What would an inexperienced nanny need to know?

[tokengirl]

Hi,

I'm considering employing a nanny who has only nursery experience. What would a more experienced nanny 'know' that I'm suddenly going to find the less experienced one wouldn't? I'm thinking about how I need to 'train' them, (sorry that sounds really patronising, and I don't mean it like that, but I just want this to work), what their expectations might be, that I won't know need fulfilling, and just generally how to make sure it works out. Any advice from nannies who moved across from nursery very much appreciated.

I'm assuming we need a few days together getting used to the job and the kids, but other than that? Possibly putting together some form of 'routine' together so that there is some structure, and making sure there is a lot of getting out to baby groups, and generally getting out and about.

Thanks - advice really appreciated.

working in a nursery is very different from working as a nanny in a home

main one is that all the care/solving problems/crisis's falls to you and you alone and it can be lonely if you dont know any other mums/nannies to meet with

many nursery workers who turn to nannying dont reliese how much back up they get from other members of staff till they havent got it iykwim

a book with notes/routine is always handy but dont be annoyed if the nanny doesnt follow it to the letter

sure there are others but i have a poorly brain at the moment

Thanks - that's exactly the kind of thing I mean. Hope you feel better tomorrow.

welcome

sure i will - its a hangover self inflicted headache lol

I agree, we found that our nanny (former nursery worker) found it difficult to get over the lack of a 'team'. Not just being lonely during the day (luckily one of her nursery friends started to nanny for one of ds's friends so she met up with her regularly) but things like not having the flexibility to leave work early, having to book days off a number of weeks in advance, having days off sick for minor reasons (being 'tired'). Just generally not 'getting' that our jobs relied on her turning up for her job.
Also cooking - since in nursery the cooking was done by the kitchen team.
And 'nursery duties' - kids washing not done, although she always put the toys away at the end of the day (similar to nursery) which I found strange because I would come home to kids with no toys out in their own home.
Oh and dealing with children of more than one age group - nursery tended to be split into groups of similar ages rather than having to rock a baby whilst read to a toddler type situations.
(She didn't last long with us, but she is still a nanny - hopefully she got better at it).

IMO nursery workers are to nanny as auxiliary healthcare worker is to paediatric nurse. In other words, most of them have no clue how to cope on their own. They are used to timetables, form filling, and project based learning in single age groups, as Millarkie says. They are also used to ringing the parents up every single time one of the children has the slightest little thing wrong with them, and getting the parents back to deal with it. It's very remote from the way most children live at home. The more I have realised this, the less likely I am ever to employ a nursery worker as a nanny.

But if you must, then I would suggest a handbook and timetable of what needs doing, a form to complete to evidence that it has been done, and lots of supervision. And don't pay anything on top of SSP so there are no casual sick days taken. That kind of thing.

Forgive me if I sound harsh, but I am finally growing bollocks on the childcare front.

yah for boffys bollocks

I am having to sit funny, LOL!
Plus I have this urge to rearrange things!

Also, when you work in Nursery you don't need to know everything about the building, you don't even have to lock up the premise yourself.

So make sure you include in your handbook info about gas/electricity/water turn off in emergency, location of the fuse box etc, instructions for locking up and setting the alarm when she goes out.

And then the kitty box and initiative to buy nappies or milk if run out and practical things like this.

Nurseries often don't go out and about, so someone coming from a nursery environment won't be used to having to find toddler groups, places to visit, how to fit car seats in a car, driving with children in the car, packing all the supplies needed whilst on outings (plus a few spares as you never know how many nappies you may go through in an a couple of hours).

People usually adapt though, if you want them to spend time out and about, then give them a list of suggested places to visit - local parks, museums, swimming pools, toddler groups etc.

IME ex-nursery workers are very dependent: on their employers, on other nannies who are like their colleagues and sometimes on the children they look after .

Stuff an inexperienced nanny will need to know:

Exactly (possibly to the minute) what the job entails. A checklist in the beginning is a really good idea.
How long certain tasks take to do in reality, especially for mutliple children in different age groups.
Where things in the local area are.
That cleaning/tidying up is expected, as is mucking in around the house occasionally (whoever notices the bin is full empties it etc).
Contact details for other local nannies if poss.
When is appropriate to call for help - it takes time to get used to stopping, thinking, deciding whether you can handle it on your own, whether one of the children might know or whether you need to disturb your employer.
Home safety and where is out of bounds to children - nurseries are a very child safe environment, homes are generally less so. And children are not to play with ornaments.

