New job, hours don't work for AP

[Anonymous]

I'm default parent who does the baby hand off at both ends of day. Accepted new job (by necessity) and turns out we now will max out or go over APs 45 hours. Obviously we can't go over. What would you do?

Basically new job tacks on 1/2 hour a day bringing it to 10 hrs a day. Which then hits 45 hours Friday at 1.

What would you do? I'm thinking every Friday we get a baby sitter for 1/2 day? We have an infant so adding on an activity isn't an option.

We will not be doing another AP after this year but we have a few more months left on this match. I feel a bit bad for AP as flexibility was part of our original offer -- but it's take a new job or face unemployment so we had to choose the best fit for our family.

Nanny trolls - no need. I get it, we should have hired a nanny in the first place because we are made of money etc...

[Anonymous]

There's a couple options.
1) get a sitter 1Xweek
2) offer to pay the AP extra for the 5 extra hours (not kosher, but maybe she'll be interested)
3) stagger your work schedules better
4) hire an evenings-only sitter a few times a week.

[Anonymous]

This was hardly predictable, OP, so release any guilt you may be feeling. Now, a lot depends on your AP and your relationship. If the AP is good and you would be Ok with her with your DC 50 hours/week, then you should raise this question with AP. Sit down and explain what has happened and ask her what she would want. She can rematch, she can agree to work the full hours for extra money, or she can say that she isn't comfortable with extra hours and you should hire someone.

Good luck, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's a couple options.
1) get a sitter 1Xweek
2) offer to pay the AP extra for the 5 extra hours (not kosher, but maybe she'll be interested)
3) stagger your work schedules better
4) hire an evenings-only sitter a few times a week.

These are generally good options, although I think shirking the program rules and having your AP work 50 hour weeks would be wrong. Not sure why OP needed to be rude to nanny posters right out the gate.

[Anonymous]

What we did (from the start) was had our au pair work 4 days for 10 hours a day and then on Friday the baby was in a one day a week nanny share. Worked out great for everyone.

[Anonymous]

I would give her right of first refusal and offer her $80-$90 to work those extra 5 hours on Friday (I've done this on occasion when I've had to work a long week- my Au Pair always jumped at the chance to earn extra money, but don't insult her by only offering $10/hr)

Then, if she isn't interested, I would line up the babysitter for a half day on Friday, or a whole day if you need a couple Au Pair hours on Saturday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would give her right of first refusal and offer her $80-$90 to work those extra 5 hours on Friday (I've done this on occasion when I've had to work a long week- my Au Pair always jumped at the chance to earn extra money, but don't insult her by only offering $10/hr)

Then, if she isn't interested, I would line up the babysitter for a half day on Friday, or a whole day if you need a couple Au Pair hours on Saturday.

That's what we did for our first 2 years in the program to prevent us from going over 45hrs. We had a nanny/housekeeper all day on Wednesday, and AP was off. If you are going to get a new person and alter the schedule, I would suggest:
- Get someone who might be able to help around the house when baby is sleeping- laundry, meal prep, cleaning... Stuff that AP is not allowed to do.
- Move your AP's days off to Friday/Saturday or Sunday/Monday so you can get a second pair of hands for a few hours during the weekend. Looks like your new schedule will be demanding, and a little Sat morning help could be super useful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would give her right of first refusal and offer her $80-$90 to work those extra 5 hours on Friday (I've done this on occasion when I've had to work a long week- my Au Pair always jumped at the chance to earn extra money, but don't insult her by only offering $10/hr)

Then, if she isn't interested, I would line up the babysitter for a half day on Friday, or a whole day if you need a couple Au Pair hours on Saturday.

This.

I made the mistake of once hiring a sitter on a Saturday night because I didn't want to screw up her weekend after a long week and you would have thought I had stabbed her in the back. She was mad and asked me if she could have 1st right of refusal. Now when I'm going to hire a sitter I ask her first and she always jumps at the opportunity to make extra cash.

