Weekend help

[Anonymous]

This isn't specifically a nanny/caregiver question, but the people on this forum seem knowledgeable about my issue. I'm looking to hire someone for the weekends, a nanny/cook/housekeeper. My primary goal is to have back-up care for our three year old, but most of the time (say, two out of three weekends), this person will be doing little to no childcare. Her schedule would be 5 hours on Sunday and at least 5 hours on Saturday, longer if she wants and if there is enough to fill her time. With that schedule and assuming no childcare, what kind of tasks can she do and for how much budgeted time? This is what I've come up with so far.

10 hours (or more) per weekend:
Cooking - 2-3 hours
Laundry (wash, dry, fold 2-3 loads) - ??

I could ask her to deep clean and get rid of our weekly cleaning service, but I feel weird having someone who sometimes would be responsible for our child also cleaning our toilets. Part of it is that I'm a former MB and I would never ask our nanny to do any cleaning that wasn't child-related.

[Anonymous]

Look for a housekeeper who is willing to babysit. You do not want or need a nanny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look for a housekeeper who is willing to babysit. You do not want or need a nanny.

Agreed. Advertise for the total housekeeping you want/need, and when you interview, be clear that the child comes first when there, but there will be more days without the child. As long as she can do the deep cleaning on days without the child, it should be fine.

As for tasks, if you advertise for a housekeeper who cooks, all cleaning can be done, and she could batch cook for the week and put half in the freezer. She could even do the grocery shopping on the way to work if you give her a card and let her know what you need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look for a housekeeper who is willing to babysit. You do not want or need a nanny.

Yes, I know; I have seen this stated many times on this forum. I was asking advice for tasks our 'housekeeper who babysits' could do and how much time to budget, preferably aside from deep clean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look for a housekeeper who is willing to babysit. You do not want or need a nanny.

Agreed. Advertise for the total housekeeping you want/need, and when you interview, be clear that the child comes first when there, but there will be more days without the child. As long as she can do the deep cleaning on days without the child, it should be fine.

As for tasks, if you advertise for a housekeeper who cooks, all cleaning can be done, and she could batch cook for the week and put half in the freezer. She could even do the grocery shopping on the way to work if you give her a card and let her know what you need.

Thank you, this is helpful. What other than deep clean per se can I ask for? I'm going to be looking for someone from the same ethnic/cultural background as me and DH (so she can cook dishes from our home country and speak the language) and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to attract the right candidate if the job involves so much deep cleaning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look for a housekeeper who is willing to babysit. You do not want or need a nanny.

Agreed. Advertise for the total housekeeping you want/need, and when you interview, be clear that the child comes first when there, but there will be more days without the child. As long as she can do the deep cleaning on days without the child, it should be fine.

As for tasks, if you advertise for a housekeeper who cooks, all cleaning can be done, and she could batch cook for the week and put half in the freezer. She could even do the grocery shopping on the way to work if you give her a card and let her know what you need.

Thank you, this is helpful. What other than deep clean per se can I ask for? I'm going to be looking for someone from the same ethnic/cultural background as me and DH (so she can cook dishes from our home country and speak the language) and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to attract the right candidate if the job involves so much deep cleaning.

In that case, advertise for someone who loves to cook, has the same culture, is willing to occasionally babysit, and do light housekeeping when no child is present.

Definitely have her do grocery shopping, but add in errands like dropping off packages or picking up a birthday present for your child’s friend. Get her a card, that way you aren’t worrying about reimbursing her. She can shop, do errands and light cleaning on Saturdays, batch cook for a week while doing laundry on Sundays. Make sure you hire someone who can multi-task, that way she can have at least two dishes going while the washer and dryer run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look for a housekeeper who is willing to babysit. You do not want or need a nanny.

Agreed. Advertise for the total housekeeping you want/need, and when you interview, be clear that the child comes first when there, but there will be more days without the child. As long as she can do the deep cleaning on days without the child, it should be fine.

As for tasks, if you advertise for a housekeeper who cooks, all cleaning can be done, and she could batch cook for the week and put half in the freezer. She could even do the grocery shopping on the way to work if you give her a card and let her know what you need.

Thank you, this is helpful. What other than deep clean per se can I ask for? I'm going to be looking for someone from the same ethnic/cultural background as me and DH (so she can cook dishes from our home country and speak the language) and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to attract the right candidate if the job involves so much deep cleaning.

In that case, advertise for someone who loves to cook, has the same culture, is willing to occasionally babysit, and do light housekeeping when no child is present.

Definitely have her do grocery shopping, but add in errands like dropping off packages or picking up a birthday present for your child’s friend. Get her a card, that way you aren’t worrying about reimbursing her. She can shop, do errands and light cleaning on Saturdays, batch cook for a week while doing laundry on Sundays. Make sure you hire someone who can multi-task, that way she can have at least two dishes going while the washer and dryer run.

Oh, and she could change beds and vacuum. Neither are difficult or particularly time-intensive.

[Anonymous]

You are unbelievably lazy.

[Anonymous]

If you want someone to watch and care for your children for a few hours that is a babysitter. If it's longer hours than that is a Nanny. Babysitters and Nannys are not HOUSE KEEPERS OR COOKS.

If you want a housekeeper than get one
If you want a cook then get one.

Nanny's are there solely to care for your children's safety and health and happiness. that should be enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you want someone to watch and care for your children for a few hours that is a babysitter. If it's longer hours than that is a Nanny. Babysitters and Nannys are not HOUSE KEEPERS OR COOKS.

If you want a housekeeper than get one
If you want a cook then get one.

Nanny's are there solely to care for your children's safety and health and happiness. that should be enough.

She doesn’t want a nanny. Many people are willing and competent at both childcare, cooking and housekeeping. The plural of nanny is nannies.

[Anonymous]

it sounds like you just need to ask your housekeeper to come on the weekend, or ask a friend to recommend theirs who is looking to make extra cash. you can hire a personal chef for $50ish per hour, in my experience, and you'd probably want them to come in for two hours including meal prep and cleanup (the kitchen, not your dishes).

[Anonymous]

You want a housekeeper, OP. This is a nanny forum.

[Anonymous]

As someone with a similar person who works M-F 5 hours a day, I can tell you that you'll figure it out. Before you know it, you'll have more for her to do than she has time to do it in.

[Anonymous]

Wtf did I just read? Op wants to hire someone on the weekends to do multiple loads of laundry, cook for hours and be available to watch the kids during this? Why is this in the nanny forum? It speaks volumes of what most parents view a nanny to be. Hire a laundress and chef or do it yourself. When you need someone to actually watch and engage the kids call a sitter.

[Anonymous]

Calm down, guys... OP already said she knows this isn't a usual nanny question. But there aren't a ton of forums for posting for the kind of all-around help she needs. I would say post for a housekeeper role and add on the other responsibilities. Many people will bristle if they're hired for childcare or errands and End up with more cleaning than they expected, but I would think most people would not if hired to do mostly cleaning and end up with more childcare or errands than expected.