Nanny is pregnant
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Anonymous
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I have a two year old son and I’m currently pregnant with a baby girl. We have a wonderful nanny who has been with us since my son was a baby, and she just announced that she’s pregnant with twins. We pay for her medical insurance and short term disability insurance to cover a paid maternity leave, but I’m concerned about accommodations during her pregnancy. Our toddler is very active and our nanny is constantly chasing after him - something she’ll have a much harder time doing as her pregnancy progresses. Our son is often sick, as is typical with kids that age, and she typically will still come into work unless it’s something serious. However, she has mentioned that she will feel less comfortable coming in when he’s sick now that she’s pregnant. This will create significant childcare gaps for us, especially as he’s about to start preschool and will likely be sick even more often. We provide 20 PTO days, but he is sick with mild colds, etc, much more often than that. Even if we can get her to agree to take extra days unpaid, we’re looking at significant extra costs to hire backup childcare.
Even more complicated is how to handle her return to work. I’ve been reading up on advice online about this situation and it just seems crazy to me. Frequent advice is to hire an additional nanny assistant to help her out, and to allow her to bring her babies to work with her. Frankly, if I was comfortable having my baby taken care of by someone watching two other newborns and a toddler, I would just put her in daycare at a third of the cost of what I’m currently paying for a nanny. A nanny assistant would help, and would make back up childcare much simpler, but would substantially increase the cost of our nanny to the point that it wouldn’t be worth it to us to continue with a nanny instead of daycare. We already pay our nanny just over $100k/year (40/hr plus time and a half), and I’m balking at paying even more than that to find someone to help her do her job. To make things even more complicated, there is a live-in component to this job. We move out to our summer home for three months every year, and she lives with us during that time. Even if she agrees not to bring her babies to work during the regular year, she would have to bring them during the summer. I know it sounds churlish, but I don’t really want to live in a house with three newborns and a toddler. It’s not a mansion, and we would only have enough space for the additional children if we converted space that is currently used as our office. It’s also an extremely expensive town where she wouldn’t be able to find housing on her own. Ideally, we would prefer to have her take her paid maternity leave with us then not return. However, she is determined to make this work because it would be difficult for her to find employment elsewhere with comparable pay and benefits. I think we legally can’t fire her or materially change her job duties (such as requiring her to take summer off unpaid so that we can find a summer nanny to move out with us) due to pregnancy, so we feel stuck. The only thing I can think of is to tell her that we’re not allowing her to bring her banned to work with her, including during the summer, and hopefully she will quit. What would you do? |
Anonymous
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Honestly? I'd hire an employment lawyer to structure a smooth transition away from this nanny. There's a legal distinction between firing due to pregnancy (bad) and firing because she's unable to complete her duties (acceptable under the law).
Unless you agreed in your employment contract to her bringing infant twins (!) to her workplace (which no sane MB would permit), you can move forward. She has to know how unreasonable it is to expect to bring infant twins to a nannying job. I get that she wants the money but she's going to be miserable, you'll be miserable and your kid will be miserable. And I'm sorry you're in this position, as it sounds like you are otherwise happy with the nanny. You aren't a bad actor / employer for doing what's best for your family. |
Anonymous
| You don't have to let her bring her babies to work. She's going to have to sort out childcare like every other working parent. |
Anonymous
| You need a quick consultation with an employment lawyer. But ultimately, you have to tell her the kids are not allowed to come with her and that includes not seeing them during the three months she travels with you. |
Anonymous
| OP here. I also think it’s insane to allow your nanny to bring her child to work with her (not just for work-related reasons, but also the liability! And what if you disagree on parenting styles?) but apparently it’s common. I think we’re just going to require that she find childcare for working hours, including over the summer. Daycare for two babies will likely come close to matching her take home income, and we’ll just hope she ends up quitting. We really do like her and we want to do right by her, but this was just an impossible situation. |
Anonymous
Yes, it's unfortunate, but this is the right thing. Just out of curiosity, how far apart is your due date from hers? |
Anonymous
| You don’t need a lawyer. Just tell her she can’t bring her babies to work with her and make her use PTO when she doesn’t want to come to work when your son is sick. |
Anonymous
Yes, this. |
Anonymous
| Have you actually discussed with her what she plans to do with her babies when they are born? It seems like you are making a leap by assuming she would. Most likely she will wind up quitting due to the summer live-in component, but it sounds like you should at least talk to her before ruminating over this and assuming her intentions. |
Anonymous
Assuming she would bring them to work with her, that is. |
Anonymous
| You need a new nanny. |
Anonymous
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You need to schedule a meeting with her and inform her ahead of time that it's to discuss post maternity leave plans. In the meeting tell her that she cannot bring infants to work and that's not going to be an option. 3 infants and a toddler is too much for anyone. Even in daycares where there's 4 infants to a caregiver, there's usually multiple caregivers in the room (8 kids, 2 caregivers) plus a floater who can help. And a separate person would be cooking lunches for the toddler and helping clean up. Tell her that you understand if she doesn't want to work here any longer and you've enjoyed her working for you.
It will be awkward, but you've been a good employer. You paid health insurance and a maternity leave. Also, will your maternity leave align perfectly? When are your due dates? Won't you need coverage while she's on leave? |
Anonymous
| Line up a new nanny to start within the next month or so and tell her you’re putting your son in daycare along with the new baby. That way you don’t have to pay maternity leave and you can cut your losses now. |
Anonymous
| Agree w the posters who say no bringing babies to work. It would be the right (nice) thing to keep her through her maternity leave and maybe even after up until the summer comes and she is not able to come with your family. Or maybe she would accept not coming as a summer nanny but willing to stay during the school year. It would be nice if you could offer that. |
Anonymous
This and I would still consult with an employment attorney. You’ve gotten yourself into a mess here OP. 100K for a nanny? Sheesh. You’d have been better off hiring two nannies vs becoming dependent on one and paying all that overtime. My nanny got pregnant too; we told her that we were enrolling the baby in daycare so there would be no question about her coming back. |