Sounds like you shpuld have thought a bit longer before having kids. Pretty pathetic that you need childcare nearly every waking hour. Poor kids.

Get them a long term nanny. They need a steady caretaker in their lives. They nees that reliable rock. They need a stand in.

OP, don't listen to these trolls. You are obviously part of the real world where working families need 8-6 childcare with full time work and commuting. You are doing a good job, mom!

I think you probably are getting the consensus here that the AP program doesn't work yet for you. Reconsider an AP when your infant is in preschool and your preschooler is in kindergarten/first grade.

Sounds like you shpuld have thought a bit longer before having kids. Pretty pathetic that you need childcare nearly every waking hour. Poor kids.

Get them a long term nanny. They need a steady caretaker in their lives. They nees that reliable rock. They need a stand in.

Whoa! To me, this does not sound like a family that wants to dump their kids, 24/7. 8-6 is more or less a regular job plus commuting time. Not sure about the evening times, but please don't knock them for having children (who will be helping to keep SS afloat someday).

Sounds like you shpuld have thought a bit longer before having kids. Pretty pathetic that you need childcare nearly every waking hour. Poor kids.

Get them a long term nanny. They need a steady caretaker in their lives. They nees that reliable rock. They need a stand in.

Is this untenable in an au pair set up to seek evening help if it is over the 45 hrs?

Yes.

or is it feasible to expect more than 45 hrs if i'm willing to pay OT?

No.

our needs are more like 8am-7pm

No.

or more daily

No. No. No.

or will i be shut down immediately by the agency if i suggest i would like more than 45 hrs?

Hopefully.

What if i did some part time daycare for the infant, in order to free up some of the AP hours. Then we could use her more in the evenings or mornings?

That might work. If you were going that route I would suggest putting the infant in daycare in the mornings. A parent drops them off at daycare on their way to work, AP picks them up later in the day (say noon-ish).
AP could then work 12 - 8/9 and have mornings off.
(It won't be easy to find a candidate that is happy working until late at night, that's usually when they want to meet their friends, go to the movies, go out for dinner, most of their friends even on a split schedule will work a few hours in the morning and then be off in the afternoon or early evening, your AP's social life will suffer and with that you are in for lots of resentment)

Or am i still overestimating the AP program?

Yes. Even with adding daycare.

I think the evening help would be more flexible and informal, the AP would be invited to have dinner with us anyway, etc.

You can "invite" your AP to have dinner with you as much as you want... remember that invitations can be declined. With an infant and a PK3 child your AP is much more likely to be out the door the minute she is off.
If you expect her to have dinner with you to help with the kids (or to watch the kids while you fix dinner) she is working, not "invited to have dinner." As soon as you start with helping with bath time or putting the kids to bed, you are "inviting" her to work off the clock. As soon as you expect her to be around and help, no matter how informal, she is working. An AP would have every right to be resentful and ask for rematch because their HF is breaking the most basic of the program rules in that case.

As everybody else has said - move on.
I am sure you could find ways to make it work but the way it is an AP couldn't even cover your base hours if you anticipate "needing care for the infant from 8am to 6pm" on a Mon - Fri schedule (50 hrs/week) and as you'd already be at the daily limit (10 hrs/day) with your regular schedule, you couldn't ask for even an extra minute on a regular day. The program simply doesn't sound like a good fit for your needs. Though I have to admit that I can't think of anything that would. Even a regular nanny doesn't sound feasible if you need "8am-7pm or more daily" (and I dearly hope that "daily" means Monday to Friday and not 'every day'), a nanny appreciates a schedule that is not "7 pm or more" and you won't find too many that will work 8 am - 8 pm every day. You can't expect one person to work 60 hour weeks.
To make the program work for you, you'd have to make changes to your lives that might be too complicated to make sense (stagger working hours, work less, work from home while watching the baby etc.). The program is much easier if it already suits your requirements or if your usual routine only needs minor tweaks, not if you need to make major changes to your daily schedule to make it work somehow. With your needs you are running the risk to burn out even a rock star AP and neither your family nor your AP will be happy in the end.

You need to look at your budget and disentangle wants from needs. If you can afford the extra help that you want, get a nanny and enjoy your 55+ hrs/wk of professional childcare. If you can't afford it or have other priorities for your money, get an au pair and handle the evening routine as a family.

Great points, but even if they do the evening routine on their own, they still exceed 45 hours with a M-F 8-6 schedule.

OPs expectations are really beyond most professional nannies too... 8-7 Mon-Fri?? Would a live-in nanny even have this kind of endurance? Sounds like a 2 person job to me. One full time and one part-time.

