Would you use an AP for young infant care?
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Anonymous
My first au pair was great with my baby. I know there are a lot of horror stories out there, but it can be done, and I had a great experience as a first-time host mom. I started training her during my maternity leave to take care of my infant and my toddler, and then she started watching both full time when my baby was about 5 months. I was very detailed with the onboarding process and in the handbook. I screened very carefully and only considered au pairs who were 25 or 26 who were responsible. They had to have cared for babies under 2 who were unrelated for at least half a day or more, have lived with and helped care for a baby (nephew/niece was okay), had held at least one full-time job, and had lived independently. My au pair was from Thailand with excellent English (so she could follow detailed instructions) who had lots of work experience in her home country, was an extension au pair (doing her second year) who had been watching multiple children including one 1-year-old. She also did laundry, cooked healthy meals for them, and walked them in the stroller to story time and the park a few blocks away. |
Anonymous
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Yes - we're on our second au pair (second year in the AP program) and the first started when our younger child was 4.5 months old. It was an amazing experience. We had a nanny when my first child was an infant and the au pair was better because we could be more flexible with her schedule as the baby's needs changed day-by-day.
We did several things that ensured we had an amazing au pair for our infant: Gave ourselves tons of time to select so that we didn't feel rushed, and interviewed a ton of candidates (over 20). Also we only focused on: (1) older au pairs who had graduated from college, (2) with infant experience, (3) and excellent English (so nothing was lost in translation, scary for safety when it comes to an infant). Our au pair was from Colombia. She was incredibly mature and loving. I had no hesitations about her being with the baby at all. |
Anonymous
| I am a first time host mom. My Au Pair started when my daughter was 4 months. She is wonderful. We made sure to select a older Au pair who has extensive experience with infants. She is really good with my daughter. I say to do it. |
Anonymous
| As long as you have nanny cams... trust but verify with nonverbal kids! |
Anonymous
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I had an au pair care for my infant. I was quite nervous about it at first but this is what I focused on and it turned out fine. I hired an au pair extraordinaire from Au Pair in America. She had a bachelors degree in early childhood education. Native English speaker from Jamaica. She didn't have much hands on experience with infants but given her degree I felt she had a genuine love for children. We had her keep a meticulous daily report of all feedings, diaper changes and other things. She stayed with us for a year. We have also had success with extension au pairs. You get to see the host families evaluation and can even try to find someone with similar experience.
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Anonymous
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No. Au Pairs are great for verbal kids. Babies can be challenging even for experienced nannies, and the only way an infant can tell you something is wrong is after the issue has happened.
In addition, having an AP during the first year or so of parenthood means the adjustments you have to make when you become a parent and the emotional upheaval that can accompany those changes all play out in front of an audience. That’s bad for all involved. |
Anonymous
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No.
I never pinched pennies when it came to care for my small children. |
Anonymous
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I have found that overall that infant qualified au pairs tend to be much better au pairs in general. They tend to be older because in order to meet the qualifications, they had to work taking care of infants for a while bunch of hours. In order for them to even do that in the first place typically means that they really like children/babies. It also means that they have typically worked real jobs, like in a daycare or as a nanny in their home country.
A lot of the people saying no don’t do it have never had an IQ au pair and are just dealing with au pairs with very little child care experience and who are not really interested in childcare as a profession. |
Anonymous
| You get what you pay for. Hire experienced nanny |
Anonymous
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Yes! Do it! Pick your AP carefully and spend the time to train her. Good and energetic AP candidates will be eager to please you and have the energy to care for your little one.
Your baby and the AP will be fine. It is about your comfort level. |
Anonymous
Could you let me know what Au Pair agency you used? And if you have any tips on your process of selection, I would be extremely thankful. We are considering an au pair for our second child who will be 3 months old when he is alone with her for most of the week. We unfortunately can't afford a full-time nanny salary on our own and have considered nanny share, but it has been hard to find families matching time and distance. Thank you for your post! |
Anonymous
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it did not work for our family, and we decided to take a break from the program until the youngest was in preschool.
Our AP wanted to use her own judgement instead of follow my directions -- she basically wanted an autonomous job (she had been a professional in her field at home) but didn't have childcare training and had never been a parent. She felt I didn't trust her, and quite frankly I'm not sure I did. We asked for a rematch and she went to a family with older children. |
Anonymous
This, except AP didn't want to bother us by asking, so she's use her own judgement. Be explicit with training. Include the stupid, obvious stuff like: don't let baby chew on batteries or magnets, and take away damaged toys immediately (when teething and scraping paint off of what they're chewing on). 100% recommend video cameras to check in for nonverbal kids. If AP is "uncomfortable" with cameras, then absolutely move on to another one. Trust is earned after AP has proven capable, NOT immediately upon arrival after you've gotten to "know" them through 2 video calls, several emails, and many texts plus 3 days of being in your home. |
Anonymous
Np. We are with Cultural Care. We screened very carefully - for example, we really made sure that the girls we were interviewing had actual experience alone with an infant for an extended period of time. Some of them say they are willing to work with an infant but when you explore their profiles they've never been on their own. And then when we did the interviews, we dedicated a lot of time to them. We did the three step interview that Cultural Care suggests (with each interview getting more and more in depth). I believe we used their suggested questions and added some of our own. For example, we also asked a lot of situational questions like, "tell me about a specific time when you had a hard time taking care of the baby. What happened? What did you do?" Their answers told us if their English was strong enough to really understand nuance and if they really had what it took to take care of an infant. We're on our second au pair now and it's another good match. We're amazed at the stories she shares from her au pair friends though. In one family, where she was friends with the former au pair, she was just telling us how quickly the family chose the new au pair - and they're going into rematch already. I think you have to put a lot of time and effort into finding the right person. You get out of it what you put in. |
Anonymous
| No you want an experienced nanny |