Nanny and employer maternity leave
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Anonymous
| We are exploring the option of getting a nanny. I am currently pregnant with #3, but we would have the nanny start at beginning of the school year. How do people handle your personal maternity leave? Have nanny come and help with the other two? I know we would still have to pay because it wouldn't be fair to them. |
Anonymous
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Congratulations, OP!
How old are your first two children? What are their school hours? Are you thinking or live-in or live-out, or better yet, can you offer either option? |
Anonymous
| I started my current position while MB was still on maternity leave - it gave us a good month of transition time so both mother and nanny could feel comfortable when MB did go back to work full time. |
Anonymous
How old was the older child? How did you structure your work? |
Anonymous
| Kids are 3 and 1. I am a teacher, so will be home by 5. I will have 6 weeks of maternity starting in late January. Kids will not be in school, but we may consider part time pre school for 3 year old to keep with socialization. |
Anonymous
| Oh and live out. We just got over a situation of a family member living with us, and we are not ready to open our house full time to someone else. |
Anonymous
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10:56 here.
I think you'll need super nanny to do a good job. |
Anonymous
| I've been working my regular schedule during my MBs maternity leave. Nice to have two sets of eyes and an adult to talk to! |
Anonymous
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MB here. My nanny worked through my maternity leave with #3 at her regular salary. The other two kids were in kindergarten and 3 day/4 hours pre-school respectively. Nanny took care of them outside of the school hours, plus handled the drop offs/pick ups at preschool. That was also an arrangement for a few months before #3's birth.
Looking back at it, I think I did not manage it properly. Nanny got very used to her free paid time, spent a lot of time on her phone/internet and running personal errands during her free time. She got so addicted to her phone, that even pre-school teacher complained about her doing it at drop offs (she would come too early with my son and type away on her phone while my son was bored out of his mind by the classroom door). When it came time to watch the baby (and we bumped her salary) her main goal was to get the baby to sleep ASAP in a swing, so that she continue to type, or she would drag the baby to her bank and other places without telling us about it... Obviously, we let her go soon after. Before all that happened she was a good nanny to our 2 older kids and was with us since #2 birth, but she enjoyed the easier job so much she could not recover. I think our nanny was an exception rather than the rule, but my point is that it is too easy to get used to easier schedule, while older kids are in school and the family is keeping the nanny full time while awaiting #3. And when the nanny has to watch #3, even with a bump in salary, it is making her life much much harder. While I've asked her to do things like children's laundry in her free time, and that was in the contract, she would only do it if I reminded her that morning. So, please manage your nanny while she has free time or you would be like us: I felt that for paying her for full time time my children get continuity benefit, and at the end I had to find a new nanny for them anyway. |
Anonymous
You sound controlling and I feel sorry for the nanny hire. |
Anonymous
How is that controlling that we don't want someone outside our nuclear family living in our house? Do you have a live in? It is a personal preference. |
Anonymous
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I would discuss in interviews how she would envision maternity leave. Look for someone who would be willin to help with baby laundry, bottle-washing, errands and cooking nutritious meals for nursing mom/older kids. Also look for someone with experience with WAH parents.
I'm a nanny who has worked through maternity leaves before and a true go- getter will fill her plate with things that alleviate stress on the household and then will take over a gradually increasing amount of baby care in the last few weeks before you return to work. |
Anonymous
| You have such a short leave, and your children are so young, that I think you're going to want her there during your maternity leave so thatyou can concentrate on the baby, resting, aand working out how the schedule will work for the nanny when you return to work. |
Anonymous
Oh, give it a rest! 
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Anonymous
Ignore that poster. She is out to attack anything an MB says. |