Kids Laundry and School Lunches

[Anonymous]

Full time nanny doing laundry and making lunches seems fine. After school nanny picks up kids, takes them to activities or reads to them/plays with them etc but there usually isn't much time to do laundry or make lunches.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many children do you have, OP? Ages?
What is the nanny's weekly schedule?
What is the nanny's compensation package?

OP may very well be out of bounds if the nanny doesn't have time to do the kids' laundry. Getting it folded can be time consuming. And if some of the kids are in school, why aren't they folding their own laundry?

Making the kids' school lunches would be like making their weekend meals. But again, that's another chore the parents should be expecting their kids to be learning to do.

Because OP wants to now burden the nanny with tasks that were obviously not discussed in advance, she needs to first renegotiate the agreement, both ways. That means offering a better compensation package in return for increased services/responsibilities. Nanny may or may not feel able to take time away from her child care responsibilities to do laundry and school lunches.

Perhaps mom or dad can engage their children with these tasks during evening "quality time"? Don't they want their school-aged children to learn how to fold clothes and make a sandwich?

Or OP can offer more hours before pick up specifically for the nanny to get there early and do those tasks.

[Anonymous]

Downtime is used for laundry, tidying up, cooking for children.
Downtime is the time the kids are at school or napping. Not all 1-4 hours of it are for feeding yourself, gabbing on the cell phone, or sleeping on the job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Downtime is used for laundry, tidying up, cooking for children.
Downtime is the time the kids are at school or napping. Not all 1-4 hours of it are for feeding yourself, gabbing on the cell phone, or sleeping on the job.

OP said it was an after school nanny so nanny only is working a few hours, probably mostly picking up charges. With the little time nanny is there does Mom want her to do laundry or spend time with kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Downtime is used for laundry, tidying up, cooking for children.
Downtime is the time the kids are at school or napping. Not all 1-4 hours of it are for feeding yourself, gabbing on the cell phone, or sleeping on the job.

OP said it was an after school nanny so nanny only is working a few hours, probably mostly picking up charges. With the little time nanny is there does Mom want her to do laundry or spend time with kids?

I misread this at first and read...with what little time mom has in the evening does Mom want to do laundry or spend time with the kids? And I thought...oh, finally, a nanny who gets it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Downtime is used for laundry, tidying up, cooking for children.
Downtime is the time the kids are at school or napping. Not all 1-4 hours of it are for feeding yourself, gabbing on the cell phone, or sleeping on the job.

OP said it was an after school nanny so nanny only is working a few hours, probably mostly picking up charges. With the little time nanny is there does Mom want her to do laundry or spend time with kids?

I misread this at first and read...with what little time mom has in the evening does Mom want to do laundry or spend time with the kids? And I thought...oh, finally, a nanny who gets it.

I'm a nanny who "gets it." But I'm also realistic about what I can do, given time constraints. This post is about an after school nanny. Many after school nannies have less than an hour at the house, so they don't have time to do all the tasks that MB would want. If an MB wants more tasks done, she needs to be realistic about the amount of time the nanny has available to do them and offer more hours if necessary.

[Anonymous]

If I were an after school nanny and expected to do those tasks, I would expect a lot more pay than the usual 2-3 hrs after school nannies work...unless the kids are older elementary and I was just there to make sure they don't burn the house down. In that case, they'd be old enough to make their own lunch and at least assist with doing their own laundry. It sounds like a lot of duties for an after school sitter but if you added on a couple of hours before the kids get home then that would be OK.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Downtime is used for laundry, tidying up, cooking for children.
Downtime is the time the kids are at school or napping. Not all 1-4 hours of it are for feeding yourself, gabbing on the cell phone, or sleeping on the job.

If that's what the contract reads, wonderful. But many nannies with split shifts aren't paid for the time when their charges are in school, so can't be required to do those tasks then. And there are plenty of nannies who work with sibling groups; naptime doesn't overlap perfectly every day. Heck, try doing a bunch of things only during naptime (MB's requirement) for twins when one is solidly on a two nap schedule and the other is on a one nap schedule, and none of the naps overlap.

