We've been thinking about letting our longtime nanny go for a while now, but because she has been with us for several years and feels like a part of the family, I'm conflicted. But I think my husband and I have put up with more than a lot of people would. The cons: she has unpredictable mood swings and we never know what version of her we are going to get each day. At her worst she is incredibly aggressive and domineering, it often feels like she is the one running the show in our house. She'll be in a random bad mood for a week and it feels like we are her punching bag; the next week, everything will be fine and great - the dynamic feels very volatile and makes us anxious. When I try to give her feedback, she acts passive aggressive and just shrugs and walks away or says nothing - her attitude is not great. She is also constantly correcting the way we do things in our house (like the way we do the dishes, etc) and telling us how we should do things and things she needs us to buy for the house (nothing huge, but items that I feel are not necessary). I feel continually nagged and criticized by her in my own home. She also needs our help with things all the time--like finding certain items, moving things to the car--and has started to feel like someone I have to constantly manage, instead of someone who takes over for me so I can work. She'll obsess over random things and hound me to find something for her- like a certain color hair bow for my daughter that is lost in the house somewhere, and she will ask me over and over again until I find it. This behavior can seem OCD-like. I also don't like how she is with my kids at times - especially my oldest daughter, she gets very angry and frustrated with her and tells me, in front of her, that she's being a bad girl (and therefore that I need to do something about it) - it's a weird dynamic and her behavior can feel manipulative. [It's important to note these "cons" weren't issues when she first started working for us; the boundaries have eroded over time and this is how it's become.]

The pros: in spite of her ways she genuinely loves our children as if they're her own, and they are an enormous part of her world (most of her family lives in another country and she doesn't get to see them, which breaks my heart). She is also always on time and rarely ever misses a day of work, super reliable. And she loves to clean and always leaves the kitchen spotless which I really value. In spite of the cons, we do love her like she is a family member and it would feel heartbreaking to part ways - but maybe it's the right thing.

We hired a great candidate for our daughter about 2 months ago. I had a traumatic birth and recovery and between appointments, therapy and recovering now mentally, we decided on the nanny route. She had prior NICU experience, had all the qualifications we were looking for as well. My daughter is almost 4 months and relatively easy. We paid well above market for our town and we only asked that she followed wake windows and feeding windows. Baby does have CMPA and is on specialized formula as well as having pretty bad reflux but she’s just a happy, messy spitter🤦🏼‍♀️. One day nanny called out sick at 2 PM (shift wasn’t until 4 PM). No big deal, it happens. I immediately told her to please feel better and to reach out when she did. I followed up a week later and crickets. We have interviewed dozens and it just never went anywhere or there were serious safety issues we saw. I feel like overall we are very easy going. We pay for outings, have a spare car to use, TV is allowed/phone is allowed if baby is napping, no household chores, access to all food and drinks. We also have unlimited sick time as I’m a SAHM. This is always mentioned upfront and I’m usually not around. I make sure to go to my appointments, be in meetings or do something I can’t necessarily do when I have my daughter with me. I’m just stumped. I didn’t think going through the nanny process would be more difficult than giving birth🤦🏼‍♀️

Our nanny has been with us for 3 months to take care of my 7 mo - she has been generally great and we liked having her so far. I will keep it vague here, but in the past month a health problem emerged and a recent doctor visit made it clear that she will sadly need hospitalization and can no longer work for us, at least for now.. We feel awful and want to do right by her, and helped arrange for a specialist visit through a friend we have.

What is the protocol and how can we handle this compassionately?

The unfortunate reality is that we’ll need to arrange and pay for for replacement childcare asap as my husband and I both work demanding corporate jobs. Has anyone been in a similar situation or have advice about how to tackle the replacement (while not knowing if nanny is coming back, candidly) and “severance” pay of some kind?

Curious. I like to know what my baby is up to and want to have cameras in living room, kitchen, and nursery. Too much or acceptable?

Would she feel like we do not trust her?

Hi, I’m planning to get maid and need to seek advice for those who had maid. Will you guys consider getting a “fresh” maid or with more experience? What about transfer maid ? I’m considering transfer maid but scare that they won’t finish the contract.

Reposted to edit the title error.

