.

I do think it's hard for nanny employers waiting in limbo to find out if their nanny is coming back from maternity leave. I told my ex employer on the day I told her I was pregnant that I would be leaving mainly because I knew there was no way she would consider having my Ds back with and also because I travelled 6-8wks a year with the family. I also wanted to enjoy the time with my baby. I've looked after other peoples children for 17+ years. I want to look after my own now!

I am currently working 30hrs a week with Ds in tow for a family with a similar aged child and, for us, that works very well. The job ends in Feb so not sure what I will do then but as I'd like another Dc, I will probably temp as I'd feel really bad if I started a new job and then found out I was pregnant.

If your nanny has a Dp and supportive parents then perhaps she will come back after maternity leave and leave her baby with her parents. It's hard to say what you'll do before the baby arrives and you find out what kind of little personality they have. My Ds was a nightmare little clingy and didn't sleep through until 9mths. All my 'work babies' went through by 12wks. I was a bit shocked tbh. Also I bf for 11mths and the sofa still bears a dent from where I sat with small child attatched for hours on end!

Your ds needs a lot of one to one and that's what you want and that's what you pay for. A nanny shouldn't expect otherwise. Some employers are happy for a nanny and child in tow and others aren't. Each employer is entitled to their own views on the subject. Good luck with finding a replacement.

It's hard for ALL employers waiting in limbo to find out if they employee will or won't be coming back to work following maternity leave. That's why it's important to keep in touch.
I think it affects employers with one, or only a few employees more because they are so much more reliant on that person... they can't assign the work to other people while they recruit a temp to cover the work.
Arguments could be made for small employers to be exempt from some of this legislation... but there would be outrage from women if that happened.

Poor nanny. I think in her position I would take 6 months maternity leave and then come back, and put the baby in a nursery or childminder. With tax credits etc she'd still probably be better off financially. There probably aren't enough jobs available in the area for her to be picky about finding one where she can bring her baby too.

the only thing about putting the baby in a nursery or at a childminders is that do nannys not usually wrk long hours longer than childminders or nurseries so how would she pick her little one up, would you allow her to go out at the end of the day a pick we one up and maybe return for an hour or will you just let her away earlier.