Anonymous wrote:I’m a nanny who has always face timed with my former charges. Not that the parents need help (remotely), I have read to and played pretend games with a six-year-old; do the Bunny hop and other guided songs with a 22 month old; and play dinosaurs and I Spy (I flip the screen and point it outside or a bookcase in my house) with five and three year old brothers. It will give you a few minutes if your nanny can hold his attention. Crazy facial expressions and being silly helps!

These are fun suggestions, OP.

And regardless, it’s good for your child to see his nanny’s face and feel reassured. No harm in trying.

I think this plan is fraught with problems and you will be interrupted way more than if you plunked the child in front of a screen to watch a movie or kiddie show for a few hours. And most 3.5 year olds would have trouble with that too. Why is the nanny not coming? Are you concerned she has an open circle and you will be exposing your family to it? If you trust her to do so, I would have her come but require her to limit her outside contacts to her spouse or family in the home. Find out if anyone else is leaving the home and why. Working outside the home daily? Grocery shopping every week?

Use a camera linked to your tv, so your nanny’s picture is as big (or bigger) than normal.

I’m a nanny who has always face timed with my former charges. Not that the parents need help (remotely), I have read to and played pretend games with a six-year-old; do the Bunny hop and other guided songs with a 22 month old; and play dinosaurs and I Spy (I flip the screen and point it outside or a bookcase in my house) with five and three year old brothers. It will give you a few minutes if your nanny can hold his attention. Crazy facial expressions and being silly helps!

Would reading to him and showing him the pictures work? Kind of like story time? But nanny would need to have children's books at home..

Why? Just get him an iPad or kids kindle with games.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think OP is expecting the nanny to responsible for the child’s safety, just to keep him a little busy.

OP, I think the stuff that would work at that age would be read books (esp if nanny could read the words to a book DC already has so that he can follow along the pictures) and singing songs together.

OP here. Yes, thank you. One of us would probably still be within eyeshot or earshot. Just like most parents with kids at home these days, at this point I'm looking for all the help I can get! And it may totally bomb, but she offered to try and entertain him for 20-30 minutes so I at least want to try.

I don’t think OP is expecting the nanny to responsible for the child’s safety, just to keep him a little busy.

OP, I think the stuff that would work at that age would be read books (esp if nanny could read the words to a book DC already has so that he can follow along the pictures) and singing songs together.

Anonymous wrote:I don't think she could "watch" or be responsible for him through video but if she's willing she could certainly trying FTimg or sending a video of her reading a favorite book or something like that. I would do it in a heartbeat.

PS nannies and babysitters can't telework. We really wish we could but we can't. No judgement OP.

I don't think she could "watch" or be responsible for him through video but if she's willing she could certainly trying FTimg or sending a video of her reading a favorite book or something like that. I would do it in a heartbeat.

Realistically, I can't imagine that this would work for more than a few minutes, even with a four year old.

We've asked our nanny not to come in for the past two weeks and my husband and I have been trying to make it work working from home full-time without childcare for our 3.5 year old. We've been struggling though. Since there looks to be no near end in sight, our nanny offered to try and "watch" him over Facetime - even if it's just for short periods of a time. If we can get this to work maybe twice a day for short chunks of time, that would already be a huge help so I'm trying to brainstorm ways to keep him engaged with her via Facetime.

She's going to brainstorm, but I want to come up with ideas too. I was thinking I Spy and maybe some sort of Follow the Leader or Simon Says-type game.

Any other ideas?