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[quote=Anonymous]We have a different schedule every week and make it clear from the start before matching. My job involves frequent evening events that are on different days each week, and she works crazy hours. We both travel a fair bit. We have 3 kids and started having au pairs when our youngest was an infant - though then we had an additional babysitter and two of three kids were in school.

Currently our youngest is in school until 2 and the others until 3. Ap picks up the kids and occasionally works mornings when one parent is traveling. I set her schedule weekly and tell her when she will be working later into the evening, but most days she works at least until 7/8. 2-3 times a week she will be on duty  until 9-10-11 if i have a later obligation and dh can’t get home.

Our au pairs work weekends maybe half of the time and we try to give more warning about those and give au pairs the opportunity to refuse if they already have other plans. We have a couple of other sitters we use occasionally (maybe as much as weekly).

Our au pairs usually do am classes while the kids are in school, but they’ve also done weekend intensives or a once/week evening class. Hire an additional sitter to consistently cover that class if needed.

We’ve had 3 successful years with au pairs and our current ap is perfectly happy with our schedule. She has most of her day to herself, she puts the kids to bed @8 many evenings but then is free to do what she wants, have friends over or just relax. We are very up-front about our lack of consistent schedule and have had no issues matching. I’m also a former babysitter/nanny and we treat our au pairs well and are kind and fair host parents, but flexibility is super important for our family.

I will say, that flexibility also has to go both ways - being open to ap making plans and finding a way to work around them, hiring other sitters to fill in, etc. [/quote]

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