Anonymous wrote:Her two weeks of vacation is her two weeks of choice. If you are going away and don't need her, you should pay her as you are having her not work, not her choosing not to work.

This is the perfect set-up > I could not agree any more.

I think the two weeks of paid vacation per year should be ENTIRELY of the Nanny’s choosing since in other jobs, the employee gets to select the weeks they would like off.
Rarely if ever, do employers dictate the weeks an employee must use for their paid vacation.


If your Nanny wants to take any add’l vacation time - then I think as long as she doesn’t request an excessive amount of time, those days or weeks should be unpaid unless she is utilizing earned PTO.

However outside of her two weeks of paid vacation, if you decide to take a vacation on days that she typically works, say M-F….then even if you give her notice ahead of time, she still should be compensated since those days/weeks are of YOUR choosing ~ not hers.

Hope this all makes sense, good luck OP!

Think about it this way. She's your employee. You and your husband, presumably, have jobs? You get paid vacations. You get the same paycheck every pay period irrelevant of the vacation or sick days you take. It's how you can budget and afford things, and it's the employers cost of having you.

But, if your boss called you one day and said "You know what? I don't really need you this week, I'm having a slow day, I can handle your stuff, too. So of course we won't be paying you for this week." You would be livid! You have a budget, you have expenses, you are following all the rules of your employment so you need to get paid your usual amount! It's the same for your nanny.

Bottom line, you have a nanny, you expect to pay her the same amount every week. You provide her with paid vacations, when you handle things. If you don't have work for her (ie, you're out of town) that does not impact her pay.

Also - get a written contract! Avoid these moments in the future.

Guaranteed hours is the most basic benefit in the nanny world, applicable to both part time and full time nannies, and will be expected by pretty much any candidate worth hiring. This is the notion that you guarantee to pay your nanny for their set schedule every week regardless if you choose not to utilize their full services while the nanny is willing and able to work.

Google "nanny guaranteed hours" you will find a million results.

If you do not offer your nanny guaranteed hours, every other family gladly will.

It's similar to daycare- you are paying got hold your spot/the availability for your family.

I've been a nanny for 15 years and I've seen nannies miss rent, default on bills, lose their apartments because families just go away at their leisure and think it's OK to not pay their employee.

Can you imagine if your employer said "Sorry! Closing for 1/4 of July and your pay will be lowered accordingly- best of luck!". For people who are living pay check to pay check (aka nannies in a high cost of living area) this is absolutely devastating.

I'd bet you anything she's currently job searching.

It is INCREDIBLY difficult to retain part time nannies long term in high cost of living areas while offering industry standard benefits (with definitely includes guaranteed hours). It's impossible to retain anyone without.

Anonymous wrote:Her two weeks of vacation is her two weeks of choice. If you are going away and don't need her, you should pay her as you are having her not work, not her choosing not to work.

this. If you go away for additional weeks then you pay her. PT Nanny’s are hard to find, pay her..

Anonymous wrote:OP here,
Ok that's valid. But if I want to leave my house I always have to pay her?? That I do not get. She is only part time too

That makes it sound like she is holding you hostage!

I mean, go ahead and tell her you won't pay her. There's no contract, just a verbal agreement, right? You didn't specifically say anything about it in text or email? So it will be harder for her to prove in court what your agreement was...but obviously then she won't work for you anymore. And it's tough to find a reliable part time nanny.

Her two weeks of vacation is her two weeks of choice. If you are going away and don't need her, you should pay her as you are having her not work, not her choosing not to work.

OP here,
Ok that's valid. But if I want to leave my house I always have to pay her?? That I do not get. She is only part time too

Anonymous wrote:We have a nanny that comes to our house five days a week for half days. We do not have a contract on paper with her but we did make agreements when we hired her that she would have two weeks paid vacation and paid holidays. For us if we want to go on vacation, I told her I would tell her in advance and she would know and could plan her vacation the same time or not. She has used both her two weeks vacation and another week off unpaid. We went away for the Fourth of July for a week which she has known about for five months. She is still asking for pay. am I supposed to pay her and if so, how can a nanny get paid vacation but me as the employer not take any vacation without having to pay her? I'm not looking for criticism I want to know the proper way to handle this. Note: we also take long weekends that are decided last minute days before and she always gets paid if we miss a Friday/ Monday Etc.

I usually think nanny requests on here are pretty entitled, but this is the norm. She got 2 weeks vacation paid. Even if you had a written contract, it sounds like the concept was that you'd notify her and she'd make some sort of effort if she wanted to coordinate on her 2 weeks vacation paid dates. She opted not to.

You could have refused her the unpaid leave (i.e., fired her) but the fact that you gave her a week off unpaid is irrelevant here, because she requested it. Here, you have decided to go on vacation, so she gets paid. Because you are the employer.

We have a nanny that comes to our house five days a week for half days. We do not have a contract on paper with her but we did make agreements when we hired her that she would have two weeks paid vacation and paid holidays. For us if we want to go on vacation, I told her I would tell her in advance and she would know and could plan her vacation the same time or not. She has used both her two weeks vacation and another week off unpaid. We went away for the Fourth of July for a week which she has known about for five months. She is still asking for pay. am I supposed to pay her and if so, how can a nanny get paid vacation but me as the employer not take any vacation without having to pay her? I'm not looking for criticism I want to know the proper way to handle this. Note: we also take long weekends that are decided last minute days before and she always gets paid if we miss a Friday/ Monday Etc.