Anonymous wrote:Most nannies realize that suddenly switching a 4 year old from part-time preschool 3-5 days per week to 8-12 hours per day of daycare while also adding a new baby is a recipe for disaster. Your nanny is anticipating that:
1. The 4 year old won't be able to recognize that he's supposed to not talk to her, ask her for anything or do anything with her in the morning before he leaves.
2. Laundry and cleaning his room may start out as your responsibility, but most families will let it slide and then tell the nanny to pick up the slack, because Nanny is supposed to be doing everything related to a child, and he's one of the children.
3. Emergency only care for a preschooler when the child knows that previously he was the nanny's only charge and now the new sibling is the nanny's only charge is a nightmare. If I were the nanny, I would make it very clear that if this is the way you intend to handle your family and nanny situation, I would only be working with the infant, and you would need someone else to care for the older child. Between jealousy, Nanny no longer knowing what the child likes to eat, no authority for discipline and complete disruption of the child's schedule due to an emergency, no, there's no way that I would do it. Most parents understand that they need the nanny to retain a bond with the older child, and they build time with the nanny into the schedule for that child.
4. It's highly possible that the 4 year old is too immature to handle well the sudden switch from part-time to more than full-time institutional care. Are you going to make him push through it? Are you going to step back and gradually increase the number of hours, which would mean that the nanny would be picking him up a bit later each week? Have you even discussed the possible ways that he will react with the preschool?
OP here. I honestly think you are grasping at straws.
1. The 4-year old can talk to the nanny in the morning all he wants, it's not like they have to avoid each other. But there is nothing she has to do for him.
2. Nanny will do everything related to the baby, not all the children.
3. The nanny will not be involved in emergency care of preschooler unless it's a true emergency, and by that I mean someone is dying. I also question setting up the whole system of childcare to accommodate the nanny's comfort during emergencies, which by their very definition happen very rarely.
4. Yes, the four-year old is ready and very eager to go full-time. I also don't understand how you are coming up with the 12 hours in care business, most preschools or daycares aren't even open for twelve hours.