Split shift and night owl

[Anonymous]

My sister's natural biology to being a night owl never went away. She eventually became a teacher and was miserable hours-wise for 20 years; she previously had loved being a waitress in a night club 8pm-4am. Now retired, she does babysitting on night shifts. Happy again.

[Anonymous]

OP, I think it sounds dangerous to leave your children with her in the morning, that is enough for a rematch. But you need to be clear in matching that you need AP to on from 6:39a-6:30p. That is a long day, and I understand that she gets a break while the kids are in school, but it is barely a break as she can’t go enjoy herself at a museum or do something fun, she basically has to go wait to pick up the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:but it is barely a break as she can’t go enjoy herself at a museum or do something fun, she basically has to go wait to pick up the kids.

AP is off from 8.30 am to 12.45 pm. That is a 4+ hour break!
Four hours is enough time to take a class, go to the gym, go shopping, meet friends for coffee, go for a walk or do a dozen other "fun" activities (reading, arts and crafts, netflix, scrapbooking...), I wish I got a four hour break during or after work.

Anonymous wrote:Yet at the same time, the person I am paying to help is sleeping at a time when her help (if it was actual help) would be part of the reason why we got an AP. Should I just leave it or is it worth the battle?

OP, this is definitely worth the battle.
You hired her to work 6.30 to 8.30 am and 12.45 to 6.30 pm. You are well within the limits for hours, the hours you are asking for are not ridiculous (not as if she needs to be up at 4 am to take one of the kids to swim practice), what you are asking for is totally reasonable for a family with school-aged children and your AP does get a meaningful break during the day. I agree that the hours are not ideal for a night owl but your AP agreed to those hours when she chose your family and now she has to deal with it. So either she fakes it in the the mornings (and goes back to bed as soon as the kids are at school) or she needs to find a family that only needs after-school care and not morning hours or you change her hours and do the morning routine yourself. But as long as she is scheduled to work 6.30 to 8.30 she has to be up and ready to work at 6.30. Period.
(Also, if she rather watches the oven cook dinner instead of spending time with the kids... she is not adequate. She is doing just as much as she has to. And with skipping morning hours to sleep? She is doing even less than that.)

Think about it, she is sleeping at a time she is supposed to work. What would your boss do if you decided to nap from 10 to 12 instead of doing your job? I doubt they'd tell you they were fine with you being a night owl and to just go ahead and go back to sleep... same is true for your AP. While she might not be an 'employee' she did come to do a job. All adult night owls either need to fake it at work or find a job that suits their bio rythm.

You need a reset conversation. Or a rematch. But that's on you.

[Anonymous]

Just rematch. You can both find a situation better suited to your needs. We don’t need morning hours and many families don’t. She will be fine and you can get some actual help.

[Anonymous]

I would tell her you need her in the mornings and she needs to step up or step out. maybe give her a checklist of things she needs to do. Having said that, if you are home at 630 she may feel she is not needed this early. I would maybe tell her she needs to come up and do her own breakfast around 7 and she is expected to " take over" from you at 730. Be clear about what " take over" means as far as her duties, then you need to step back and leave at 8am if that is when you need to leave.

[Anonymous]

How long has she been with you? If under 8 weeks, I say give it time.

How old is she? Teens are biologically night owls. If she is on the young side, rematch.

[Anonymous]

I would have hated that kind of schedule when I was an Au Pair.

Two hours to get ready in the morning is way too much.
If shower is taken at night and backpack is ready as well, then you only have to get up, get dressed and have breakfast.
It won't hurt anyone to have the children sleep a little more and have the AP start later.

Then in the evening, the mother or father is home and you still need the Au Pair. That's not fun to work and have one parent around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would have hated that kind of schedule when I was an Au Pair.

Two hours to get ready in the morning is way too much.
If shower is taken at night and backpack is ready as well, then you only have to get up, get dressed and have breakfast.
It won't hurt anyone to have the children sleep a little more and have the AP start later.

Then in the evening, the mother or father is home and you still need the Au Pair. That's not fun to work and have one parent around.

Then as an AP you should have accepted with a different host family. This isn't all about "fun". There's a "work" component too, and if you don't want to do the job as advertised, turn it down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would have hated that kind of schedule when I was an Au Pair.

Two hours to get ready in the morning is way too much.
If shower is taken at night and backpack is ready as well, then you only have to get up, get dressed and have breakfast.
It won't hurt anyone to have the children sleep a little more and have the AP start later.