I don't want to diss you all but what about kindness and a brain? Sorry but if you haven't lived in your own place with your own keys etc. then that's a bit strange 'cos even if you live at home you generally would have keys wouldn't you?
I have been a paid nanny, teacher, minder and of course mum and i would suggest you watch how the would be nanny interacts with your children for about a week, is she a pleasant confident person who actually seems to like children? ANY doubts then don't. Your children are too precious to leave to uninvolved vapid types.

I don't think the OP is asking for help in choosing a nanny. It sounds as though she has a suitable candidate in mind who only has nursery experience and is being a considerate proactive employer who wants to make the transition as easy as possible and, to this end, is asking about things that nannies (particularly those moving from nursery work to nannying) and parents have experienced with inexperienced nannies to avoid any potential pitfalls. This is particularly pertinent if the OP is a first time nanny employer because they don't have the knowledge and experience from employing a nanny previously and it becomes the blind leading the blind.

An understanding of children and good interaction with them, common sense and confidence are all great qualities but don't make up for experience. That needs to come either from making mistakes or (better, IMO) a thorough briefing aimed at preventing said mistakes. Certainly when I was starting out I liked children, I was good with them and I think I had an average amount of common sense for a teenager but it wouldn't have crossed my mind to ask where the fusebox was in case something went wrong, that some kind of household help was an intrinsic part of working in someone else's home, how long cooking takes when you have children to look after, where to find toddler groups etc - a whole myriad of things which I now to either ask (like how are your car seats fitted) or incorporate automatically (like taking nappies, a snack, a change of clothes, drinks, toys etc). I don't mind admitting when I was starting I'd sometimes forget to pack a toy to amuse baby whilst I dealt with a toddler's grazed knee or didn't take a change of clothes and was left with muddy children after a walk and no spare clothes for the journey home which included stopping by the shop because we'd run out of milk. That is the kind of thing you either need someone to tell you at the start or you learn the hard way and the first option is definitely the better one IMO.

I was going to respond to ppeatfruit but frakkinaround -as always- put it much better.

frakkin, i didn't understand the other bit you wrote, why are they dependent (especially on the children?)?

I have hired nannies who went from nursery work to me as their first live-in nanny job. Although she was an ua pair in between so I guess that made for a good transition. She was fine -- although a bit of a slob. But, I still talk to her several years later. And se was a good nanny.

I think the biggest issue is learning to be your own boss while your boss is at his/her job. So, enployees who are used to being micromanaged might find a bit of a culture shock... but then they might also regard it as a bit of fresh air. Just make sure she has an idea of what activities to do, what food yo like the child to eat, discipline style, what to do in the even of a medical emergency, etc.

Also, I think nurseries sometimes do some things in terms of early education that I never would have thought of so a nursery worker can bring some good skills to the table -- like knowledge of phonics. Not that nannies aren't wel versed in phonics generally speaking, but it isn't something I would have thought to ask her to teach them. (I did not learn to read by phonics so it just never would have accurred to me)

And make sure she can type/spell better than I can.

Laquitar It wasn't that they were especially dependent on the children, just that sometimes they were. I've seen a couple of ex-nursery workers be quite dependent on the children telling them stuff - usually with school aged children admittedly - but accepting what they were told or asking and not checking. I'm all for encouraging nannies to ask children whether they have homework but they should have the initiative to check whether the child does or not as well and not take the answer as read. But often it's little things that you'd either think up an answer to yourself or text your boss for - nursery workers tend to turn around and ask the nearest person which IMO makes them quite dependent, potentially on the children. Strix sums it up better - it's learning to be your own boss whilst your actual boss is working and having to think for yourself. There's a shift from being part of a team which will cover for each other and where you can ask someone if you don't happen to know something to having to ask yourself and being self-reliant. Ex-nursery workers often don't make that shift and transfer their dependency to their boss who then has to micromanage them, other nannies who can't help 90% of the time or the children who know the routine and where things are. They're dependent on instructions because they've got into a certain way of looking after children which is in an institution, and therefore very different to home based care, which is based on instructions, planned activities, nappy changing checklists, set meal times etc handed down from above and they're dependent on the structure and the routine being given to them. This is not necessarily a bad thing but in general an ex nursery worker will be more dependent than an experienced nanny.

