Au Pair - Oh Dear! Would I be asking too much of an au pair???

[yosushi]

OK here is a scenario.

I extended my mat leave to take a full 12 months as I was concerned that I could not get my baby into the nursery I wanted to get into. I now have the offer of 1.5 days to 2 days from my preferred nursery from April with the possibility of these days being able to be increased in September (my return to work date is now November).
I want to balance some child care with an au pair.The nursery is right on our doorstep - under 10 mins walk away.

So the idea will be that when I go back to work (full time - 4 or 5 days a week). We would get in an au pair to cover the rest of the days - so it may look like this:

Mon - AM Au pair* Mon PM nursery

Tues - with Mum all day

Wed - AM - Au Pair* - PM nursery

Thurs - Au Pair all day*

Fri - Nursery all day.

So the Au Pair would be looking after the baby for 2 full days in total.

• DH would arrange his week to ensure he was working at home during these times that the Au Pair was around.

DH is very hands on - a wonderful Dad and shares equally in everything including housework!

In addition he does have a great deal of control over his work - so can work late at night for example if there is a meltdown with the baby for example.

My workplace will not be flexible with any working request - I might have to use holiday entitlement in order to have a week day with my baby (I'm resigned to this and think if I can't cope with it then I will consider looking for a new job but may also want to have another baby quickly so need to consider this).

So as to the Au Pair -

1. How much is about right? Is 80 to 100 quid a week live in about right? The Au Pair would not need to drive , and we don't think we would need a baby sitting service at night. We were thinking about an Au Pair from Europe but will the rate be impacted by the rate of the Euro?

1. We have one family bathroom but 2 toilets - is this acceptable? Once I am back at work we might be able to consider paying for a shower - but need to check that we can do this within the existing structure of our house.

1. We only have a 3-bedroom house but it is quite spacious for London - ok sized living, kitchen area - small garden though - but we think enough space so that it won't be too cramped - the Au Pair would have a spacious double bedroom at back of the house. Is this ok for an Au Pair?

1. We were thinking of buying the Au Pair a lap top for wireless use, watching DVD's .. any thoughts? Should we also provide a mobile phone?

1. We are very easy going people, and touch wood our baby has a lovely happy personality, however I don't want to have the baby being farmed out to other child carers or to another nursery - I also can't stretch to a nanny.

I was thinking of a month settling in period.

1. Was also thinking of arranging a baby first aid course and some other training for the Au Pair to attend?

Any feedback will be welcomed. I think as the Au Pair won't generally be left alone in the house with our baby that we are not asking too much - but I would greatly appreciate to hear from others???

Thanks

So 20 hours a week sole charge? Personally I think it sounds fine for an older/experienced au pair - I know others will take the view that au pairs should never look after babies.

It is an attractive job for an au pair, as the pay is on the high side, the hours are on the low side (especially if there is no cleaning) and no babysitting.

I would recruit very carefully though - find an au pair with baby experience, maybe one who has already been an au pair or worked in a nursery - and look for someone already in the country who you can interview and have a trial day with (or be prepared to fly candidates over for a weekend).

Yes 20 hours a week sole charge - with DH on hand upstairs if needed.

Thanks very much - I agree selection is key, thanks for your tips.

Having a laptop accessible great idea, some may actually bring their own.

Don't add anymore to your house - shower etc - it's fine. Especially if you interview and show the prospective individuals with the house. Most aupairs don't expect a mansion - so if they see your home all should be ok.

Rate of pay is good, start lower and then use increase as incentive/review.

First aid course good idea, will give you some piece of mind.

Bonus you are in London, lot's more aupairs want to live here because of schools and london life itself.

Be specific in your advert placement (gumtree? can be good) you will need to sort out the junk etc. More likely though to have candidates in town already.

Careful placing an advert around this time as you will find lot's of people looking just for summer work, be specific about your minimum commitment - to weed out these options. We had a summer one once and was not good, took too long to settle in, was not really interested in doing a great job, we were just a stop gap.

Good luck

thank you - really good tips - especially about using pay as an incentive.

Remember au pairs are foreign nationals. They are not girls who live in this country anyway. So I always think the tip of choosing people who are already in the UK means you restrict yourself to candidates who have..

• failed in their last placement (if they came with an agency and they were good enough to have been reinstated somewhere else then they would have been)

• come to the UK to do something else and have only moved to being an au pair because they can't find anthing else (what happens when they do find that waitressing job...)

• are already in a placement and are looking to jump ship (with these people then yes there may be some valid reasons such as they want to move to another place and see a new city etc but there are also those who are doing it for another £10 per week and then how long before they do it to you)

Some au pairs might work for a year and then look for a new position with better pay or different aged children. I au paired for two years with two different families. Some family circumstances may change, maybe they came just for a summer job etc.

As with interviewinh for any job, surely you look at why they left their last job and check their references?

Stay below £95 per week to avoid issues with NI and tax.

I insisted on an au pair being in the country - you can telephone interview all you like, but need to actually interview and meet in person to get a good sense of whether or not it will work.

Our au pair was actually a british 22 year old music student and we were able to fit her hours around evening college.

I would ask for one evening a week babysitting in if I were you. We did and although did not actually use it very often, it is nice to know it is available.

I found lots of really useful information here and used it at interview and beyond. Mutual respect is really important, be clear and fair about what you need and try and make sure they do the same with you.

Good Luck!

thank you - and missus84 - good to have your insight, having been an au pair too.

I agree it's a job for an older/more experienced au pair and not the more traditional type. Are you sure you can't stretch to a pt live out nanny, especially if OFSTED reg and you get vouchers? Possibly one with own child to lessen the cost? Or a share?

In fact a share like that might be ideal for someone wanting to keep their nanny but not share full time.

If you do decide to employ an au pair remember they you will need a contract etc, they have the right to 5.6 weeks paid holiday like any employee and over the LEL which is about £95 a week you need to start operating payroll.

As you have such a young child I would also think about linguistic development and either recruit someone who can speak good English to your child or will speak in their native language, in which case you need to consider what language you want that to be. The early years are extremely important developmentally and you want someone who at the very least feels comfortable talking at your baby in English and is preferably able to communicate with your child when they start to babble and talk back. Au pairs with good English do definitely exist but it is something to bear in mind. Nationality wise you could get an Australian, nz or Canadian on a tiered visa or an eu national.

A first aid course and maybe the mnt common core or an icp might be well worth doing as they could then register with ofsted if that was economically beneficial for you. They would then need, and have to pay for themselves, insurance but it's always a good thing to have in case.

If you want your au pair to be contactable for work I would say you def need to provide her with a mobile, poss with a limited amount of credit per month which she can top up if she needs, for work purposes that can double up as her personal phone.

You've had good advice on recruitment already especially about checking refs! If you need help checking a ref in another language it's always worth asking here or in living overseas and if you do it via email with the help of a translation website only accept professional/work emails as that probably won't be the au pairs best friend!

Japan is also covered on the new visa scheme - knew there was a 4th country but couldn't think of it!

Good point about language development - it's a wonderful opportunity for your baby to learn another language. Much better to have an au pair speak perfect French/German/Spanish/Czech to your baby than bad English.