I think your biggest mistake is asking DCUM for advice. You know you're charges better than anybody here does.

I'm a nanny for more than 10 years now. I took all my charges to swimming at community pools. And the recent family has pool. I have spotless references from every single families I ever worked. NOBODY ever required me to stay in the pool all the time with the kids if they were very good swimmers and they were older. I always talked to them what they wanted from me at the pool. But nobody had insane request staying in the water for hours. Most of the time the kids were happily playing with their friends in the water. I always KEEP eyes on them from the side if I'm not in the water. Of course I stayed with younger ones and not swimmer ones in the water. Right now where I work the kids all day long if we are home, jump in the pool for 2 minutes just to cool down... Then they are out.. 1 hour later they repeat it...They just strip their cloths off and they jump in their underwear... And one of the kids is not even 6. And the parents are perfectly OK for me not doing that "craziness"... And when their friends are coming over for swimming I constantly keeping eyes on them from the side..... BUT the kids want to play with their friends and not with me..... Just think about it seriously... DO we wanted our parents or some adults always telling us how to play with our friends or our siblings?

Sitting on the edge or a chair facing the kids is fine but laying out is not OK. 6 and 10 is not a safe age to be unsupervised. This is the age where they don't know that they are tired or go beyond their abilities to swim. They too are confident that they can "swim" until they can't. This is the age where they think it will be fun to jump head first into the shallow end or are running on the pool deck.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Way to not do your job OP. I'm a nanny and If I were a MB. I would not be okay with this. You're not getting paid to work on your tan by laying out. You're paid to WATCH the girls. Whether you get in or not. Why not ask your MB if you should layout while the girls are swimming. I'm sure you would not have asked if you felt comfortable with the decision.

Did you people not see that OP said she would be watching the whole time? It IS possible to lounge by the pool (which is still "laying out") and have your head up and watching the pool the whole time. It's amazing what the body can do, it doesn't need to be kept totally flat when laying down. You can be in a lounging position right next to the pool and keep an eye on them the whole time and be there to keep the peace as well as jump in to the pool if needed. It doesn't have to be one or the other - laying down with head down or sitting up at the pool edge. It can be something in between.

Ha! Such a good response.

I don't even stress about this. Believe it or not, some orients are actually okay with the nanny not being in the pool and doing her own thing - as long as kids are good swimmers and older. My mb even took off one day and me and her were chatting the whole time kids were swimming.