[Anonymous]

How much does this after school nanny, who does all this, make?

[Anonymous]

I don't think a nanny should have to do laundry or housekeeping ("light" housekeeping as ads like to call it). They are separate jobs. A nanny's responsibility is to care for the kids, not the home. However, caring for the kids does mean cleaning up after them (or with them, depending on age), helping with their meals and putting the dishes in the dishwasher.

I will say, I've seen ads that are looking for a nanny but also include every other "Mom" chore except for sleeping with the husband. It seems to be the new norm. For that set up I suggest getting a sister-wife and calling it a day (<- sarcasm for those who don't get it).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think a nanny should have to do laundry or housekeeping ("light" housekeeping as ads like to call it). They are separate jobs. A nanny's responsibility is to care for the kids, not the home. However, caring for the kids does mean cleaning up after them (or with them, depending on age), helping with their meals and putting the dishes in the dishwasher.

I will say, I've seen ads that are looking for a nanny but also include every other "Mom" chore except for sleeping with the husband. It seems to be the new norm. For that set up I suggest getting a sister-wife and calling it a day (<- sarcasm for those who don't get it).

I've done 24/7, taking on the mom role in everything except for sleeping with dad. I don't mind doing it, as long as I'm well compensated and not micromanaged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think a nanny should have to do laundry or housekeeping ("light" housekeeping as ads like to call it). They are separate jobs. A nanny's responsibility is to care for the kids, not the home. However, caring for the kids does mean cleaning up after them (or with them, depending on age), helping with their meals and putting the dishes in the dishwasher.

I will say, I've seen ads that are looking for a nanny but also include every other "Mom" chore except for sleeping with the husband. It seems to be the new norm. For that set up I suggest getting a sister-wife and calling it a day (<- sarcasm for those who don't get it).

You care for the kids, you care for their food, clothes and room. That means doing kid laundry, cooking their food and tidying their room(s). I handle mine, you handle the kid's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Full time nanny doing laundry and making lunches seems fine. After school nanny picks up kids, takes them to activities or reads to them/plays with them etc but there usually isn't much time to do laundry or make lunches.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Full time nanny doing laundry and making lunches seems fine. After school nanny picks up kids, takes them to activities or reads to them/plays with them etc but there usually isn't much time to do laundry or make lunches.

This.

+2

I pick up the kids from school at 3, we get home around 4, I need to start dinner at 5:30 to serve at 6 and then it's up to bedrooms for quiet activities like reading or coloring until bed at 7. Soooo, we have 90 minutes of actual open time together. Sometimes they will play together, alone, and other times they want me involved. Sometimes we walk to a nearby pond so they can ride their bikes, sometimes we stay close to home. The more chores I have to do, the less fun we have and the less say the kids have in our afternoon schedule. Be realistic. I arrived with the children at 4pm yesterday to discover five laundry baskets of clean clothes waiting to be folded. If you can't get to that over an entire weekend, what makes you think I can cram it into an hour and a half?

[Anonymous]

I think if your nanny is just doing after school hours then you have to be realistic about how much she can get done inbetween school runs, activities, homework, mealtimes. I think making the packed lunch for the next day is fine as that doesn't take long, and it can be an activity a nanny can do along side the children.
Laundry is a tricky one. It could be that you take a more laid back approach and say if she has time it would be great, if not don't worry. I have a friend who worked full time for a family and did all kids laundry etc. Once the boys(triplets) started full time school they cut her hours to 2-7 2x a wk. Pick up is at 3:15 so it gave her an hour to cook their dinner, tidy up and do laundry on those 2 days. She would put a load of laundry in when she got in at 2pm, cook etc collect the boys. when she got back to the house(either straight from school or after an activity) she would switch the laundry to the tumble dryer. If she was coming straight back to the house after the school run she was able to switch it to tumble dryer and then fold it before 7pm. She got the boys to take it to their rooms and put it away. But if she took them to an activity or playdate etc quite often she would only have time to switch to the dryer. Which meant mum would have to fold etc. The mum had to accept that and nanny had to learn not to stress about it