You need to look at your budget and disentangle wants from needs. If you can afford the extra help that you want, get a nanny and enjoy your 55+ hrs/wk of professional childcare. If you can't afford it or have other priorities for your money, get an au pair and handle the evening routine as a family.

I will agree with the general consensus that the au pair program is not a good fit for you. You should know that whether you go with an au pair or a nanny, you should expect to pay for all hours worked. So even if you get a live in nanny, the fact that you are inviting them to dinner does not mean that they are responsible to help with your children in anyway during that time. So if you want help essentially from the time your children wake in the morning until the time they go to bed, plan to have paid childcare for all of that time. If you cannot afford that, then you will have to plan to caring for your children solo. If you are consistently expecting ANY caregiver to work for free, you are going to be left in the lurch when they quit unexpectedly.

Why do you want an au-pair?

The families I know who think that having an extra adult around will be helpful (when not on duty) have been very disappointed.

Hi OP - the only way to make an AP work for your family per all the PPs are 1) you and DH figure out how to flex your hours or 2) You need an additional mother's helper at the very least.
We went from 25-30 hours a week to 45 hours this year when we added a baby to our family. Our older kids are already in elementary school with a 7-3pm out of the house. DH and I really thought long and hard whether to get an AP (our 5th) the year. We decided to do it and we've ended up with a rockstar despite needing the full 45 hours. We were very upfront in our profile. Most importantly, because we both have flexibility with or work schedule, DH works from home in the am and then leaves for work 3 days a week at 11am. I leave early on those days after feeding the baby and dropping off the older ones at school. DH puts baby due for a morning nap around 8:30 and works in the home office. AP starts at 11. Picks up the older kids from school at 3pm and finishes at 6:30 to go to school.

This program is not for you. Check back when the kids are in school, in the meantime, start a nanny search.

Good luck!

I like to have the AP work through dinner two evenings a week so I can get in some individual time with the kids. This means that she starts at 3 at least one day a week to make the hours work. We don't need weekends.
If you can't ever get through the evenings solo, AND need all your work hours covered, then you need an AP plus something else.

Anonymous wrote:I think the evening help would be more flexible and informal, the AP would be invited to have dinner with us anyway, etc.

Don't rely on AP "accepting" your invite as a form of dependable evening childcare off the clock. She will most likely disappear after her shift is over. Caring for infants is tiring and when I had infants, my AP is resting in her room during dinner time and not come out until after the infants are sleeping. I don't blame them. They need to recharge.

Since you need 8am-7pm or more daily, that immediately makes AP not a viable option for you since the AP is allowed to work maximum 10 hours a day. You will need to supplement any time beyond 10 hours using other childcare means. If you max out 10 hours a day, then that means you get 4 ten-hour days and 1 five-hour day at the most. Regardless how you calculate, per day or per week, you will go over without additional childcare, if your focus is to keep your infant at home and away from shared care settings. When we had infants, we max'd out 45 hours with 8-5 M-F and staggered DH and my work schedule so I leave at 8am and comes home later and DH leaves earlier and gets back by 5pm.

Don't even think of paying OT for all the reasons already stated.

You may very well find someone willing to work extra, but these people inevitably because disgruntled after they get to compare they gig to their friends'.

YES, APs talk about this incessantly. And since most APs tend to do the split shift gig with school age kids that ends up maxing out at 30 hours, these 45 hour maxed APs get disgruntled fast and furious. They see their friends hitting the gym and Starbucks mid-morning while they are at home with the infant.

Also keep in mind that outside of AP working a lot of intense and long shifts, the role you as HF play in her cultural experience in the USA. It's not just a matter of her work hours. Above and beyond your long work days, young children, and exhaustion, you then have to carve out time to help AP acclimate, navigate your area, etc. This a HUGE difference between taking on an AP who comes here for a cultural exchange vs a live-in or live-out nanny where there is no "family/cultural exchange" aspect for you to fulfill. And believe me when I say, ALL of my APs...even the best ones, REALLY want and expect the deeper relationship (talking to me about life), spending time doing fun things outside of the home, etc, etc. So just keep in mind that you will be expected to give a lot of yourself in terms of time and mental effort versus just saying "goodbye" at the end of the evening.

Also, a major concern in looking at your schedule...when is she going to take her classes? With an 8-6 work day and your suggestion that she will be invited to eat dinner and help with bath/bedtime, how is she going to go to school? Classes are usually in the morning, evening, or long weekends. Cluster meetings work this way as well.