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[quote=Anonymous][quote]My definition would be: providing a level of supervision or input that makes my expertise extraneous.

Most nannies take pride in obtaining as much knowledge as possible about their field, both by gaining experience and by researching. I babysit nights and weekends so that I can keep my hand in with age groups younger and older than my current charges. I am also constantly reading books about child development to track my current charges, or explore things that their parents believe to be a priority (e.g., my current employers buy any toy that claims to boost IQ, so I am readig books about brain function and intellectual development by age, a previous family was concerned about physical development, so I focused on fine motor activities in my reading).

In addition to generally trusting your nanny to know what she's doing, and trusting her to know your child, you should also be able to trust that she and your child will develop their own working relationship. For example, one of the infants I care for has reflux, so her mom likes to feed her in her chair (vertical). I prefer to feed her in my lap, so I can control the degree of incline midfeed (slowly leaning her farther back to allow for the bottle getting empty). This MB knows that I do things differently, but trusts that I am taking her advice ("baby does best eating vertically") and the child's needs and personality into account. If this MB insisted that I feed the baby in the chair because her way is the only correct way, that would be micromanaging. If you are going to insist there is only one correct way to do things, then you should 't bother paying for an experienced nanny. Get a 19-year-old with no experience, pay them minimum wage and tell them how to do every single thing. But if you have a nanny with experience and research to back up her choices, then let her do her thing, and if there is a problem (for example, if the infant i was feeding my own way was consistently eating less with me than with mom) address that up front ("baby isn't eating as much for you as she does for me on the weekends. Could you try feeding her this way for a week and see if her intake increases?"). But if the nanny is getting the results (happy, healthy, thriving kids) then her approach is just as valid.
[/quote]

Thank you for this really excellent post, PP. I especially appreciate your specific example.

I'm an MB and I will be honest enough to say that from most of these threads, I have the impression that nannies see any direction at all as micromanaging. Combined with the many threads on how nannies ignore any direction and do what they want, or try to get away with doing nothing, I sometimes find it hard to trust nannies.

That said, your post gives new food for thought about what is micromanaging. [/quote]

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