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[quote=Anonymous]Hello fellow nannies and parents!

I desperately need some advice on how to handle a very complicated situation that has happened recently involving the second nanny/baby nurse that I work with at my nanny families home. First, let me give you a little bit of background information in hopes that that will answer any questions you have about how the set up is.

I have been with this family for the past 3 years. When I was hired on, this second nanny/baby nurse, who I will call "Jane" had already been employed by my nanny family for 5 years. She started when the eldest children were born, and was now the baby nurse of their third child. For the first 2.5 years, Jane and I worked wonderfully together, and made an awesome team! We even got together outside of work for lunch and to take walks together. (we were both trying to lose weight) We both brought up a few issues with one another that we had with our nanny family, and we felt comfortable discussing things, although NEVER in a gossiping manner.

In March of last year, my nanny family decided that after 7 years of employment with them, it was time for Jane to move on. They had always had some concerns with her being able to properly discipline the children, because it was not in her culture to do so. So, with well wishes they sent her on her way. That is when I was told that my nanny family was expecting another baby, and that they would love for me to be the nanny/baby nurse to him starting in October. I gladly accepted, and was super excited for them!

When the new baby came, it became apparent that they really needed more hours per week than was physically possible for me to fulfill. I'm talking an obscene amount of hours-like 100+ per week. So, my boss made the decision to bring Jane back on part time in order to allow me to have some time off. She was set to work every other weekend, and twice a week for the night shift. 9PM-9AM. I was super excited for her to come back, because I had truly missed her while she was gone.

Fast forward to a few months after the new baby was born. Jane started to become extremely overbearing about the new baby, and even went as far as to tell me that I was doing certain things wrong a few times. Yes, she has been a nanny longer than I have. She is about 25 years into her career, and I am about 13 years into mine. She does have one older child, and I have two children under the age of 10. (one of whom is still a baby) I was definitely open to learning new techniques, but the way that she was coming off towards me was very rude and condescending. I am very respected in my nanny/baby nurse community, as is she.  This obviously started a downward spiral of our friendship. Things were never hostile, just extremely awkward and uncomfortable over the period of a few months.

It was during this time, that I began to have a few issues with my nanny family as well. For example, I got a very extreme write up for getting the baby up at 6:45am instead of 7am and feeding him his first bottle of the day on ONE occasion, because he was screaming his poor little head off. (he was obviously starving, which wasn't surprising to me because he did not finish his bottle the night before) This extreme write up also included that I had recently had a conversation with another staff member (Jane) that made her feel very uncomfortable. The phone conversation that had taken place between Jane and myself was in regards to me possibly getting fired. I confided in her that I felt that things had been quite awkward in the home lately, and that I felt that my boss was very upset with me about the 15 minute earlier waking time of the baby, amongst a few other things. During this conversation, I asked her if my boss had come to her about anything, and if they had by chance offered her my job, or if they had told her they were going to let me go. She assured me that I was simply over thinking things, and that everything was fine.

During the explanation of my write up, my boss informed me that immediately after getting off the phone with Jane the previous day, she had called them and told them that I knew something was up. I was completely flabbergasted that Jane had done this, and we had always told each other things in confidence. I immediately felt betrayed. Although I felt this way, I decided to just let it go and move on. I began doing my job EXACTLY how my boss wanted it to be done, with NO lee-way what so ever. I even began keeping a nanny log detailing the day, and everything that the baby and I did during the day.

A week or so after my meeting with my boss, Jane called me and asked me to meet her for breakfast. I believed that she wanted to take the opportunity to apologize to me, but that is not what happened at all. Jane proceeded to tell me that my boss had indeed offered her my position with the baby, and that she would be coming back full time in October of this year. I could not believe what I was hearing. She then began telling me that she didn't think that they would fire me, but that they would move me to be with the other children. I now know that this is not true, because they are in the process of hiring a new nanny for the older children, because the one they had just quit after only being employed by them for 5 weeks.

Needless to say, I feel very insecure about the stability of my position, but I am not sure what to do-as Jane asked me not to tell them what she had told me. It has been about a month since this meeting, and my nanny family still has not told me anything about Jane coming on in October. Since they offered Jane my position, she has started to become very overbearing once again. She will text me when I am not working, just to tell me what things I did wrong when I was last working. For example: After returning home from a 4 day trip where I worked 24 hours each day, I quickly unpacked all of the children's suitcases so that I could get home to see my own family. Everything was neatly put away in its place, but the one thing I forgot to do was bring the bottle soap we use to wash the bottles back upstairs. Jane felt it necessary to text me about this the following day (even thought she knew I had not seen my own children in 4 days, and that I was of course busy with them) and tell me that I need to put things back where I get them from. Once again, it was said in a very rude and condescending tone-which is why is bothered me so much.

Anyway, I need to figure out what to do about this-Do I tell my boss about what Jane has told me, or do I just wait for them to drop the bomb on me? Like I said, I have two very young children, and this is mine and their livelihood we are talking about here. I don't want to come off as trying to start drama in anyway, so if I am going to say something, I need to choose my words very very carefully.

Please help me decide what to do. I'm lost. [/quote]

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