Interesting Conversation you probably Hire her with out thinking carefully abut your budget...

Anonymous wrote:OP here - it matters because I have limited vacation days too. So, if she uses zero vacation days around the holidays while I use my vacation to take time off, I may be screwed when she uses her actual paid time off.

You need to budget for the vacation time you gave her, obviously. If you have 6 weeks off per year, you can only schedule 4 of those, and need to save the other 2 for her. If your plan is to force her to use her time at certain times of the year, you will need to amend her contract to say that one of her weeks is at your scheduling. This is a big inconvenience and loss of a benefit, which she may or may not agree to, but she will certainly not be happy about it. Is this something you're prepared to lose her over?

Daycare doesn't have this problem?

Anonymous wrote:OP here - it matters because I have limited vacation days too. So, if she uses zero vacation days around the holidays while I use my vacation to take time off, I may be screwed when she uses her actual paid time off.

Then you're going to need to change to the "one your choice/one her choice" method. Giving her less advance notice of when you're going out of town would only work if she was originally thinking about being gone on those dates.

Also, you do not have to approve time off if you can't accommodate it. You may end up losing your nanny because she's gotten used to being able to turn her 1 week into two by piggy-backing on your vacations, but if it's not working for you, then you may have to do that.

Right now, there is nothing in your work agreement to prevent it, and she of course wants to get the maximum number of days off possible. Don't you?

OP here - it matters because I have limited vacation days too. So, if she uses zero vacation days around the holidays while I use my vacation to take time off, I may be screwed when she uses her actual paid time off.

Anonymous wrote:Our nanny has 10 days of paid time off per year, plus most but not all federal holidays. But she ends up getting much more because we are off all federal holidays, we are taking more time off around Christmas, etc., and she waits to find out when we are taking off before requesting her days. Is this just how it works? Has anyone successfully worked out coordinating time off so her vacation is not just additional to the vacation we decided to take?

Our nanny does the same thing and benefits from us taking about 8-9 weeks off a year. She then chooses her 1 week of choice so ends up with 10 paid weeks off. At least she tries to schedule that in conjunction with us and it is usually in the summer so neither of us have much work travel and can work something out for backup childcare.

Nannying really is a different job when it comes to taking vacation, doing errands during the day or doctor appointments mid-day. Childcare is needed on a daily and hourly basis so it can be considerably inconvenient and costly when sick days pop up, more vacation or needing a morning or afternoon off.

Simple solution: I always ensure that I have at least 10 PTO days to cover my nanny choice week and her sick leave. My PTO expires after 18 months of non use, and I wrote the same in nanny's contract. I plan the my choice vacations so that they don't take me down in PTO below what I owe the nanny. Yes, I have decided not to take a vacation on occasion to save up enough PTO. It was not a big deal.

Anonymous wrote:Our nanny has 10 days of paid time off per year, plus most but not all federal holidays. But she ends up getting much more because we are off all federal holidays, we are taking more time off around Christmas, etc., and she waits to find out when we are taking off before requesting her days. Is this just how it works? Has anyone successfully worked out coordinating time off so her vacation is not just additional to the vacation we decided to take?

How does it matter when you take off? If you take off and she is scheduled to work she works. Unless you mean she can't show up because you aren't there.

If that is the case adjust your contract so it burbs a day of her leave.

OP, can you remember a time when you only had 2 weeks of leave per year? It sucks. And no matter how many years of experience, nannies don't get much more than that, and most of us only get 5 days to schedule ourselves.

All of this to say, of course she's saving her days and waiting to maximize their usage. If you want to be a jerk about it, give her less notice about your days off, but I think it is only fair to give her as much notice as you'd expect yourself.

I'm not exactly sure why this is a problem for you though. You gave her 10 days to use at her discretion, and you should be planning your own vacation, keeping in mind those extra 10 days. If your plan was to force an overlap, that should have been made clear in your contract, ie. one week her choice, one yours.

I'm not sure why it's a problem for you if she attaches her vacation days to time when you're planning to be away.

I would want to do the same thing, in fact, I often schedule extra vacation days around holidays so I get the benefit of a longer stretch off without having to use as much of my leave balance. It seems like a pretty natural thing to do - no matter what your profession.

Why is this a problem?

I would actually see some benefit to this because it means she's planning her vacations in sync with yours - so you're probably getting quite a bit of notice about when you'll need backup coverage.

Unless there's something you're not saying, your thinking on it reads as fairly petty, without cause.

- MB

Of course she does this. Everyone wants more time off. You could just not tell her so far in advance, or you could switch to the "one week her choice," "one week your choice" method.

My nanny gets 12 days a year aside from holidays, but that includes sick and personal days, so she gets to schedule all of it. If she were to insist on a separate "fund" of sick days, we would go to the 1 week her choice/1 week our choice model. She would then have 15 days, but only 10 would be at her discretion. Since, like you, we travel for at least a couple of weeks every year, this would be a net loss to her.

Now, it's a good thing you have more time off, you can be with your kids. It doesn't really matter that the nanny is getting more time off. Let it go.

Our nanny has 10 days of paid time off per year, plus most but not all federal holidays. But she ends up getting much more because we are off all federal holidays, we are taking more time off around Christmas, etc., and she waits to find out when we are taking off before requesting her days. Is this just how it works? Has anyone successfully worked out coordinating time off so her vacation is not just additional to the vacation we decided to take?