Then in the evening, the mother or father is home and you still need the Au Pair. That's not fun to work and have one parent around.

Then as an AP you should have accepted with a different host family. This isn't all about "fun". There's a "work" component too, and if you don't want to do the job as advertised, turn it down.

This! Each family is different. We do not know why OP needs two hours in the morning (maybe her kids are early risers) and the bottom line is: it's none of our business. Same applies to the evening hours. Au pairs have choices during the matching process and they can decline families that are not a good fit. If you hate the split shift schedule, then don't match! If you don't want to get up at 6:30, find a different family.

OP: If I were you, I would bite the bullet and rematch. You AP will not turn from a night owl into an early riser overnight. At the end, this was a bad match. As the PP suggested. both of you are likely to be better of after a rematch.

[Anonymous]

Be firm and be a boss. Stop doing her work
Sit her down and set the rules. Write it out. Give it to her. Tell her that non-compliance means rematch. Ask her if she accepts.

Give it a week, if it doesn't improve, rematch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would have hated that kind of schedule when I was an Au Pair.

Two hours to get ready in the morning is way too much.
If shower is taken at night and backpack is ready as well, then you only have to get up, get dressed and have breakfast.
It won't hurt anyone to have the children sleep a little more and have the AP start later.

Then in the evening, the mother or father is home and you still need the Au Pair. That's not fun to work and have one parent around.

It's not up to the AP to set the family's schedule. I'd start looking, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would have hated that kind of schedule when I was an Au Pair.

Two hours to get ready in the morning is way too much.
If shower is taken at night and backpack is ready as well, then you only have to get up, get dressed and have breakfast.
It won't hurt anyone to have the children sleep a little more and have the AP start later.

Then in the evening, the mother or father is home and you still need the Au Pair. That's not fun to work and have one parent around.

It's not up to the AP to set the family's schedule. I'd start looking, OP.

Nanny here. While I agree with the thought that it’s not up to the AP to dictate the schedule, many parents don’t set the schedule according to kid needs. Many, many kids do better with an hour between waking and going out the door, especially as they hit late Elementary and middle school, because the circadian rhythms shift. However, many parents try to keep the kids on the same early schedule set when the kids were in preschool.

In this instance, we don’t know whether OP’s kids are early risers or getting up to alarms. FWIW, I have three charges. The youngest gets up sometime between 4:30 and 5:30, middle between 5 and 6, but the oldest needs an alarm to get up by 6:30. All of them are out the door by 7:45, but the sleep schedules are so different that I am present from 5 until we go. I’ve seen the same situation with most families, riddlers and preschoolers up long before dawn, and kids gradually sleeping longer as they age and the circadian rhythm shifts.

[Anonymous]

I am the pp that said she wouldn't have liked that schedule and explained why. I'm just trying to understand why the AP is unhappy.

You're the boss, your house, your rules, so I understand you get to decide what you need. Maybe the AP didn't realize beforehand what it'd be like ?

My host family didn't tell me I'd be off at 9.30pm every 2 evenings before I was there and I really hated it (and rematched, not because of it but it clearly wasn't a plus).

I wouldn't keep an AP that doesn't get up in the morning or who's grumpy.

[Anonymous]

Op here.

Thanks all.

We do not wake the kids up! The younger one is up at 6:30 and the older one by 7:00 at the latest. They wake up on their own.

I like to leave 6:45 and my spouse leaves anywhere between 6:30 and 7:00. The kids can rattle around on their own for a bit so we have kind of agreed she will start at 7:00. That seems to feel more doable to her than 6:30. It means I wait until she is up to leave as I want to be sure she is on her feet and with the kids so I leave a little later.

The last few days she has been up by 7:00. Groggy, and mostly non verbal... but I have just been leaving as soon as I see she is up and the kids have been at school on time and with clothes on as far as I know!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here.

Thanks all.

We do not wake the kids up! The younger one is up at 6:30 and the older one by 7:00 at the latest. They wake up on their own.

I like to leave 6:45 and my spouse leaves anywhere between 6:30 and 7:00. The kids can rattle around on their own for a bit so we have kind of agreed she will start at 7:00. That seems to feel more doable to her than 6:30. It means I wait until she is up to leave as I want to be sure she is on her feet and with the kids so I leave a little later.

The last few days she has been up by 7:00. Groggy, and mostly non verbal... but I have just been leaving as soon as I see she is up and the kids have been at school on time and with clothes on as far as I know!

You’re being far too nice. How do you know she’s not rolling back to bed the minute you leave and kids are on their own?