Anonymous wrote:Nanny here. My employers have always told me that I am welcome to anything in the house and in return I am careful not to make their lives harder re: food. I actually do all the shopping (I cook everything from scratch for the twin 1yos who eat like dump trucks, so it just makes sense for me to pick up their stuff along with what I need for the kids). I make sure there are always cheese sticks in the house because that is what I'll eat if I forgot lunch or am hungry between meals. I also will sometimes eat what I made for the kids (like today I had a bunch of the roast veggies I made they they weren't interested in), but I also try to compensate for that (this weekend I am making a curry and will bring it with me to feed the kids next week).

In essence, you should feel free to offer this to your nanny because is she is a gracious, considerate person she won't take advantage and if she's not then that is the least of your problems.

I think this is a great attitude. I don't provide lunch for our nanny, but if she were cooking, she would of course be welcome to the food she prepared.

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the yes people - it is pretty classless not to offer your nanny lunch. To you no people - if your nanny forgets her lunch should she go hungry?

I don't think anyone is suggesting that, or barring the nanny from touching any food.

Nanny here. My employers have always told me that I am welcome to anything in the house and in return I am careful not to make their lives harder re: food. I actually do all the shopping (I cook everything from scratch for the twin 1yos who eat like dump trucks, so it just makes sense for me to pick up their stuff along with what I need for the kids). I make sure there are always cheese sticks in the house because that is what I'll eat if I forgot lunch or am hungry between meals. I also will sometimes eat what I made for the kids (like today I had a bunch of the roast veggies I made they they weren't interested in), but I also try to compensate for that (this weekend I am making a curry and will bring it with me to feed the kids next week).

In essence, you should feel free to offer this to your nanny because is she is a gracious, considerate person she won't take advantage and if she's not then that is the least of your problems.

I agree with the yes people - it is pretty classless not to offer your nanny lunch. To you no people - if your nanny forgets her lunch should she go hungry?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, OP, you should always provide lunch for your child's nanny. The posters who claim otherwise are nuts. Your child's nanny cannot leave to go out to lunch and is never expected to bring her lunch. Ask her what she likes to eat and have it in the house for her. That is what we do but we also make it clear that she can help herself to whatever is in the kitchen or pantry. Period. End of discussion.

Oh please. Get over yourself.

My thoughts exactly.

Except she is right. An employer should always provide lunch for a nanny or any domestic employee.

According to whom?

I don't provide lunch. Our nanny is welcome to help herself to drinks and snacks, but we don't usually have a lot of extra meal-type food around. If that's a deal breaker for candidates, then they need to negotiate it upfront.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, OP, you should always provide lunch for your child's nanny. The posters who claim otherwise are nuts. Your child's nanny cannot leave to go out to lunch and is never expected to bring her lunch. Ask her what she likes to eat and have it in the house for her. That is what we do but we also make it clear that she can help herself to whatever is in the kitchen or pantry. Period. End of discussion.

Oh please. Get over yourself.

My thoughts exactly.

Except she is right. An employer should always provide lunch for a nanny or any domestic employee.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, OP, you should always provide lunch for your child's nanny. The posters who claim otherwise are nuts. Your child's nanny cannot leave to go out to lunch and is never expected to bring her lunch. Ask her what she likes to eat and have it in the house for her. That is what we do but we also make it clear that she can help herself to whatever is in the kitchen or pantry. Period. End of discussion.

Oh please. Get over yourself.

My thoughts exactly.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, OP, you should always provide lunch for your child's nanny. The posters who claim otherwise are nuts. Your child's nanny cannot leave to go out to lunch and is never expected to bring her lunch. Ask her what she likes to eat and have it in the house for her. That is what we do but we also make it clear that she can help herself to whatever is in the kitchen or pantry. Period. End of discussion.

Oh please. Get over yourself.

Yes, OP, you should always provide lunch for your child's nanny. The posters who claim otherwise are nuts. Your child's nanny cannot leave to go out to lunch and is never expected to bring her lunch. Ask her what she likes to eat and have it in the house for her. That is what we do but we also make it clear that she can help herself to whatever is in the kitchen or pantry. Period. End of discussion.

Our nannies have always brought most of their food. We provide pantry and fridge space so they can keep things they like at our house.

We also absolutely encourage them to help themselves to things, and now that our kids are older I'm fine w/ the nanny making a meal for all of them (including her.)

But the primary responsibility for that is the nanny's. I'm hiring someone to solve meal problems for me (among other things) not to take on one more person to plan meals for!

I find it hard to keep enough food in the house, so I have always asked what they would like me to add to the list that will be specifically for them. Some take me up on it, and some don't, but I always try to have at least some frozen meals or canned soups and sandwich stuff around so that there's something to eat if she forgets her lunch.

Talk about it ahead of time. We told our nanny that she's welcome to help herself, but she typically brings lunch and only snacks on crackers, has a banana, etc. Just be clear and open about it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My God. How cheap can you be! She is taking care of your children and you cannot give her lunch? Unbelievable.

This is ridiculous. We pay our nanny well, give her lots of PTO, multiple bonuses per year, and health insurance. We try to do little things to make her life easier like leaving extra spending money once in awhile, etc. Yet you think because we don't buy and prepare food for our nanny, we are cheap? That honestly has me laughing out loud.

I barely have time to get dinner on the table for my own family, let alone buying and preparing extra for someone else.

But, if it's important to you, you should definitely bring it up when negotiating pay etc. for your jobs.

Nooooobody said prepare or even buy extra food. People are saying allow her access to what is there that she is feeding the kids. DRAMA QUEEN.

I agree.
To specify to a Nanny that she is to bring in her own grub sounds cheap to me no matter how you word it.

I never said specifying that she has to bring her own grub. I actually stock the coffee she likes, and she knows she's welcome to snacks. But, if she is to put together an actual meal for herself, that would definitely require extra work for us. I take meat out of the freezer in the morning, that is to be used for our dinner. Leftovers are for toddler's lunch, and my lunch if there is enough. Nanny doesn't like sandwiches so I couldn't just keep lunch meat for her. We eat mostly just meat and fresh veggies, so I am not really understanding what people are stocking for their nanny to cook her lunch. Do I leave out an extra pound of meat just in case she feels like cooking it? Do people ask their nannies for a grocery list?

It seems like it would be a lot easier for the nanny to just bring/stock whatever she would like. I was previously a nanny and would never have expected to be cooking my own meals on the job, let alone for my employer to have stocked the ingredients for me to do so. I brought a package of lunch meat, cheese, and bread to store there, and that worked great... or brought a salad from home.

Regardless, I don't plan on changing our set-up. We have a great relationship with our nanny, who indicates that she's very happy and wants to stay with us as long as possible, so we have found a balance that everyone is happy with. Clearly, the fact that I don't provide lunch for my nanny would be a deal breaker for many of you, which is fine. Different strokes and all.

OP here - thank you for all of these responses! We are going to make sure to tell her to help herself to anything in the fridge/pantry, as we have an infant.

Our nanny is welcome to anything in our house and i buy extras of things she likes like lemons and apples. She brings her own meal and even keeps a little jar of her own rice etc. I've reiterated that we have plenty and she can eat from our pantry but she doesn't. She has a box in the fridge that she keeps her food in. When the baby is older I imagine her cooking for her and eating the same stuff (we discussed the cooking lunch for the baby already)