When your needs change

[Anonymous]

Our FT nanny is on PTO for the next two weeks, and I surprisingly found a fantastic temporary nanny on Care that was in between jobs (her last contract ended in August and is about to head on vacation for the next month) to step in during her absence. Well, it turns out, our temp nanny gave me a taste of how nice is it to have someone take care of light housekeeping (empty dishwasher, light vacuuming, refill coffee maker for the next morning) and light meal prep (chopping veggies, throwing some stuff in a crockpot), and I realized that I really need this. DH and I are busy (like very other working parent) and I'd prefer to focus on my DD as much as possible when we're home vs. doing chores, prepping for dinner, etc.

When we hired our nanny, I was a FTM and wasn't aware how much of a timesaver all of this would be. We had a house cleaner, use Blue Apron, etc., I reasoned. Why would I want our nanny to do all this extra stuff? I really wanted our nanny to focus on one thing...and that was providing the best care for my DD. And I still don't want to infringe upon that. But our needs have changed, and I really need extra help.

My thought is to have a conversation with our nanny and see if she'd be open to doing some of this little stuff on a daily basis, in exchange for a raise.

Who has successfully navigated this issue before? How to politely bring it up?

[Anonymous]

I would just mention what you said here and tell her your needs have changed. You'd like to keep her but also need these things done. Its reasonable for someone in your home to do those basics.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the pp, just tell her what you wrote above. Provided that what you want is very reasonable and not something truly difficult, and that you're willing to give her a raise for the new duties, it's a good offer and most nannies wouldn't mind. Be very clear about the new duties and your expectations, but you also need to be prepared that the nanny might not want to do it - though adding ten minutes for the dishwasher, half an hour for meal prep and vacuuming every couple of days in exchange for a raise for all her hours worked seems like a good deal to me!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would just mention what you said here and tell her your needs have changed. You'd like to keep her but also need these things done. Its reasonable for someone in your home to do those basics.

It is also reasonable to bump her hourly rate by $5/hr if you want to add all these extra duties.

[Anonymous]

Bear in mind that what a temp nanny is able to sustain is often different from what a long-term nanny can keep up with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would just mention what you said here and tell her your needs have changed. You'd like to keep her but also need these things done. Its reasonable for someone in your home to do those basics.

It is also reasonable to bump her hourly rate by $5/hr if you want to add all these extra duties.

Oh please

[Anonymous]

Even though this new, temp Nanny is doing some light housework & food prep for your family, is she also taking good care of your child as well?

If so, she sounds great!

You obviously cannot keep her since she will be leaving for a trip soon, so yes, I would ask your current Nanny if she would be okay doing some extra duties for a raise.
If she says "Yes" then that would be awesome.
However if she declines you might want to hire this other Nanny once she returns from her trip.

To be fair....Were you paying the temp Nanny a higher wage?

[Anonymous]

OP here. The temp nanny asked for the same rate that we pay our nanny.

[Anonymous]

What is in your contract?
These should have been brought up during negotiations.

Try to have a sit down with your nanny, explain in a professional manner (not other nanny did xyz why can't you), all of you (you nanny and so) come up with what works for all of you. Make sure you revise the contract for anything changed. And remember as your LO yet so older, the nanny will have more free time (as lo gets to be more independent), so it's good to always have open communication with each other on expectations and future expectations.

You all are a team, you all are raising a tiny human, each of you brings an important role into your child's life.
You hired her for a reason, what were those reasons? Do they still hold true?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. The temp nanny asked for the same rate that we pay our nanny.

If she is better, then keep her!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is in your contract?
These should have been brought up during negotiations.

Try to have a sit down with your nanny, explain in a professional manner (not other nanny did xyz why can't you), all of you (you nanny and so) come up with what works for all of you. Make sure you revise the contract for anything changed. And remember as your LO yet so older, the nanny will have more free time (as lo gets to be more independent), so it's good to always have open communication with each other on expectations and future expectations.

You all are a team, you all are raising a tiny human, each of you brings an important role into your child's life.
You hired her for a reason, what were those reasons? Do they still hold true?