I was thinking in particular of one 8 year old who had to tell her new ex-nursery nanny that 'we always go to the park after school'. It was a sunny day, the school didn't have much of a playground, nanny was going to take them home so the child was, in that case, right but unfortunately also picked up on the fact that nanny didn't know about things and started using it to her advantage. If we wanted to arrange a playdate or an outing the nanny used to call the 8yo over and ask if it would be okay. It was very odd!

Can I hijack a question in...

How much do you pay an inexperienced nanny (SE)? per hour?

Thanks!

I really appreciate all this input.

We're urban with local groups, mostly walking distances, a couple of other (lovely) nannies on the same road, etc. It's also part time and likely to be combined with some nursery work, so hopefully loneliness shouldn't be too big an issue.

The kids are also both in the right age range for nursery experience to be relevant.

So I think this could work - but probably with trial days beforehand, shared and sole care, as well as handbooks, lists of local places, putting together detailed routines as a starting point, SSP as standard, etc. Maybe we also need to do weekly reviews to start with, so that we pick misunderstandings (either way) up early. I don't mind a bit of hand-holding early on if it's an investment in a long-term relationship.

We obviously need to go into reliability, common sense, self-reliance, kids being ill, first aid, what is and isn't an emergency, etc in quite a lot of detail.

Thanks guys - good stuff!

mmm - should probably add, I'm not too fussed about nursery duties and cooking. Call me weird but I think beans on toast is a healthy meal - in moderation , and I tend to stock up with salad ingredients anyway.
So lunch preparation - yes, serious cooking - no.
The bit about booking holiday in advance, and leaving early, I'll have to bear in mind - thanks for that one millarkie.

I had an inexperienced nanny last year, in her first nannying job. She had only minimum nursery experience (so much more inexperienced than your own nanny). We employed her because we only needed 15-20 hours a week at that point & couldn't find anyone more suitable, and she was really nice & genuinely liked (likes!) children.

However. What this meant was that I spent half of her time with us (for months) showing her everything. It really depends on 2 things IME: first, the age of the kids (mine was a baby, BIG mistake to hire someone so inexperienced). SEcond, how much initiative she's willing to show. That's really a matter of character. If she does how initiative & is enthusiastic & learns quickly, then you should be ok after a few weeks. Especially if you're not talking about babies but school age children.

Oh, the other regular problem I had was that so-called 'nursery duties' were never done I always found DS's laundry not done, his toys everywhere, no cooking done etc.

Something that has come up several times on here over the past few years, is that nannies take on things which are not childcare related. They are related to the home and are potential emergency situations with say plumbing, drainage, rodents, rounding up livestock... I'm sure other nannies will be able to add to that list.
At nursery, if a toilet is blocked what would someone do? Contact management probably. As a nanny, while you may contact management, you are on site and thus in the position to deal with the problem - either yourself (get the rod kit out) or by calling the maintenance contractor - most people probably don't have one on standby, so it's calling the water board and asking them.

These message threads make some mention of the more unusual things that nannies do around the home.
Nannies: What Extra Duties Do You Do?
My Nanny Thought Her Salary Was Net Not Gross

Bulletproof- you don't. For a nanny to be SE they set the rate their services are marketed at. The circumstances for a nanny being SE are very unusual and often involve continuous temp employment. Check this out very carefully because you are liable for a very hefty fine and backpayment of tax, ni and employers ni if hmrc decide nanny should have been employed. It is possible for someone to be simultaneously self employed and employed so if your job is one where they're deemed employed they can't use their SE status as a workaround.

IMO the things you can't teach an inexperienced nanny are things like timing (how to cook dinner, bath 3 children and tidy up a playroom by 6 o'clock when you arrive home from school at 4) and how to read a parent's priorities - to be able to get the things they really value done in a day...

For example, I know it really helps my MB out if I go out of my way to buy the cardboard for my 6 year old charge's school projects before I collect her from school (I am part time).. I am not asked to do these things, as she feels like it is her 'job' but I am happy to - I've learnt that she really appreciates it and makes her life got a lot smoother...

I think also - often the overall self directed planning that goes into successful nannying can't be taught... Those things come, with experience - and making your own mistakes...

Maybe you're a particularly good teacher though

Frakkinaround, yes, i see what you mean now. Thanks for explaining.