Nanny role as kids transition to school

[Anonymous]

Hello, our 3yo started prek this month, four hours a day four days a week, and our 9 and 6yos go to school.
We've had the same full time nanny for four years and we'd like to continue to pay her for her full time schedule.
What is the norm in terms of additional responsibilities that we can ask our nanny to take on now that she has 16 hours of down time each week, we don't expect her to do housekeeping.
Thank you

[Anonymous]

When we were in that situation, we had a discussion with our nanny about what else she would be willing to do. We have a maid, and I didn't want her doing our housekeeping, but she is a great cook and was willing to do our grocery shopping as well as a lot of our food prep and cooking. She has also run other errands for me (i.e. taking things to the post office, picking up prescriptions, dropping clothes at the dry cleaner). I also have her do things around the house, like help switch out the kids' clothes when the season changes, organize toys and determine which ones to get rid of, etc. She is definitely not busy for all of the down time, and we've just acknowledged that we will be paying her for hours when she is watching TV at our house and no one is there. Our nanny is young (27), doesn't have kids, has her own car, and was born and raised in Northern VA. I'm not sure what your nanny is like and what she'd be willing or able to do, but I would ask to see what she's interested in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we were in that situation, we had a discussion with our nanny about what else she would be willing to do. We have a maid, and I didn't want her doing our housekeeping, but she is a great cook and was willing to do our grocery shopping as well as a lot of our food prep and cooking. She has also run other errands for me (i.e. taking things to the post office, picking up prescriptions, dropping clothes at the dry cleaner). I also have her do things around the house, like help switch out the kids' clothes when the season changes, organize toys and determine which ones to get rid of, etc. She is definitely not busy for all of the down time, and we've just acknowledged that we will be paying her for hours when she is watching TV at our house and no one is there. Our nanny is young (27), doesn't have kids, has her own car, and was born and raised in Northern VA. I'm not sure what your nanny is like and what she'd be willing or able to do, but I would ask to see what she's interested in.

Thank you, this is very helpful.

[Anonymous]

Why should she have to do anything else? You need her for the times pre School is closed, sick and vacation
You pay her for being available exclusively for you not for extra work.

If you don't need her during hours child is in school then she is free to take another job. You can see the problem this presents as then she will not be available when your child is not in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why should she have to do anything else? You need her for the times pre School is closed, sick and vacation
You pay her for being available exclusively for you not for extra work.

If you don't need her during hours child is in school then she is free to take another job. You can see the problem this presents as then she will not be available when your child is not in school.

16 hours a week is too much down time to be paid fulltime for, so yes, she should take on more duties for the normal weeks when the kids are in school. Sick days and snow days and breaks are a different story and the employer should be cognizant of that and have different expectations on those days. If you do not have a maid/housekeeper or cleaning service, this may, by mutual agreement include household tasks. A nanny who started with no household tasks may balk at a change in that direction. If that's the case, there may no longer be a match between the family's needs and the the nanny. Then you would need to transition to a new nanny, if not now, certainly when all 3 kids are in school full-time. Some families choose after school care at this point, but if you can afford in home care, it's still better for the children.

[Anonymous]

I have been with my current family for 6 years. I am now at the point where I have 10 hours a week with both kids in school. I am on call if the kids are sick, but those 10 hours are mine to do as I please. I don’t have to come in to work until the youngest is done with preschool at 11:00. Perhaps this isn’t the norm, but certainly is very appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we were in that situation, we had a discussion with our nanny about what else she would be willing to do. We have a maid, and I didn't want her doing our housekeeping, but she is a great cook and was willing to do our grocery shopping as well as a lot of our food prep and cooking. She has also run other errands for me (i.e. taking things to the post office, picking up prescriptions, dropping clothes at the dry cleaner). I also have her do things around the house, like help switch out the kids' clothes when the season changes, organize toys and determine which ones to get rid of, etc. She is definitely not busy for all of the down time, and we've just acknowledged that we will be paying her for hours when she is watching TV at our house and no one is there. Our nanny is young (27), doesn't have kids, has her own car, and was born and raised in Northern VA. I'm not sure what your nanny is like and what she'd be willing or able to do, but I would ask to see what she's interested in.

His is what I did, as a nanny. Picked up groceries, ran small errands, started the crockpot, kept kids clothes and toys organized and up to date. I also did laundry during this time and prepped kids food and projects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why should she have to do anything else? You need her for the times pre School is closed, sick and vacation
You pay her for being available exclusively for you not for extra work.

If you don't need her during hours child is in school then she is free to take another job. You can see the problem this presents as then she will not be available when your child is not in school.