The problem is that FTMs (I was one) don't know what we need. We don't know how little time we'll have with our kids after work. I mean, we can figure it out in minutes, but we don't know yet what it feels like to be doing laundry or chopping veggies instead of cuddling on the sofa or playing cars.

We are also intimidated by becoming employers, and we want our first choice nanny to choose us, so we try to design the most attractive job possible (best compensation with fewest outside duties). We also genuinely want the main focus to be on our child.

But pretty quickly we realize just how much we have to do when we're with our child, and we start to realize that in an 8-9 hour day, it's reasonable to aske someone else to do some small subset of those household tasks so that we can have a taste of "only focusing on our child," too.

Then we have the OP's problem: she could hire someone else, probably at the exact same rate, who would take on these tasks if she doesn't ask for too much, or she can try to get her current nanny to do them for a raise. The likelihood anyone is going to want to take on substantially more work for just $1-2 more per hour is slim, so now she's going to have to way overpay, and possibly still end up with a resentful nanny.

OP, if you can wait until the end of your first contract year, I would let the nanny know that you are redesigning the job to include these tasks. If she wants to take them on, you would love to hire her again for the next year at whatever the raise was you would have given her anyway. If she is not interested, tell her you will recommend her highly as an infant nanny and move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is in your contract?
These should have been brought up during negotiations.

Try to have a sit down with your nanny, explain in a professional manner (not other nanny did xyz why can't you), all of you (you nanny and so) come up with what works for all of you. Make sure you revise the contract for anything changed. And remember as your LO yet so older, the nanny will have more free time (as lo gets to be more independent), so it's good to always have open communication with each other on expectations and future expectations.

You all are a team, you all are raising a tiny human, each of you brings an important role into your child's life.
You hired her for a reason, what were those reasons? Do they still hold true?

That's funny you mention this...it actually was in the contract. No housework that wasn't childcare related is written into our contract.. I certainly wish I would have known better. Our nanny is great at taking care of DD but I certainly wouldn't classify her as going above and beyond.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is in your contract?
These should have been brought up during negotiations.

Try to have a sit down with your nanny, explain in a professional manner (not other nanny did xyz why can't you), all of you (you nanny and so) come up with what works for all of you. Make sure you revise the contract for anything changed. And remember as your LO yet so older, the nanny will have more free time (as lo gets to be more independent), so it's good to always have open communication with each other on expectations and future expectations.

You all are a team, you all are raising a tiny human, each of you brings an important role into your child's life.
You hired her for a reason, what were those reasons? Do they still hold true?

The problem is that FTMs (I was one) don't know what we need. We don't know how little time we'll have with our kids after work. I mean, we can figure it out in minutes, but we don't know yet what it feels like to be doing laundry or chopping veggies instead of cuddling on the sofa or playing cars.

We are also intimidated by becoming employers, and we want our first choice nanny to choose us, so we try to design the most attractive job possible (best compensation with fewest outside duties). We also genuinely want the main focus to be on our child.

But pretty quickly we realize just how much we have to do when we're with our child, and we start to realize that in an 8-9 hour day, it's reasonable to aske someone else to do some small subset of those household tasks so that we can have a taste of "only focusing on our child," too.

Then we have the OP's problem: she could hire someone else, probably at the exact same rate, who would take on these tasks if she doesn't ask for too much, or she can try to get her current nanny to do them for a raise. The likelihood anyone is going to want to take on substantially more work for just $1-2 more per hour is slim, so now she's going to have to way overpay, and possibly still end up with a resentful nanny.

OP, if you can wait until the end of your first contract year, I would let the nanny know that you are redesigning the job to include these tasks. If she wants to take them on, you would love to hire her again for the next year at whatever the raise was you would have given her anyway. If she is not interested, tell her you will recommend her highly as an infant nanny and move on.

Our contract is up next March. I don't think I can wait that long to bring this up. I'll do exactly what you mention though and see what she says. And literally, as a FTM, I could have written this post myself. I didn't want to deal with nanny burnout or resentment, which is why I naively streamlined her responsibilities thinking that I wouldn't need more. Well, ya live and learn!