I've had the issue in the past when an AP wanted to not take a full week...just a couple of days here and there to make long weekends. Then I wasn't sure...does she get 5 days off making it a week or does she get 9? When they take a full week off I always give them the weekend before and weekend after. Luckily in both situations where the AP wanted to do it this way they didn't really push it and we ended up giving them like 7 days off throughout the year. Then they had a full 9 day week at some other point in the year.

Vacation is two weeks. For most APs that would be a traditional work week.

So if AP is normally scheduled M-F, they get those days and the weekends can be used to extend it (like I would at my typical salaried position). That would be one of their two weeks.

If AP is normally scheduled, say M-Th all day, half day F and half day Sat or Sun, they would get all of that time off in a given week to make it a full week off, again adjacent weekends being a bonus - caveat here would be they might still be on the hook for the first Sat or Sun, depending on if it was a normally scheduled working weekend. I would give them that extra half day though if they wanted it to extend their time for travel.

Something else to consider is that APs could ask to take the days one/two at a time. That can be inconvenient for HF and expectations should be discussed before matching (vacation can/cannot be take in smaller than one week increments, HF will/will not choose one of the vacation weeks, HF needs xx amount of notice prior to vacation, etc). If single days off are allowed then it's 10 days they get, not 14. But again on a split schedule say working only half day Fri and half on Sat, they'd use one day to take both of those half days off and get a full long weekend.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We make our schedule each week Monday-Sunday since we don’t work a traditional 9-5 schedule. We give two weekends off a month and our au pair works two Sundays a month. During the week, she only works 3-8. So, we do our vacation weeks Monday-Sunday (or some 7 day stretch if that works best for her). She goes back to work the day after she returns. I always assumed that a week vacation was 7 days for a total of 14 days off.

So are you making her work 7 days/week (which is not allowed by the program)? Or only 5.5 days (meaning she gets Friday afternoon through Sunday morning off?)

There are families that do the 1.5 days off during the week two weeks of the month. That's why I asked what her normal days off are during the weeks that she doesn't have part of the weekend off.

It's tricky when there's a variable schedule.

Anonymous wrote:We make our schedule each week Monday-Sunday since we don’t work a traditional 9-5 schedule. We give two weekends off a month and our au pair works two Sundays a month. During the week, she only works 3-8. So, we do our vacation weeks Monday-Sunday (or some 7 day stretch if that works best for her). She goes back to work the day after she returns. I always assumed that a week vacation was 7 days for a total of 14 days off.

So are you making her work 7 days/week (which is not allowed by the program)? Or only 5.5 days (meaning she gets Friday afternoon through Sunday morning off?)

They only get 2 weeks vacation per year. It’s considerate (and in the spirit of the program) to give her the weekend before and after off.

Anonymous wrote:We make our schedule each week Monday-Sunday since we don’t work a traditional 9-5 schedule. We give two weekends off a month and our au pair works two Sundays a month. During the week, she only works 3-8. So, we do our vacation weeks Monday-Sunday (or some 7 day stretch if that works best for her). She goes back to work the day after she returns. I always assumed that a week vacation was 7 days for a total of 14 days off.

When is her 1.5 days off per week?

We make our schedule each week Monday-Sunday since we don’t work a traditional 9-5 schedule. We give two weekends off a month and our au pair works two Sundays a month. During the week, she only works 3-8. So, we do our vacation weeks Monday-Sunday (or some 7 day stretch if that works best for her). She goes back to work the day after she returns. I always assumed that a week vacation was 7 days for a total of 14 days off.

Same as above. We always give our au pair weekends off, so a vacation week could be as long as 9 days if she wants (Saturday to the following Sunday).

If you typically have her work .5 of the weekend, I think you and she will just have to work it out. I suppose you aren't technically required to give her more than 7 days but if you can swing giving her Saturday to the following Sunday, she'd probably appreciate it.

This sounds super nit picky imo. Just give her the full week off with the weekends on either end too.

Anonymous wrote:Our au pair did this too with her vacation for 1 year, stock piled it, and then left two weeks earlier at the end of her year. It was very inconvenient but I didn't really realize it was happening until the end ( she was the first).

This is what we like ours to do. We have the next Aupair arrive two weeks early then.

Our au pair did this too with her vacation for 1 year, stock piled it, and then left two weeks earlier at the end of her year. It was very inconvenient but I didn't really realize it was happening until the end ( she was the first).

At work you get 14 vacation days, typically. APs get vacation weeks - so while we normally give APs weekends off every weekend, when we give vacation weeks we count the weekends as vacation days since they are not "on call" in the same way that if, somehow, an emergency arose where we needed care on the weekends the AP would be on call, in theory. Our AP stockpiled all of her leave from year 1 and we were careful to tell her that she may not be able to use all of her leave in year 2, because we could not accommodate, essentially, four weeks of vacation in one year. We encouraged her to take long weekends throughout year 1 pre-pandemic and in year 2. She will leave with something like four unused vacation days which we will pay her out for as a gift.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our first AP has picked a week for her first "vacation." She asked if she can have her two-day weekend next to it. Sure, no problem. My question for you is, since the APs usually would get a 1 1/2 day (minimum) weekend the following weekend, does this mean a normal "vacation" week is typically 9 1/2 days? Or 10? Or 7? Something else?

I'm not trying to press up against any rules, just want to know what common practice is. She's leaving it to me to decide, and we have a good relationship so far so I'd like to keep it that way!

Thank you!!

If the typical schedule is Sun night through Friday afternoon, and she gets Saturday morning through Sunday afternoon off, then she would get the same 1.5 days off on either end of her vacation week.

A week is 7 days, last I knew. They can choose to do Sunday-Saturday, Wednesday-Tuesday, whatever they want. She wants to have both weekends, which is reasonable and common.

Yes, it's 8.5 days off in a row. When you take a vacation week at work, isn't it roughly 9 days in a row?

What she said.

Anonymous wrote:Our first AP has picked a week for her first "vacation." She asked if she can have her two-day weekend next to it. Sure, no problem. My question for you is, since the APs usually would get a 1 1/2 day (minimum) weekend the following weekend, does this mean a normal "vacation" week is typically 9 1/2 days? Or 10? Or 7? Something else?

I'm not trying to press up against any rules, just want to know what common practice is. She's leaving it to me to decide, and we have a good relationship so far so I'd like to keep it that way!

Thank you!!

If the typical schedule is Sun night through Friday afternoon, and she gets Saturday morning through Sunday afternoon off, then she would get the same 1.5 days off on either end of her vacation week.

A week is 7 days, last I knew. They can choose to do Sunday-Saturday, Wednesday-Tuesday, whatever they want. She wants to have both weekends, which is reasonable and common.

Yes, it's 8.5 days off in a row. When you take a vacation week at work, isn't it roughly 9 days in a row?

Our first AP has picked a week for her first "vacation." She asked if she can have her two-day weekend next to it. Sure, no problem. My question for you is, since the APs usually would get a 1 1/2 day (minimum) weekend the following weekend, does this mean a normal "vacation" week is typically 9 1/2 days? Or 10? Or 7? Something else?

I'm not trying to press up against any rules, just want to know what common practice is. She's leaving it to me to decide, and we have a good relationship so far so I'd like to keep it that way!

Thank you!!