16 hours a week is too much down time to be paid fulltime for, so yes, she should take on more duties for the normal weeks when the kids are in school. Sick days and snow days and breaks are a different story and the employer should be cognizant of that and have different expectations on those days. If you do not have a maid/housekeeper or cleaning service, this may, by mutual agreement include household tasks. A nanny who started with no household tasks may balk at a change in that direction. If that's the case, there may no longer be a match between the family's needs and the the nanny. Then you would need to transition to a new nanny, if not now, certainly when all 3 kids are in school full-time. Some families choose after school care at this point, but if you can afford in home care, it's still better for the children.

This is helpful thank you, we do want her to help more with errands, but not cleaning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have been with my current family for 6 years. I am now at the point where I have 10 hours a week with both kids in school. I am on call if the kids are sick, but those 10 hours are mine to do as I please. I don’t have to come in to work until the youngest is done with preschool at 11:00. Perhaps this isn’t the norm, but certainly is very appreciated.

Do you imagine this will continue once the youngest is in school more than 2 hours a day?

My youngest will probably do a week or two of camp this summer, which means my nanny will have 20 hours off for those weeks. In the fall, he'll start 3-day a week preschool, which will be 15 hours off a week most weeks. That is not something I would do long term. If we weren't moving later in the summer, we'd be talking about either transitioning to a role more like what the OP describes, shifting her hours significantly, switching to part time, or moving on to someone new. Since I no longer have younger children, and I can cover days off easily when necessary, it will no longer make sense for us to have a full time nanny who starts at 8:30am.

Maybe your employers have a lot more money, or maybe you work much longer hours anyway.

[Anonymous]

We will be in this boat soon. I am going to look for someone who likes to cook and is willing to do grocery shopping and laundry. Those would be the most useful things for me. If I find someone who would also be interested in doing the deep cleaning, that would be a bonus, and I could offer a higher rate b/c I could cancel the weekly service.

[Anonymous]

Grocery shopping twice per week (once at the start and once before the weekend) ~ 4 hours / week to make lists, shop, put away groceries and throw out anything necessary from the fridge

Prepping and Packing snacks and lunches for the following day ~ 1.5 hours / week

Prepping dinner ingredients or starting dinner in slow cooker ~ 3 hours / week


Errands (dry cleaning, store returns, online shopping, scheduling child appointments, etc) ~ 2 hours / week

Child laundry, toy organization, project research and prep ~ 2 hours / week

Whether this will work obviously depends on your nanny, but it is what I look for with a nanny for school aged children.

[Anonymous]

Nanny became our house manager. She takes care of everything now - and it is so great!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Grocery shopping twice per week (once at the start and once before the weekend) ~ 4 hours / week to make lists, shop, put away groceries and throw out anything necessary from the fridge

Prepping and Packing snacks and lunches for the following day ~ 1.5 hours / week

Prepping dinner ingredients or starting dinner in slow cooker ~ 3 hours / week


Errands (dry cleaning, store returns, online shopping, scheduling child appointments, etc) ~ 2 hours / week

Child laundry, toy organization, project research and prep ~ 2 hours / week

Whether this will work obviously depends on your nanny, but it is what I look for with a nanny for school aged children.

Do you provide an annual raise if your nanny now gets more down time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Grocery shopping twice per week (once at the start and once before the weekend) ~ 4 hours / week to make lists, shop, put away groceries and throw out anything necessary from the fridge

Prepping and Packing snacks and lunches for the following day ~ 1.5 hours / week

Prepping dinner ingredients or starting dinner in slow cooker ~ 3 hours / week


Errands (dry cleaning, store returns, online shopping, scheduling child appointments, etc) ~ 2 hours / week

Child laundry, toy organization, project research and prep ~ 2 hours / week

Whether this will work obviously depends on your nanny, but it is what I look for with a nanny for school aged children.

Do you provide an annual raise if your nanny now gets more down time?

If I wasn't requiring her to do anything, probably not. We'd probably move to smaller COL increases. If she was taking over other roles in the household, I can't imagine maintaining a $1/yr increase forever, but she'd be compensated in some way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why should she have to do anything else? You need her for the times pre School is closed, sick and vacation
You pay her for being available exclusively for you not for extra work.

If you don't need her during hours child is in school then she is free to take another job. You can see the problem this presents as then she will not be available when your child is not in school.

16 hours a week is too much down time to be paid fulltime for, so yes, she should take on more duties for the normal weeks when the kids are in school. Sick days and snow days and breaks are a different story and the employer should be cognizant of that and have different expectations on those days. If you do not have a maid/housekeeper or cleaning service, this may, by mutual agreement include household tasks. A nanny who started with no household tasks may balk at a change in that direction. If that's the case, there may no longer be a match between the family's needs and the the nanny. Then you would need to transition to a new nanny, if not now, certainly when all 3 kids are in school full-time. Some families choose after school care at this point, but if you can afford in home care, it's still better for the children.

Stability of caregiver is also better for the children.