Light Housework Request for a Nanny
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Anonymous
| For a part time? Just 20 hrs! Is tooo much! Look for a Housekeeper! |
Anonymous
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She's lazy and thinks since you have already hired her that you will not require her to do light housekeeping. Baby laundry, washing bottles, and cleaning up after your day is NOT light housekeeping. This is in every nanny position.
Your requests are very reasonable. Tell her firmly that these tasks are well within the bounds of light housekeeping which she agreed to perform. If she doesn't want to perform those tasks then she can find a different job. |
Anonymous
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I don't think there's any standard for what "light housekeeping" actually entails. Both nannies and families tend to be all over the board on what is acceptable. Different people just have different tasks they're comfortable with, so what might be no problem for one nanny becomes a very onerous task for another. This is why it's crucial to very specifically outline what tasks are required during the interview/contracting process.
At this point OP, I think you need to have a meeting with your Nanny and discuss honestly what you both want. You might come at it saying "Ok Nanny, as we see it you currently have around X hours/week where DC is napping. The tasks you're currently doing take Y hours/week, which leaves Z hours unaccounted for. What tasks would you propose to accomplish during that time?" |
Anonymous
| Job creep. |
Anonymous
| A nanny ONLY cleans up after children, not lazy parent. |
Anonymous
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I'm a nanny who is happy to occasionally unload the dishwasher, wash a pan left in the sink or fold adult laundry if it happens to be in the dryer. Having said that, I can understand why the nanny might be reluctant to do "light housekeeping." In trying to be flexible and a "team player" these sorts of things become expected overtime.
So, unloading the dishwasher becomes unloading the dishwasher every single day (including weekend dishes), washing every pot and pan from the previous nights dinner, and folding adult laundry every single time I try to put child laundry in the dryer. Eventually your MB asks you to clean all the baseboards and trim in her house with your spare time (the 30 minutes I allow myself for lunch while the kids nap). If you don't do these things, your bosses begin to look at you as lazy and unmotivated, when these things weren't even your responsibility to begin with. You didn't express your expectations in the beginning. This is on you, not her. Clearly explain what you want and assure her it will not turn into job creep...then follow through with that promise. |
Anonymous
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Your nanny is not at fault here OP.
Light housekeeping in regard to the nanny profession is generally anything child-related and child-related ONLY. Emptying out the dishwasher and folding a load of laundry may be more of a family duty since it may consist more of the general family's dishes/laundry vs. just the baby's. Since you did not clearly define in the beginning what exact chores you expected to be performed, then it is a little too late to have certain expectations at this point. In my opinion, what your nanny is performing for you in the housekeeping dept. is sufficient enough for her role. |
Anonymous
| I am nanny, and I started off just taking care of the baby and all of her needs. Now they have me cleaning their dishes doing all their laundry and clean their bathroom, I can understand why she doesn't want to do your laundry. But you should have specified "light housework" when you hired her so y'all would have been on the same page. On the other hand you have to understand that her first priority as a nanny is the child and taking care of all of the child's needs. |
Anonymous
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It should all be made 100% clear before hiring. I am a nanny who will do anything and everything for the child in my care - laundry, cleaning, dishes, cooking - but nothing for the parents. I make this clear before hiring. For one thing, I have no time for anything else and for the other, it would change the relationship I have with my charge's parents. Doing the parents laundry is too intimate for me.
I'm not a jerk about it -- if one parent is in a hurry one morning and leaves a few dishes in the sink that I will wash them but I do not regularly do the parents dishes. |
Anonymous
Pretty much this. Also realize that there are positions where the nanny just looks after the child no laundry, food prep or bottle washing even the nursery is cleaned and sorted by someone else on staff. I've worked a job like this if your nanny is coming from than light housekeeping is baby laundry and baby dishes if she didn't fo it you would be. Often parents consider light housekeeping to be whatever they don't want to do. She should have asked and you should have defined it. So you need to think how important this is to you and think about what you consider light housekeeping and then present that to your nanny. Hopefully you can come to a compromise. |
Anonymous
| You can't empty the dishwasher and fold one load of clothes? Nannies are not maids or a jack of all trafes. Nannies take care of children and CHILD related duties which do not include emptying dishwasher, folding your clothes, or anything to do for an adult. |
Anonymous
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reasonable request. she has 3 hours of break per day- it only takes 10 minutes to unload a dishwasher and 15 minutes to fold laundry and you said "Light housework" when you hired her.
If you have 2+ kids and the nanny was fully utilized, it would be different- she wouldn't have free time. You are not that vested in her- look for a new nanny. I'm an MB, if I told my boss I wouldn't do something outside my "job description" in my downtime(which is laughable, because in corporate, you just do whatever is asked of you), I wouldn't get a year-end bonus, or worse be put on probation and potentially lose my job. |
Anonymous
Just because the nanny is in your house does not mean you can request that she take care of anything in sight (I mean sure, request it, but be prepared for her say no). Nanny positions and corporate jobs are a world apart-something that has been beaten to death on these boards-and so your comparison is useless. This post is MONTHS old but let's just say, for the sake of argument, that this is happening now. The dishwasher is fully of MB/DBs dishes, not nanny's or baby's. Why should this fall under the nanny's responsibilities just because it's a crappy chore the boss doesn't want to do themselves? Yeah, it takes 10 minutes, the adults who make the dishes should be perfectly capable of finding this time in their day to do the job themselves. |
Anonymous
It should fall under the nannys duties because she agreed to not only do nanny duties but also light housework. OP made an error not specifying exactly what light housework she expected, but, if you agree to take on additional housework, how much lighter can it get than the dishwasher and folding some clothes? I totally agree, it shouldn't be a given that nanny will help with household duties, but once you sign on for that, the conversation should then be about exactly what housework you will take on, not whether or not something has to do with the kids. |
Anonymous
This is the clearest post on "light housekeeping" for a nanny. No, I would not do the parent's laundry either but I would unload the entire dishwasher if some of the children's dishes are in it (I'm not a jerk either) OP should just hire a maid once a week or learn to throw her own dirty underwear in the washing machine. |