However, my AP isn't even close to her hours, I just am very respectful of their weekends and only use ONE weekend a month for AP hrs, but now we go out nearly every weekend, so I pay a sitter or our AP, but it normally is our AP.

[Anonymous]

Look around for a nanny share that is interested in your child just 1 day per week, but be flexible on which day (either which day when setting it up, or you could even be flexible each week as to which day). Don't have your AP go over the hours, it's not worth it to possibly have her go home and you kicked out of the program.

If you can find a spot in a share, it will also give you coverage for when AP needs a day off.

[Anonymous]

Any chance for you to stagger your work schedules? Have DH start work an hour later in the mornings and hand off the baby? Or could he start an hour early and come home earlier?

If not, I'd also suggest nanny share or babysitter for a full or half day. It doesn't necessarily have to be Friday - I am sure your AP would appreciate a three day weekend but that's nothing you have to accommodate. You could also arrange for additional child care on Wednesday mornings or Tuesday afternoons - as long as your total is not more than 45 hours.

And for what it's worth... when I was an AP, back in the last century, I worked 7 am to 5 pm Monday to Friday. Our deal was that I would be off early whenever possible, especially on Fridays. Sometimes that meant working 7 am to 5.30 pm because HPs were running late and sometimes that meant getting off at 1pm on Fridays because HM was home early (or being off at 9 am because HM worked from home and I could leave as soon as the oldest were on the bus). I also got a lot of thank yous and an additional week of vacation.
Yes, it's wrong. But I really didn't mind, especially as I had a lot of downtime during the day (youngest was napping 3 to 4 hours daily, which was of course working hours but working hours spent on the computer or on the phone or in front of the tv).

[Anonymous]

Can we stop with the "oh but they don't mind us breaking the rules" crap? These are the rules you agreed to when you signed up, and I doubt you would appreciate your AP viewing the rules of the program so casually. Of course they want more money! That doesn't make what you're doing okay!

[Anonymous]

You don't explain why you are the default parent. Is there no way your husband can do any of the handoffs? Or flex his schedule? I would examine that before doing anything else.

[Anonymous]

Op here - DH has a 1 1/2 HR commute each way (DC traffic). Mine is 20 min each way. Hence, I get it from both sides.

We are going to try to shift morning schedule a little later and see if that works. We spoke to AP and she understood. We told her we will work not to go over hours. We also offered 3 more vacation days since we are now maxing her hours. She seemed ok. She noted that her 1/2 days off now aren't useful since all her friends are working or in school. We shall see when the new schedule actually starts.

If not, I like the idea of the nanny share but not Friday. Great idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here - DH has a 1 1/2 HR commute each way (DC traffic). Mine is 20 min each way. Hence, I get it from both sides.

We are going to try to shift morning schedule a little later and see if that works. We spoke to AP and she understood. We told her we will work not to go over hours. We also offered 3 more vacation days since we are now maxing her hours. She seemed ok. She noted that her 1/2 days off now aren't useful since all her friends are working or in school. We shall see when the new schedule actually starts.

If not, I like the idea of the nanny share but not Friday. Great idea.

Why are you hesitant about doing the nanny share on Friday? We had it on Friday, and it was great for our au pair because she got a three day weekend every week (and she took the opportunity to travel). I also told her I didn't care who was watching our child (between the two of them), so she would occassionally arrange with the nanny to switch the next week's day from Friday to Monday so she could have a four day weekend without taking any vacations days. She was watching a 5 month old baby with us (and working 40 hours a week) so we were happy to give her the flexibility.

[Anonymous]

Between the 2 of us and our commutes, DH and I are away from the home ~11hrs a day. Before my son started pre-school, we had AP drop DD off at a baby-sitter's house 4x/week for 3hrs a day to get us down to 42hrs for AP. Given that the babysitting was at the babysitter's own house, that cut down on her rate too since she could do her own laundry, etc., while our son napped. On the 5th day of the week, the AP had a 10 hour shift and DH came home early that day.