au pairs eating dinner with you and DH every night

[HarrietTheSpy]

Do yours do that? Ours does. It's driving me slightly if not interminably mad - I know all about the 'living as a family member' thing nevertheless we need some more space. The thing is, also awkward to say eat with children as the after school nanny in the share we're in doesn't. (Please no questions about our specific childcare arrangements in that regard, it's ocmplicated.)

What can I do? Eating out a couple of times per wk every wk clearly not an option!!! Is there a solution.

Just tell her twice a week you and your DH want a date night at home and she is to sort her own dinner. It's not an unreasonable request.

Hi Harriet, I am afraid all our aupairs eat with us, or me/dcs at least if dh was working late. I cooked dinner for all so in terms of timing, they would eat with us rather than aupair eat separately with the children. The aupair would then wash up.

If you wish the aupair to eat with the children, the way a nanny does, I assume she would be preparing food for the dcs and herself by extension?

Although she eats with us, conversation with her would be quite perfunctory. Dh and I would mostly talk to each other, updating on the day, with aupair piping in a bit but generally not. I don't think it was awkward.

I can't think of anything worse, but then I had the advice of a good friend before we got an au pair. She said we should tell the au pair that we'd want to have evening meals on our own before offering the job. That way if she didn't like the sound of it, she wouldn't take the job. Simples.

However in your situation, how about in the morning saying to the au pair that you'd like to eat alone that evening and could she eat with the dc's. Just say you'd like to have some time alone, or you have things to talk over. Then make it a regular occurence.

I think this is exactly the sort of thing that should be clear in advance of the AP accepting the position.

All our AP's eat with us as a family (but then we eat at 6pm altogether 95% of the time). As such they also pitch in with meal prep and clearing up. I see this very much as living as part of the family. In practice what's happened is as they build their social life they are often out over one or two meals at the weekend.

I think it would be complicated in terms of shopping/expenses to take any other route, but other families must have a solution to that! My system is brekkie: everyone does their own thing at their own time and helps self to selection of cereals/toast. Lunch: again everyone does their own thing at their own time - in practice that means during the week AP, myself and DS all eat together but likely different things. Dinner: all the same thing at 6pm. If the AP wants anything outside of this I feel that's her responsibility.

I know I should have probably agreed this beforehand. But if I'm honest, it felt really unfriendly. And also - it's the sort of thing that depends very much on the person and the dynamic. It might not bother me in quite the same way with another person. However, that person might also not be so responsible and capable with the children as this au pair is. Maybe what bothers me the most is that DH and I aren't EXACTLY on the same page yet wrt whether she is a house guest or helping us. He is still leaning towards houseguest in some ways. Maybe I resolve this first???!!

Surely eating together isn't so bad? Presumably she has her own bedroom so you get privacy later on!
Do you have 2 living areas so that you and dp can spend time alone after supper?

I am a live in nanny in the same type of position - I work in a more or less 2 up 2 down type of house, mb works 8-5 so likes to have dinner with charge at 5.30ish sometimes I'll cook this meal and other times she will, then we will all sit down and eat - I think it would be silly for me to go to my room, until they finish eating and then go down and cook my own - mb likes all 3 of us to eat together so that we can all chat and teach dc table manners etc ;)

However sometimes I don't want to eat at 5.30 or just want to get out the door when I finish work instead of having tea with them etc.

Maybe I also need to grow a backbone

Earth star
Actually, that's the point - it is when it's every night per week. She is up with us until 10.30/11.00 sometimes despite having the largest bedroom in the house with her own TV/ computer and sofa etc to relax in. We also encourage her to have visitors as well, which we thought was a good solution to getting time on our own. There is a living room we can 'retreat to' but what is happening is she just follows us in there and taps away on her laptop. It's how to negotiate this without being rude, which I am finding difficult. When she first arrived, she was going to bed at 9.30 which we could live with, but something seems to have changed. Hasn't fallen out with friends so I can't quite work out what's happening.

Life
Honestly, I think your employer is being unreasonable unless those are your working hours! You are certainly as entitled as anyone to bugger off after work.

tricky - an ap is meant to be part of the family, and you wouldnt say to your oldest dd go and eat on your own

but

i can understand you want some privacy

maybe suggest you eat together 3times a week and then from 8pm you want time alone with your dh/

tbh if i lived in, i wouldnt want to eat at 5.30 and then spend all evening with my family

APs are supposed to be part of the family, so if the privacy stuff is important to you AP may not be the way to go

Blondes - that's my point too, re who would want to spend all night with the family after working. I can't imagine that she's also not feeling claustrophobic - we CANNOT be very good company ourselves after working all day. By half eight I am ready to collapse.

I wonder if there is any chance that she is afraid she's being rude by NOT staying with us? Whereas with a nanny (apart from poor Life, by the sounds of it!!) it's easier for both parties to switch off so to speak.

