We also ask our AP to get at least 6 hours of sleep before having a FULL day with my three monsters. Most days she just helps me get them ready for school and then she goes back to sleep if she wants. I have no issue with that. It is just the rare occasion where she will be working 8 hours or so straight.

My AP agrees with this and is very respectful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's why you do your due dilegence when reference checking character, which is near impossible to do overseas.
You just can't expect high quality for cheap.

Yup.

This. That's why we won't get an au pair.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can't you take care of your own kids on a Sunday morning?

Yay! I was hoping you'd crawl out from under your bridge today!

+1

Does she normally work 6 days a week? My performance would start to slip after a year of that!

11:39 here.

It sounds like this problem has been solved if you've clarified with her that your curfew applies on all nights before she's on duty. I hope her attitude and work performance improves so you can all end on a positive note, OP!

FYI OP troll does not mean someone who disagrees with you.

Her performance has been slipping as her year closes. This is not the only time she has done this and another time when I needed her on a Sunday, she did the same and got less than 2 hrs of sleep the night before.

If you were working, the employer would not tell you when to go to bed, but if you weren't sleeping enough and fell asleep on the job, it could impact your job, or cause you to get fired.

On her working weekends, normally I give her the Sundays off, but since the particular thing I needed to take my kid to was on a Sunday this week, I negotiated with her to swap her Sat for Sun...and SHE AGREED.

My beef is not taking her job seriously and taking advantage of it.

Wow...full of trolls today. Thanks for your helpful and wonderful advice!!!

She already gets two full weekends off each month, and usually has to only work a 1/2 day on the other two.

I needed her help to care for one of my children while I took the other one somewhere. I do not have a spouse to help me.

I have that rule that she should be home 8 hrs before, and normally during the week she is. She claimed she didn't think it applied on weekends.

Your APs are not your children or your slave. They are your employee. Telling them they must be home at 10 before working the next day is crossing the line. You can't control everything. If you required me to be home at 10 for work the next day you'd need to pay me for those hours you are requiring me to be "at work". Sounds crazy right??

+1 here too.

I don't generally have a curfew for my au pairs... but I do ask them to be home by 10 the night before they are working. I've never had a problem. I've had great au pairs. Occasionally, if there is a special event they want to go to, as long as they talk to me I say its fine to stay out (once in a while) to 11, or 12, or even 1 the night before they work.

I disagree that its not appropriate to have curfews... especially when they are work related. True, a regular employer (with whom you do not reside) wouldn't necessarily know what time you got home, and wouldn't really care as long as you did your job. But neither would you want to broadcast to your employer that you got home at 4 in the morning before coming to work. The difference with au pairs is that they live with us... so we know. And some of them (like OP's) clearly lack a certain level of maturity and don't deserve to be treated like adults.

As to the poster who takes a slap at all au pairs -- think what you want. I've had 3 AWESOME girls who were responsible and caring. 2 of them liked to party some too... but they did it in responsible ways.

We require our APs to be home 8 hours before the beginning of her shift. It's in the handbook and discussed during interviews.

+1 This is a very standard rule for most host families and a good one not to forget. The only au pairs who have an issue with this are the ones who would stay out 2 hours prior to their shift.

Anonymous wrote:Hit send by mistake

...taking care of your snowflakes. Also, your AP should not be asked to work on Sundays. Don't you find it humiliating to btoadcast to your AP and her friends (she will tell them) how lazy you are?

You have absolutely NO idea why OP needed her AP to work on a Sunday morning. Perhaps she and her DH had to attend a funeral, or visit a sick relative, or help run their church's community breakfast. Your entire point is negated by your impulsive need to insult the OP without any background information.

And OP, I agree with those who said you haven't commented on the quality of her work at all. It's annoying to see how poorly an employee prepares for their day (e.g. not sleeping enough) but unless you have specific complaints about her performance, there is nothing you can really say to her.

Hit send by mistake

...taking care of your snowflakes. Also, your AP should not be asked to work on Sundays. Don't you find it humiliating to btoadcast to your AP and her friends (she will tell them) how lazy you are?

Good lord, when I was in collge, I could party or studyfor 48 hours straight with no sleep and so could all my friends. You do not get to dictate to any adult how many hours of sleep you deem nevesdary before akn

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We require our APs to be home 8 hours before the beginning of her shift. It's in the handbook and discussed during interviews.

How can you think its okay to dictate the sleeping habits of an employee? Like really. How is that okay?

NP here. an employer should not dictate, but an enployee should behave in a responsible manner. getting home from a party two hours before your shift starts is simply irresponsible, because there is no way you can be as reponsive and ready to care for kids as if you had a decent night of sleep.

if you owned a truck company, would you be OK with one of your driver show up in the morning to drive the truck after a night out partying and with almost no sleep?

No I wouldn't am I'm not saying that its okay. But the behavior you address is the on the job behavior. There were plenty of nights as a college student that I spent up all night studying, screwing around with friends, or whatever but I could pull it together enough to take my exam and go to work. If an employee is out all night, but functions fine at work the next day then there is no issue. If they don't function well, then you call them on whatever they are/aren't doing well and its up to them to decide what the solution is or lose their job. I maintain that it is not an employer's place to dictate how an employee spends their off time so long as they aren't breaking the law, and they continue to perform their job to standards. OP said that her AP stays out late, nowhere did she say that AP doesn't do her job well because of it, simply that it is her fear.