Worried about his reaction

[SunsetsInVenice]

To our nanny leaving.
We've had her for a year. Things were great but soured over the last couple of months. Don't want to go into details but to cut a long story short, she quit after she took what I said in the wrong way. All this is not relevant however, just providing context.
I never saw her as work long hours so was always DH who did. He depended on her more as his work schedule was erratic and she was always able to work around it. Basically they had more contact and he was the one who sorted the childcare arrangements and schedule with her too. Anyway, since she went 2 weeks ago, he has been really quiet. Can't help but think that he should just have accepted it now? I'm not concerned there was anything there as they were never alone and I know at times she seemed irritated by him but just feel weird about it all.

I think the fact it was something you said that caused her to leave is directly relevant to the situation.

Your DH and her had a good working relationship and it sounds like she was prepared to be flexible due to his work patterns which isn't always the case. He needed the nanny to support his job and now, as a direct consquence of your action according to your post, this nanny has left. He's the one who sorts childcare so has this left him in a difficult position? What are you doing for childcare now? Has the brunt fallen to him? Are you personally prioritising finding a new childcare arrangement that works as well as the old one?

If my partner said something to anyone I had a working relationship with that caused them to take such extreme action as leave their job then yes I would be deeply upset by that. Depending on what was said, if it was mean or hurtful, then I would judge my partner for that and it would take over 2 weeks to get over especially as you don't seem sorry.

Of course, this isn't relevant if you said something because she was endangering your child or you caught her doing something worthy of dismissal but that doesn't come across from your post.

Well no, there was no misconduct on her side or anything like that. But I do feel that the kids were not enjoying their time with her as much as they used to do and was hearing back reports of bad behaviour which the kids kept denying so I was unsure on that score as to what was going on. She was going to walk anyway I think as seemed fed up so what I'm saying is that DH should have been prepared for this.
I am going to try to be around more to do the childcare and we will come to a solution.
The problems didn't just stem from me. As in my comments to her were not the driving force behind her leaving I don't believe. It just wasn't working all round and he would know that too. It has to work for everyone and there is always another alternative to help with the kids. What's important is our family and our relationship.

What did you say?

And are you making efforts to find a new nanny?

So you haven’t started doing more or coming up with a solution

has he been doing childcare this past two weeks? Because it maybe having had this expedited and now it all falls to him whilst you feel he should just accept it might be the problem

I've adjusted my hours and so has he for the short term. We will adapt.
As I said, it was building for a while. She was not happy, kids were not either towards the end. It was inevitable that it was going to happen.
I just wanted to get to the bottom of it all. She took it badly as felt she was not trusted.
I haven't just left it to him either to cope with this new change so he wouldn't be quiet over that as we will work together to deal with this.

Frankly a year is about how long most nannies stay in a job. They get bored, novelty wears off, etc. If you get more, you are doing well. Some people get amazing nannies who stay with them for years, although that usually older women not 20 somethings.

If is he had wanted to stay, she would have stayed, irrespective of what you'd said. She was probably looking for a pretext to go.

Your DH may feel he's lost a friend, but he needs to understand that a nanny is just a transient person in your family's life - no matter how good or how long they stay, they all move on. Just get cracking and find a new one.

Completely agree with you that it needs to work all round for you, your kids and your partner. Maybe he didn't realise the extent of the discontent or didn't feel it personally.

Sounds like a good conversation is needed to understand his side of things better. Maybe you could take the lead on doing the admin work to find a replacement so you come up with a solution that works for you and him. Possible with your next nanny have a more rigorous process for raising constructive feedback/ warnings/ notice period etc to avoid a repeat performance. If you take the lead on arranging all, drafting contracts and processes etc of this I think it will go a long way to showing your DH you understand that something went wrong this time and you will do everything you can to avoid a repeat performance while still finding new childcare you are happy with.

Is there a way to take some parental leave now so he doesn't have the full childcare burden while this is being sorted?

Wishing you the best of luck!

She said she didn't feel trusted which is why she quit. I was the last one to speak to her, no goodbyes with rest of family and all ties cut now.
Don't think we need another nanny as won't be able to find one with the odd work schedules and can probably now rely on clubs or find another way forward.

Why won’t you tell us what you said?

Does your husband agree that you don’t need a new nanny?

Why cant he be upset that she has gone and he has had to (even with your help) adapt around it. You may be alright with it but he is allowed a reaction to it and to have an emotional response

Both in your interactions with your Nanny and your husband you seem to want to manage people responses - that is not on you to do so and she was right you are not trusting people to have there own responses - you seem to want to micro manage everything

Not the case. We both knew it wasn't really working so shouldn't have been a huge shock.
I said to her that the kids were happy with us at home and well behaved and that I wanted clarity on what she meant when she kept giving back bad reports. I just said I wanted her to be more understanding as it's been difficult with the kids what with one of their friends moving away etc. They were once very happy to be with her but the last few months, things changed.
We can't get a new nanny as his schedule is so complicated but we will work around it between us with clubs, friends of the family helping and us adjusting work.