MagNacarta when you set that rule did it restrict the sort of people who wanted to come stay with you, out of interest? When did you bring it up? In reality I'm somewhere in between - would like a couple of nights off and some time to myself by 9.30, just not six to seven nights together, and late ones at that.

I guess we could also look at moving in to what is the APs room ourselves before the next one arrives...

We have always made it clear that ap either eats with ds or does her own thing later. We are always haphazard about what and when we are going to eat and I would not like to have to have a 3 way conversation particularly as this one has a long way to go with her English skills. I find it always best to start off as we mean to go on then it becomes the norm

Sounds awful. I don't know how you stand it. Esp the living room afterwards. Why don't you put Open University DVDs on for a couple of weeks so she buggers off with boredom.

And agree, ask her to eat with the children, first time give an excuse, then just make it a bit more often. So it's just a natural can you eat with the kids again tonight?

I think it's fair enough for her to eat with you tbh, but you should have your own space in the evenings. You need to be polite but upfront about it - say to her that in the evenings after dinner you and DH want time to yourself.

Harriet. Having had a friend who was driven mad by the same thing, we decided to tell our AP's that we had a flexible tea time routine in they could eat with the children, us or alone... depending what we're all doing but that at 9.00pm I would be going into the sitting room alone with DH as we needed private time and they would be welcome to either remain downstairs and watch TV in the dining room or they were free to go to their room etc. This has worked really well. in practice they tend to eat with the kids at 7pm, they finish work at 8pm and often then want to scarper up to their room to sykpe, go on the laptop or watch TV. It maybe your Ap doesn't want to be rude or that she genuinely doesn't notice she's invading your privacy. Why not ask her to eat with the children on a Mon/Wed/Friday at x time and then in any case say at 9pm you prefer to have this as you and DH private time and accordingly the sitting room is out of bounds after this time.

eating with children is too early for many adults...if 5pm or so

would it be THAT bad to have 2 means a week with ap and other nights just you and dh

i would feel sorry for the ap if she was shunted every night to eat on her own, but also see you want a bit of me time with dh alone

two meals a week not at all.

As I said earlier down - maybe not clear - I could cope with three or even four really. It's just the every night thing. On the nights that she does eat with us, I would prefer she doesn't ALSO stay up until quite late. If that makes sense. I guess it's just the whole lack of control over my privacy - the fact that if we get any it's going to be down to her chosing to be away - that I find hard.

Eating with the children likely to be too early - and they often eat with the children in the share and the nanny isn't eating at that time too. So would probably feel weird.

Jules I think the situation is probably what you say - she doesn't realise. Because we're still kind of in house guest mode, if you see what I mean. I will be taking your advice for the next ap - maybe too late for this one?

Thanks for the thoughts - I will reflect on this a bit more.

i think you need to bite the bullet and say to her that although you are happy to eat with her/for her to join you and dh

that you dont want to every night and that the nights she does eat with you,that by 8.30/9pm you need some time alone with dh

Difficult. We eat all together and au pair is naturally part of this. Can see that it is hard that you cannot even have a little privacy in your own sitting room. On the other hand she is part of your family. Most of our au pairs have always been quite keen to go to their bedroom and indulge themselves in facebook etc. However, we did have one au pair who had hour long conversations with DH on all kind of political topics which bore me to death so I ended up going to bed. Luckily enough after a while DH also got bored with it and we managed to find some friends (other au pairs in nearby villages) for our au pair. We did have to drop her off and organise pick ups but it was well worth it. She was also much happier.

HTS - Hope you have managed to work something out.

Its always hard and yes I know what you mean that it sounds unfriendly to say it before the AP has the job but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet.

Our las AP did this and sat with us every evening and it drove me insane I couldnt bring it up with her. SHe was great in every other way so had to ignore it.

However I learnt my lesson and when new AP started I made it very clear that I didnt want her to sit with us every night and that she had to have her privacy as well as us.

So, you have 2 options to be quiet and let it fester like we did with previous AP or just say it and everyone is happy.

Good Luck hun!

or one of the other suggestions when i posted something similar last year:

Get frisky on the sofa and snog loudly she will leave herself!

Or lounge about on the sofa wearing flimsy bathrobes with not much on underneath?

After a few nights of sampling my cooking my AP (current and previous) have been more than happy to do their own thing ....

Okay - amazingly yesterday she announced: I plan to eat with the children tonight. And then her friend came round! (The friend who was coming quite frequently before.) It's amazing how when you just feel like you've had a bit of a break, somehow the whole situation seems different! We are still in the situation where we're not really calling the shots if you see what I mean.

Booboo - sadly DH considers himself a gourmet cook (AP agrees) and the AP has even been happy to eat my food.

But canoodling - there's a thought. We did try a bit of cuddling, to no avail, one evening.

New Teacher - out of interest, what did you say to the new AP?