OP, a lot of what you are asking for is housework and it doesn't sound like you communicated well with her what the expectations of the position were.

There are tiers of service. Self-starter or not, the people who did not treat me well and often "forgot" to pay me were certainly not experiencing the same level of service or "self-starting" my other family was.

It began even but did not end that way because no, I will not continue to pay for your child's activities out of my own pocket AND/OR do extra work that is far beyond our contracted agreement, etc. It went from plausible misunderstandings to abusive as they had unrealistic expectations of what a nanny was as they had not had a real one before.

For the other family, I would absolutely go above and beyond and do anything I could to help out and adored working with them. They were great.

Folks just need to set up a schedule that clarifies their expectations, preferably during the interview process. If that is not what was in the contract, you two can renegotiate or move on.

I think 9:22 has it right. Focus on the big picture.

I’d look for a new nanny. This one has it easy and knows it. I don’t think she’ll change

Who are these “nannies” on this thread! Nanny here, you aren’t asking anything unreasonable. Other than a break and a time to eat, a long nap can be spent doing child related tasks. As someone else posted here, even au pairs complete child related cleaning tasks like vacuuming a play room.
Give her a task list to check off. If she can’t heat up dinner because she’s not getting back early enough from an activity, decide which one is more important to you.
She may have been a great nanny for a family who had older kids and little cleaning requirements.
Have a meeting where you let her know you are making a task list and how it’s important to you for her to jump in and get things done.
I was always nervous about doing things without being asked until I got used to what most families expected.

OP it seems like your nanny lacks initiative. The best nannies I had across the past 10 years got instructions once, and then took the initiative to help out wherever they could. And yes, everyday that included baby laundry,vacuuming areas where baby was crawling, cleaning the nursery. This is not rocket science. You are not paying her top dollar to sit on her rear while the baby naps. If she lacks initiative, then leave a daily list for her of things to complete before the end of the day (and she has to check each one off)

We used to keep a notebook the nanny had to fill out that included updates on the child (how many naps, poops, books read etc), and at the bottom was a checkoff sheet for end of day tasks including
1- empty diaper pail and take out to trash
2. baby laundry
3. vacuum nursery
4. disinfect bottles
5. clean up toys
6. start diswasher

That way if she was filling out the daily journal (which was a requirement in the contract so that we could keep up to date with what occurred with our child each day) she would be 'reminded' of the daily tasks. Luckily our nanny had initiative so rarely needed the reminder and often figured out ways to lean in and help beyond what was written.

It stinks to feel like your nanny is phoning it in...

Anonymous wrote:I showed my sister nanny (a retired teacher) the list of "chores" in this thread and she did not recognize the position as a nanny position. She works for people who know the difference between a nanny and a housekeeper. Apparently this OP does not. I am guessing the OP's "nanny" -- err, babysitter/housekeeper -- is another desperate foreign worker.

I am always amazed by the racism on these threads. What is wrong with "foreign" workers? The absolute best nannies I know are all legal immigrants.

OP, I’m an experienced mom. Three kids between 5-10. I’ve had the same nanny for 8 years. Before we got her, we had four other nannies; two were not a good fit and two left as a result of external circumstances (one got pregnant and we moved in the other circumstance).

My experience is that the agencies don’t help much. I had one particularly bad experience with an agency in which the agency didn’t screen the nanny and I only found out through my own research that the nanny had a criminal record (including restraining orders issued against her). I got a full refund from that agency and have never wasted my time with a nanny agency since then.

There’s little that is more stressful than finding a nanny when you have a young baby. Thankfully, this is just a phase of life. In my opinion, nannies should absolutely help with household tasks when they’re getting paid. Of course they can take breaks, but being willing to do laundry, light cleaning, and cooking without issues. At your age, I always gravitated toward older women because of my own maternal insecurity, but I also found this group was the most “set in their ways” about not helping around the house and not having a “can do” attitude. Believe me; I am not a slave driver. It’s normal for nannies to help around the house, although it’s unreasonable to expect them to do everything.

On the flip side, it is absolutely essential for you to realize that you’re never going to be 100 percent happy. My nanny now is excellent and has been with us for many years, but I am still frequently disappointed by her lack of initiative. Parenting and house management are intensely personal and no one ever is going to do it just right. If the nanny is loving to your kids, reliable, and trustworthy, then you have to focus on those most important things and not focus on silly stuff like cleaning toys. I totally get your annoyance — but I also am positive that you will always be annoyed if you don’t take a big step back and focus on the key elements. This annoyance is one of the prices you pay for having a career.

The nanny needs a list of all kid related things that she needs to do every week, and then she can choose which day to do it. That will take care of the downtime.

As far as warming up the food, that is ridiculous.

You may need to call the nanny agency and ask for another option.

Your expectations are reasonable for a nanny who is watching one napping kid. That is not a difficult job and you are paying for in-home care to get the "extras." I totally get it.

I agree with others that people are either self-starters or not. When my daughter was a newborn, we had a nanny who had glowing recommendations but really did the bare minimum with our daughter and around the house. Who knows what the reason for the discrepancies was but it just wasn't a good fit. We ended up letting her go because we caught her in some pretty big lies. It was stressful, but I focused on what I knew I was looking for and after a couple of weeks, hired someone amazing.

I'd move on, OP.

Housework= housekeeper. Got it?

Some people are fools and pay top dollar for nannies who don’t help out with any housework and also are quite mediocre with kids because they have a lazy, what’s-in-it-for-me mentality instead of trying to work to make the parents and family’s life easier.

I showed my sister nanny (a retired teacher) the list of "chores" in this thread and she did not recognize the position as a nanny position. She works for people who know the difference between a nanny and a housekeeper. Apparently this OP does not. I am guessing the OP's "nanny" -- err, babysitter/housekeeper -- is another desperate foreign worker.

Our AuPair does a better job than your nanny. She:
-vaccuums the basement weekly (this is the kids playroom)
-loads and unloads all the dishes in the morning.
-puts aside clothes that are too small for this kids
-does ALL of the kids laundry.
-keeps kids toys and books organized.
-keep common kids food stocked this means, milk boxes for school, school lunch snacks, cereals, and their favorite fruits and snacking vegetables. I haven't purchased milk myself for 3 years.

This is has been an expectation of all of our AuPairs. It's normal kid stuff. Certainly something that I'd expect out of even a young AuPair.

Anonymous wrote:I am a career nanny and unfortunately a lot of “nannies” who post on here are either trolls or bad nannies or both.

What you want is pretty easy to explain: you want an experienced nanny who is good with your child and is ALSO a self-starter with a solid work ethic. IME, people either have it or they don’t in this arena. When my current charges were that age, I was making all their purees during nap, planning sensory activities, vaccuuming their play area so they didn’t have to crawl around a dusty floor, washing bottles and prepping pump parts so Mb would have everything clean and ready and beside her bed overnight, Organizing their clothes as they went up a size, ordering more diapers/wipes/shampoo, the list goes on.

I would not try to train a passive person to be a self-starter. It’s not going to work out. Look for someone new and interview specifically with this in mind. Look at people who have been with families even after the kids started preschool and took on a nanny/family assistant role.

I am a nanny employer and this person has the right approach. For a career nanny, what you pay for is someone who needs very little direction, and takes a self-starter attitude toward things that need to be done.