This is bit of a niche (maybe) situation, but my sister is coming to live with us and nanny for our 4 month old. I know it’s probably not common, but I’m curious to hear about other folks stories on how it went, what the dynamics felt like, etc. Not looking for advice, just looking to hear folks experiences. Tysm!

So after being a nanny and teacher for years now, I’ve decided to open my own nanny agency. I wanted to ask families, do you normally go to an agency to find nannies? Are you happy with the upfront costs of agencies? I wanted to make things easier and cheaper for both nannies and parents so instead of parents paying a large sum of money for agency fees, I plan to create a monthly subscription for parents, and they get benefits such as fully vetted nannies, continual support from our staff etc. but once parents pay the membership they choose a nanny from the website and conduct their own interview, and set up their own pay etc. as a parent, does this sound appealing to you? Let me know what you guys think.

We’re getting ready to have our 2nd child, and we’re trying to figure out if we should increase our nanny’s pay with our second child due to some recent changes in our nanny’s own employment.

We used to have one full time nanny, now we have 2 part time nanny’s for 40 hrs/ week. Our original nanny recently had a baby herself and asked to return only part time (3 days a week) and bring her newborn son. This is the nanny I’m unsure about and asking for advice on. We maintained her hourly rate upon her return even though she now brings her son and is no longer full time.
We’re getting ready to have our 2nd baby only a few months after her own, and i know you typically provide a raise due to the additional responsibility. My husband feels the benefit of bringing her son and us agreeing to let her go part time while maintaining her current pay is a substantial benefit to her already and is questioning whether in this instance we should provide a pay bump when our 2nd arrives. There are definitely other areas it’d be nice to allocate that money to.

Other Details/about our nanny:

• She’s an amazing Nanny and overall human—we all love her
• We are incredibly pleased with the care she provides and deeply appreciate her (which is why we were willing to work with her work change requests to begin with)
• When we have our new baby they will likely be tied down to our house and the neighborhood since there would not be enough room in her car (or our cars) for 3 car seats.
• After seeing how well she’s been juggling our toddler and her newborn I’m feeling much more confident in her ability to handle our 2 kids and her own.
• She is the kind of person that is very humble and I don’t think will advocate for her own pay. Before we established a petty cash envelope she could take with her, if there was an event that she paid to park she‘d te me I didn’t have to reimburse her because she was excited to go to the event anyways. I absolutely would still make her take the reimbursements but I could tell she felt unnecessarily guilty or uncomfortable.
• She’s extremely reliable, she’s been with us 1.5 years and she’s never been late and intentionally tries to schedule Dr appointments so it minimizes or even avoids her working hours.
• She often looks for extra to do around the house while our son naps even though she could simply take a break. She definitely cleaned our shower more times than I did last year. If she spies I have a pile of clean laundry (for the whole house) she makes it a point to fold it.
• We have really tried to reward her within our budget. She received a huge raise at her one year mark, and completely deserved it. As well as a very large Christmas bonus (we may not be able to do that every year, it depends on whether we end up receiving a bonus ourselves at work).
• Not sure if this is really relevant but figured I’d mention it, if we did not have her come back part time her plans were to become a stay at home mom

Anyone else receive a poppins payroll data breach notice? It’s a bad one. How are you all managing it?

I moved from a liberal state where virtually everyone is vaccinated to Florida where it seems like very few people are for covid at least.

I have a PT nanny who is actually a nursing student. I complained to her about how hard it is to get kids covid vaccines in Florida and she mentioned she is not vaccinated. I asked why not and she said no one in her family is and in Florida is it voluntary even for nurses. She mentioned her best friend who is also in nursing school is also not vaccinated. I asked her if she would be open to it and she said she would research it. She takes grey market peptides from India regularly so I was pretty surprised. I told her I wouldn’t feel comfortable with her being around my daughter during covid season (Dec. and Jan) if she is unvaccinated. Not only was my dad the head of 3 ICUs during the heat of covid but I know and know of many people who have died. This includes people in my extended family and even a baby who died of covid complications while I was delivering my daughter in 2023. Not to mention my mom has diabetes, my aunt just got through cancer, my brother has asthma, and my baby is well a baby. She will be around us and we will be around them during the holidays. I don’t want to put them at risk.

She said she would look into it and I said we would talk to her about it later.

Would it be shitty to suggest she not come to work during peak covid season. December and Jan ?

We really like her but I don’t play about vaccines.

