How to source an au pair/au pair tips

[OhwhyOY]

Hi all, I am keen to get an au pair in place to support our family, in particular me looking after my baby and 2 yo on my own when DP is travelling for work for extended periods. Does anyone have any advice on the best place to find an au pair/agencies you can recommend, and also any tips on things to consider when finding an au pair? TIA.

Sorry no, I don't have any experience.

Hopefully this will bump for you

Thanks @SiouxsieSiouxStiletto !

Au pairs aren’t really suitable for those ages. Generally it’s more school age, a few hours a day. In exchange for pay, and you also need to provide accommodation and food etc.. which actually is a lot of effort having someone live in full time with you and you need to have them live as family rather than ‘staff’. They sound cheaper but by the time you pay for ‘wage’, all food, language course monthly, usually pay for monthly travel pass also.

Would it be easier to just get a part time live out nanny? They can look after either age alone, ie take both out an hour whilst you rest, will know child stages and will help with child laundry/ cooking etc.. and then then go home so you aren’t having someone home 24/7.

Hi, We have an aupair and I have similar aged children (22 months and 2 months old). She joined us from Australia when our oldest was 10 months old on the agreement that she would be the sole carer for our eldest 3 days of the week (8am till 6pm). It's been brilliant, and she's just extended with us for another year. Since I'm on maternity leave we parent together with her focused on the toddler and myself on the newborn. It's been agreed when I go back to work our toddler will do 1 days a week with her and our little one will be with her 2 days.

So if you have any questions, fire away!

The Swiss often do alot of au pair work as they need to be fluent in 4 languages. I cannot tell you more than that though.

Hi @Spinforlove can I ask how you found your au pair? We’ve had great experiences with 2 Australian au pairs but we’re struggling to find our next one (not exclusively looking for Australians but they seem to be able to get visas more easily)

Hi @NLM3000 We found them on the webiste aupair.com. you do need to be proactive in messaging people on it though. We focused on slightly older candidates due to the age of our children, and from countries where they could get a youth mobility visa (Australia, Canada, Hong Kong etc). We did a couple of calls with a shortlist, but it became apparent very quickly that some just wouldn't fit into our family. We got very lucky with ours as she's fantastic with our kids and has always respected our space and time. One of the biggest draws we found was condensing their 30 hours into 3 days rather than spread out over 5 days so they could travel.

Thank you! We’ve been using aupairworld without much luck, good point about focussing on countries that are eligible for the youth mobility visa we’ll try that too