What do you mean by disorganized? I think we need more information there.

Anonymous wrote:Who lets their kids attend birthday parties nowadays anyway? Your nanny must be horrified of catching covid if your kids go the in-house parties.

? My kids have been going to outdoor birthday parties, often two each weekend, all summer. Yours aren’t?

Plus totally not the point of PP’s response.

I would keep her, especially in the middle of a pandemic with unpredictable school closures, etc.

Who lets their kids attend birthday parties nowadays anyway? Your nanny must be horrified of catching covid if your kids go the in-house parties.

Keep her hands down. What if school moves to e learning or you need coverage on no school days, breaks, summer. Having someone paid on standby to cover those situations is priceless.

OP, it sounds like you are in a very tight bind.

Normally I would advise you to keep her and just expand her duties - however if she is disorganized this may not be a good idea.

Do you think that she would be adequately able to purchase groceries, make Target/Costco runs, do family laundry and/or efficiently run errands?
Perhaps go to the Post Office, pharmacy, get oil changes for your car??

I’d definitely keep the nanny my kids love and expand her duties when they’re at school.

Our nanny has taken on home-management type duties since our youngest started preschool and it’s been great. She grocery shops for the family, handles all ordering and supplies, buys and wraps gifts for the countless birthday parties older child is invited to, handles payment and scheduling of lessons/activities, let’s in and pays the cleaners, keeps the kids closets up to date with the too small clothes packed away and labeled neatly, and rotates their toys... Nanny has always done the kids laundry, towels and bedding and picked up their rooms and the playroom but now she has time to label and organize their toy bins. (I’m not kidding, our playroom looks like something out of a magazine and no toy piece is ever missing!)

Plus, nanny covers all sick days (with two kids who are never sick at the same time) and the million school holidays and teacher-work days.

And my kids love her dearly. That’s worth everything.

I can't stand people who are disorganized so I'd find someone else IF your youngest switches to oldest's school.

Do you have reliable backup care nearby or is it just you and your spouse? If the latter, keep the nanny. It is always better to have more than insufficient childcare.

Keep The Nanny.

Expand her duties when the kids are in school (by mutual agreement, of course) and keep her. It’s truly a foolish economy to let her go now both due to the ages of your kids and covid uncertainty. You’ll end up paying far more in money, stress, and time otherwise.

Definitely keep her. You’ll need her for the countless school holidays and sick days. You will never find any reasonably priced and reliable afterschool care. I’m being quoted 30 to 35 an hour for one child. Everyone wants that coverage!

I would have kept our nanny (she moved across country) and shifted her hour and duties. She was going to take on House management (not cleaning) and reserve five hours a weekend for a date night.

My eldest kid is in one school, my youngest another.
My youngest is first on the waiting list to join the same school as her sister. If this is the case, we will no longer need our nanny to do before school hours as we can put them both into the same breakfast club that the eldest currently attends.
This will significantly reduce our nannies hours and she has always said she will only do it at a set minimum hours. If both kids get into the same school we have only afternoon hours to give her.
Do we-

1. Pay the full amount she requires as a minimum even if we don't use her for that time and so significantly lose money.
2. Let her go but then we will have trouble getting the kids to and from after school activities and the kids love her although she has her faults in terms of disorganisation.

What would you do?