Good luck to you, and even more, to your children.

OP- Do you offer any sort of benefit package to your nannies?

We're not in DC, we're just outside of Philadelphia. I realize this is a DC forum, but I'm unaware of any such forum in my area and I needed advice. Thanks.

Cheapskate parents. If it was only you, I wouldn't care much. You deserve what you get. But it's your children who are the ultimate victims here. Have they started raging yet? Keep shaking up their lives, and down the road, you will pay a mighty price.

Now, how much was that professional nanny charging?

Do the math. Pay up now, or pay a much, much bigger price later. You pick. No easy choices. If you can't afford a decent nanny, get off your high horse, and do it yourself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why doesn't OP know how much to make the check for? If I was OP, I'd overpay, otherwise you may get reported. Not good. Why don't you ask the nanny how much you owe her, if you don't know?

Um...what? In the interview we told her we have paid our nannies between $300-$450/week, DOE, and that based on her experience (about 7 years as a nanny, 2 as a preschool teacher, 10 as a sitter, but obviously in the early years it was low-paying/free jobs with family and friends, which doesn't exactly cut it, lol) we would pay her between $400-$425/ week. We would normally use her about 36 hours/week (4 days/week, 9 hours/day), but we did need her for 10 extra hours this week.

A mother works for free, caring for family. Does her experience also not count? Come on, seriously. She has experience with children, who cares if it was with family, for free, or low-paying. You're cheap, and thats why you cant keep a nanny.

You offered someone with nearly 10 years (since appearantly low paying experience is not experience WTF) of experience as a childcare provider little more than $11/hour for less than 40 hours per week??? And you wonder why your nannies ditch you?? If you are in the DC area you are truly underpaying for what most would consider an experienced nanny. When you offer someone a package, your first question to yourself should be, "What are the chances that she can do better than this?" If the answer to the question is "very likely," you should not expect to keep her long!

Anonymous wrote:Why doesn't OP know how much to make the check for? If I was OP, I'd overpay, otherwise you may get reported. Not good. Why don't you ask the nanny how much you owe her, if you don't know?

Um...what? In the interview we told her we have paid our nannies between $300-$450/week, DOE, and that based on her experience (about 7 years as a nanny, 2 as a preschool teacher, 10 as a sitter, but obviously in the early years it was low-paying/free jobs with family and friends, which doesn't exactly cut it, lol) we would pay her between $400-$425/ week. We would normally use her about 36 hours/week (4 days/week, 9 hours/day), but we did need her for 10 extra hours this week.

Why doesn't OP know how much to make the check for? If I was OP, I'd overpay, otherwise you may get reported. Not good. Why don't you ask the nanny how much you owe her, if you don't know?

Sorry she quit. If you ask, she might give a fake answer, so as much a you might want to know why - and that's totally understandable - you just might not. Best would be to mail the check. Wish you the best!

And how many hours do you owe her for?

What was her hourly pay?

This nanny who has just quit is not the same nanny that we disagreed with, that was just an unnecessary tangent about the previous one we had to let go.

If she really won't just come get it, we will mail it.

Do people generally agree with the pay calculator care.com provides? We go by that.

You need to mail her pay check promptly.

You can't force her to give you an answer. I'm also pretty sure that if she requested it be mailed, you have to abide. The reason may have nothing to do with you and could be very personal. It also sounds like she wasn't the best fit for you if your discipline styles were so different. If you keep losing nannies unexpectedly you should look at fit first, and if that's not a problem, I promise you that your compensation package is not competitive and they are too easily finding a better job.

Our new nanny quit with no notice. We did not really get a reason as to why. She would like for us to mail her paycheck, but DH and I would like for her to come pick it up. I don't want a confrontation, but I would like some answers.

I'll just answer these questions in advance:
- Of course we plan on paying her for every hour worked, at the agreed upon rate.
- I really just want to know why she quit. We liked her, she seemed to like us, we don't ask her to do housework, we're pretty laid back...I truly don't know what is happening. We've gone through 5 nannies since DD (2yo, only child) was born, and only one was fired. She was mature, much closer to our parents age than ours, and had a totally different style than us. One very small example off the top of my head: she literally refused to use good manners when talking to DD ("DD, pick up your toys!" in a stern tone the first time DD was asked, as opposed to "DD, please pick up your toys."), which is something we're really trying to enforce. She will not learn good manners if she doesn't hear them from her role models. DD is a good listener, 85% of the time the first time you ask, she does what she's told, and always by the second time. We really only yell in this house if there is a potentially dangerous situation, like the involuntary, "NO!!!" when you see child about to pull a lamp down on their head, so the tone that nanny would use often frightened DD to tears. Just not a good fit for us. We want to find a long-term nanny, but clearly we are doing something wrong here.