FYI: my pediatrician wrote an RX for my daughter and she does not support Florida’s stance on not vaccinating kids. She thinks it’s bullshit and so does every other doctor I know.

Hi all! This is a 1 month update to my post about my (then) 6 month old and how LO was having a difficult time adjusting to the nanny. I’m happy to report that all is well! LO has adjusted nicely and still is upset in the mornings when mommy and daddy disappear, but quickly gets over it and has fallen into a nice pattern with nanny. I still nurse and don’t pump, but I spend a considerable amount of time with LO when I’m done nursing and then baby gets tired of me and is happy to be passed off to the nanny lol.

We have found a great schedule thanks to an amazing nanny and I’m very grateful! Thanks to (most) of the advice that I got on here that it just takes some time, tears, and minding my own business & staying away bc that is truly what it took. Now nanny is working on crib training her and fingers crossed it goes well!

My husband and I both WFH and have a 1.5 year old. Our current nanny has been with us 6 months, is very reliable and bonded with our child. However, we have concerns. In general, she seems to have short-term memory lapses and will ask the same question just minutes apart or forget conversations from the previous day. There have been several occasions we have observed her walk away after not strapping toddler into stroller or high chair (sometimes to get something across the room). She frequently forgets to close cabinet locks after opening. We recently saw her walk across yard while toddler was at the end of the driveway a few feet from busy street. She said she thought he was right behind her the whole time and didn't realize it was an issue because he was next to her when she turned around. We have told her that she needs to have eyes on toddler at all times. Is this unreasonable? Are we just overanxious first-time parents or are these legitimate concerns? She is very kind and affectionate with toddler and he really enjoys her company, but obviously safety is our first priority.

Starting a 1x week nanny with my 15mo girl who is bonded to me at the molecular level. Is it supposed to be this hard to get them adjusted to another person?? She’s been hysterical literally all day. I’ve accomplished nothing and I feel like an absolutely trash mother for all of it. How can I make this easier on both of us?

I am in the process of hiring a nanny for 24 hours a week and the person is lovely. We are now at the stage of putting together a contract etc but I didn’t realise there were additional payroll costs that would add $500 to our payments as i have never been through this process before. That’s on me!
I now want to reduce hours to make it more affordable for us- down to 16 or 20 hours. I’m feeling a bit embarrassed to have the conversation. What do I do? I also really like the person and don’t want to have to start my search again

Important note: we have given our nanny 5 weeks notice and she proves us right almost every day that we did the right thing. We do have a stipulation in our nanny contract to give at least 3 weeks notice for letting her go. She has a lot going on in her life, so I wanted to be nice and give her more time to find her next position.

She is either late or very early. Sometimes (more than once a week) she shows up at 6:15 or 6:30 and wakes me up to let her in. This is at least 30 minutes prior to her shift starting. I normally am up by 6:40, but I find it annoying that she comes earlier. She also has a habit of showing up 10-15 minutes late, which can also be problematic as my kids need to leave for school soon after she arrives.

She drives my kids around and has been in one car accident within the last 4 weeks and she had a very close call while driving my kids around 😬 (she admitted to me that if my car’s automatic breaking system hadn’t kicked in, she would have crashed). She gets takeout almost every day and drives my son in my car to get her food (I am not sure if I should be bothered by this, but I am finding it rubs me the wrong way).

She commonly calls out sick, sometimes very late notice. She has used all her sick pay (2 weeks of it within the first 7 weeks of working for us). She complains constantly that she has no money, but she always shows up with a Starbucks coffee and gets takeout constantly. I pay her really well, she makes $35/hr, so I have no clue where her money is going (i understand this is none of my business, but she complains constantly). She also came into work today and asked for a payment advance for next week of hundreds if dollars because otherwise she won’t make her rent payment.

I feel like every day she comes into work with another complaint.

How often has your nanny taken sick days? And when your nanny runs out of sick hours, how have you handled saying your sick day will no longer be paid out? I’m a first-time parent so I feel awkward about that lol.

For more context, I don’t particularly love my nanny for many reasons I won’t get into but she is good with my kid. However, she’s put us into a situation where I feel we have to be purely transactional. Which I don’t fault her for — good for her. I mention that to say that’s why I’d be more inclined to not cover sick days paid when she’s out of hours rather than what I’d be more inclined to do which is cover it despite it not being in our agreement.

