I'm new to employing a nanny and hoping for some feedback from people more experienced and nannies. I have two DS - DS1 4years and at school and DS2 nearly 8 months. I'm back at work four days a week on 22nd Feb and nanny has started this week with a two week settling in period before she is on her own.
Refs came back that she was reliable and honest but that she needed quite a lot of direction and management. She has 15 years experience and lives locally and I thought those things were enough to counterbalance her needing a bit more direction.
But now that she has started I am really worried about the amount of direction she seems to need. I think it doesn't help that I'm around as I find it difficult to sit and read the paper whilst someone else looks after my DC and I think that she isn't sure what she is supposed to be doing. But she is not at all proactive and quite happy to sit there and let me spoon feed DS2 or empty DS1's potty/wipe his bottom (don't ask why he is still using the potty and not wiping his own bottom - it's only at home...) whilst she does nothing. She has also asked questions like how many times a week I expect her to do laundry, whereas I would expect her to do laundry when there are enough dirty clothes. She has done one lot of laundry because I asked her to but she had to be reminded to put away the clothes the next day. DS2 isn't a great daytime sleeper and she also asked if she should hold off cooking for him until he was taking longer naps in the day. I've done the school pick up twice with her and she says she still isn't confident enough to do it on her own. I've told her several times I want to carry on breastfeeding in the mornings and evenings and she keeps asking me if I am going to give up so that it will be easier to give DS2 a bottle (he takes one but it takes a few minutes of persuasion). When DS2 was alone with her and I was upstairs, she left him in a separate room whilst she ate her lunch in the kitchen, rather than taking her lunch into the same room as him or bringing him into the kitchen with her (he is not crawling but he does roll around the floor a lot). She also seems to find it impossible to get out of the house on time. No matter how many times I tell her what time we need to leave to get to school on time, she is still putting on her shoes and coat when I'm standing at the door waiting for her. Yesterday she was sitting reading a book five minutes before we needed to go without having prepared a bottle for DS2 or the snack which I usually take for DS1 (which I had told her about several times).
What I've done so far is leave her on her own a lot more today so that she is forced to get meals and look after the DC more and that has been quite good and she has done a lot more. I had already written out DS2's routine for her in so far as he follows one and I've now also written out in detail what she needs to do when e.g. between 8 and 8.30 am you need to have made breakfast for DS2 and fed him, made sure DS1 has brushed his teeth, put on his jumper and shoes and been to the loo etc etc and written out exactly what laundry and cooking she needs to do. I gave her some positive feedback about her interaction with DS2 (you can tell I've been on lots of management courses ) and then gave her the extra instructions. When I asked her later if she was happy with them and whether they were clear, she was quite positive and said she was happy I'd set it out for her. I've got a meeting at school tomorrow which ends at pick up time but I think I'm going to ask her to come to school anyway because I need to know that she can make it there on her own on time.
I feel I have to give her a fair chance, not least because I recruited her about three months ago and she has waited around doing temp jobs until the start date. I feel I probably can make it work if I micro-manage her. But equally, we're paying the top end of what the agency told us was the market rate for our area, DH and I are both in public sector jobs and we are really maxing ourselves out to afford a nanny. I can't help feeling we should be gettting a bit more for our money.
I'll definitely give her a few weeks to try to settle in. The deal with the agency is that they find someone else free of charge if we let her go within four weeks. But any views on what we should be expecting by way of her performance and whether I'm doing the right things to try to bring her on?
Ta