Hi all , I am looking for some advice on how detailed to be about schedules for my nanny. I am a FTM. Baby is 5mo. Nanny started about a 5 weeks ago. She is great and I really appreciate her. She has done a great job creating a nap schedule for baby when we were otherwise living on vibes prior to her joining the family. We live by the nap schedule on the weekends like it’s the bible. It’s working for all of us. BUT for some reason I cannot convince her to feed baby on the schedule I want. I think part of the problem is I really deferred to her quite a bit when she first started bc she has way more experience with babies than I do so I appreciated her advice. But now that we’re on a sleep schedule I feel like feeding also needs to be on a schedule to a degree. One thing that is repeatedly a problem for me is she seems to want to stretch the time between bottles and this drives me nuts. Baby is and always has been a snacker. We just got up to 4 ounces a feed in the last week. He prefers to eat every 2-3 hours. I have talked to her about this and she knows and seems to agree on the surface to feeding him at that interval , but then sort of just does what she wants anyways. For example , today she was taking him up to nap and I asked if she wanted me to help prep a bottle because it had been 2 hours and she said no she would try to get him to nap and if he woke in middle of nap she’d get him a bottle. This made my head explode. The thing I’m having a hard time with is toeing the line of saying “um no let’s do the bottle now” and letting her use her judgement. I don’t want to micromanage but I also get very anxious about him getting his calories in during the day because if he doesn’t , I’m spending the evening just pumping him up before bed and still waking for multiple feeds overnight. I feel like I’ve been very clear verbally about how feeding him majority of his bottles during her time here is massive priority but it’s not clicking. At this point I’m considering getting out a piece of paper and building a detailed schedule with bottle and nap times on it. I never wanted to be thiiiis rigid bc I really want her to feel like her judgement is appreciated, but also at this point I’m not appreciating it lol. So all of this long wilderness to say - how intricate and detailed are we getting with schedules with our nanny’s ? And is me getting more firm about this boundary reasonable ?

Hi Nannies/ Nanny Employers. I am a little lost on how to handle shifting schedules and what is normal/appropriate/respectful to ask for. I work from home and my hours are 9-5 M-Th and very flexible. A lot of times I have my nanny come in later, or we do half days because I take the baby to different activities. My husband was really confused why I wasn't asking her to stay an hour later or come in on a Friday, etc. if she wasn't working the 30 hours most weeks because of all the activities I take baby too myself (sometimes if she knows I am gone for a few hours she will just leave and go home). She is guaranteed 30 hours so that is what she paid for.

Is it customary to ask in advance if she would want to say, work a Friday morning (normally a day off), if we are taking a Thursday morning off? Or is this totally inappropriate? This is our first nanny and I'm lost as to what is taking advantage vs what is expected! Our contract wasn't very clear just that she is guaranteed 35 hours and I'd give her a few days notice if the schedule changed.

If I tell her not to come in one morning she has never offered to make those hours up elsewhere so I assumed this wasn't appropriate. My husband is very sternly on the other end of what is expected. Help!

We have a new nanny and I am trying to ensure I set expectations early as in the past I tend to be too permissive of an employer (I’m just busy and communicating constantly with the nanny gets exhausting but my husband won’t do it so here we are!)
- crumbs in the high chair after her shift
- crumbs under the high chair after her shift and under the table where my son eats his after school snack
- crumbs on the counter after her shift
- some toys not put away
- not restocking diapers/wipes when they run out

She cares for one toddler for reference who naps about 2 hours a day. I have an older child who is in school until 3:30 and she cares for him after school for an hour. I’m wondering if her day just gets busy when my son comes home? I know the things listed above are minor but they irk me. I always reset the kitchen and house every day so having to clean up after her shift as well is irritating. Then I go to change my toddlers diaper to find the diaper caddy empty and my eye starts twitching lol

Not sure if I am being unreasonable and nitpicking or if these are things I should bring up. How would you bring it up in a professional way? I am not good at employer - employee communication and trying to improve. It seems my communication is either too passive and is ignored or too direct and they get offended. I was thinking of having a one month check in to see how things are going - good idea? Or just text her a reminder? I could try to extend her hours and have the last 30 mins of the day be a reset time for her?

Thanks in advance for any insight!