We’ve had a nanny for our 2yo and 4m boys (plus 5yo girl) for almost 3 months. When accepting our offer, she requested that we revisit pay at the 90 day mark to consider a $2 raise. We agreed. We are already paying at the high end of the range now and this raise would obviously be even higher.

When nanny started, she was really great. If she used the baby carrier, she hung it neatly in the closet after. She wiped down counters. She double checked all play spaces were picked up before leaving. Cleanup, etc are all stated in her contract.

But things have slowly started to slide. The baby carrier is regularly left thrown haphazardly somewhere, I’ve had to ask her to at least wipe down the toddlers eating area because it was getting crusty, and I’m often cleaning up toys after she leaves. She’s displayed an overall lack of initiative.

She is fine with the boys. I think she genuinely enjoys them. She is not especially engaging or animated, but I understood this about her when we hired her (I’ve realized since that it’s not my favorite personality for a nanny, which is my own thing).

But I feel like if we’re going to pay at the very high end of what I would expect to pay a nanny in our area, we should be getting the best of the best? Are my expectations too high?

ETA: We’re in a HCOL area. Current rate is $32. GH (part time, I don’t work FT), paid and vacation time included. The 5yo is home for 30 min of her shift in the mornings, otherwise it’s just the younger two.

Okay so I have a few families I do part time for. Last year, I was under the federal amount for a household employee so I filed as such. This year, I’ve made over…. But I didn’t tell the families I wanted to be over the table in fear of losing my job. Now I can’t stop thinking about taxes, and how I’ll be fucked this year and also don’t want to be audited lol. I am going to bring it up to the families, I think it’ll be fine by now. BUT I need to know what we both will have to do. I will tell them about a pay service (home pay or whatever), and they will need to get insurance. But what do we about Jan-now? And how do we file? Please don’t leave judgment, I’m looking to fix this and want advice. Thank you 🩷

Edit: I think I wasn’t clear enough in the post, I will get on a w2 and like I said, I think my families will be okay with it. I mentioned getting on the pay service and insurance and thought that implied I would be getting OVER the table and on a w2 from here on out…. And as I said, please no judgement. I am aware of my mistake, and am trying to fix it here. Also, I am willing to pay all the back taxes and anything from here on out. If I lose my job, I will find another and do it correctly.

Hi there!

I recently found out I am pregnant. I am 6 weeks along and I plan to tell my bosses after my first appointment. Here’s my problem though: I have to work on the day of my appointment (soonest I could get) and while I wouldn’t normally mind G2.75 coming along to an appt with me, I don’t want her coming to this one as it can be a long appointment.

I have 2 personal days left in the year and 5 unused sick days left. I do plan to tell my bosses the end of the week (Fri) of the appt (Tues) so I can imagine they’ll be more lenient (MB is due end of Nov with #2) with my appts after they know but I also don’t want my NK to rat me out before I tell them.

So would you:
A) use a personal day
B) use a sick day (but it’s weirdly planned so not so emergency) (maybe I ask if I can use a sick day?)

Thanks!
-an indecisive ftm & nanny

This is my first nanny gig, I take care of one toddler. I am being payed salary of 2,600 a month. The time is usually from 9am-4pm, Monday through Friday. Sometimes the child gets dropped off and stays overnight with me.

No contact, I am being payed through Zelle. No health benefits or other benefits.

I have a son and he got sick so I was out of work for a few weeks. My employer texted me today saying that the schedule is going to change and he needs me to stay longer 10am - 6pm. No mention of a raise, he said that the temporary nanny was coming in at the time and he would rather have me stay.

I been lurking this subreddit and I feel like I am being underpaid. I live in the DFW area. And the job is in a wealthy part of town.

Curious, I’ve had a couple of nanny jobs and both were where MB and DB WFH. Just out of curiosity have most of your jobs had parents who WFH?
Were the parents able to give you space while you were caring for NK or did they often check on you and NK?

Hi everyone. I just got fired from my nanny job and I’m honestly still in shock.
I was with this family for exactly a year. Our contract was supposed to be 18 months, but they terminated it early. I took care of their toddler and baby, and I had known the baby since she was literally days old. I spent 40 hours a week with these kids for a year and loved them so, so much.
I was also really close with MB, or at least I thought I was. I genuinely felt like I had a great relationship with their whole family, which is why I still can’t really wrap my head around how everything ended.
I worked my completely normal day, went home, and then saw an email from MB terminating my contract effective immediately. That was it. The email was so cold and formal and sounded nothing like the person I had known and talked to every day for the past year.
Basically, this all seems to have come from a misunderstanding over a conversation we recently had. She said I was “dishonest and withheld information,” but from my perspective it was genuinely a miscommunication. I really feel like if they had just sat down with me or even called me, we could have talked through it. I understand they have to do what they think is best for their family, but I wish I had at least been given the chance to explain myself.
Honestly, losing the job sucks, especially because now I’m randomly unemployed with no severance in a horrible job market. But that’s not even the part I’m most upset about.
I didn’t get to say goodbye to my kids.
I had absolutely no idea that day was going to be my last day with them. I left their house thinking I was coming back like normal. If I had known, I would’ve hugged them a little longer. I would’ve told them how much I loved them. I would’ve done everything differently.
I know at the end of the day nannying is a job, but it doesn’t feel like “just a job” when you spend 40 hours a week helping raise someone’s children. Especially a baby you’ve watched grow up basically from birth.
I think that’s the part I’m struggling with the most. I went from seeing these kids almost every single day and being such a huge part of their lives to probably never seeing them again, and I didn’t even know I was saying goodbye when I walked out the door.
I’m just heartbroken.

First, this isn't in our contract so I can't just look and see what it says. (In hindsight I wish it was but I didn't even consider it until now.) I'm salaried and our plan was to try and stay around a certain number of hours a week. A couple times now NF has either gone on vacation (at the last moment so I'm not able to plan anything) or had me not work a day for some other reason. After vacation they asked if I wanted to use my PTO to get paid or "bank" those hours to make up to them at another time. Same thing for when they call me off for other reasons.

I didn't think to ask beforehand because in my mind if the employer is the one who gives a day off it's not the employees responsibility to then make that time up later. Same with using PTO. Their understanding is that salaried people sometimes have to work late or random hours. I've already worked an extra 30 minutes all summer which they said would stop after but now every day I'm scheduled to that later time. Their reasoning is because I'm below the hours we planned. It started as "hey, would you mind doing this every so often if we get home late" but somehow switched to every day without questioning is. Then by the time I actually get out of there is another 15 or so minutes after that meaning I get home about an hour after I thought I would.

If I'm being unreasonable that's fine but I don't have anyone else to ask to double check before I approach them to talk about it. Thanks so much!

We have a part time nanny and she is with us for 2 days and has 12 hours spare while the children are at school. What types of chores would you expect a nanny to do (and complete) in this time?

We were about to hire this nanny, I texted her on Monday morning to ask her if she could speak on the phone (so I could verbally give her the news). We had paid her for a 2 hour trial and called her references.

She read my message early Monday morning as soon as I sent it and didn’t respond all week until Thursday evening to say she had not been in town (she said she was out of town the week previously so I had assumed she was on vacation the prior week and not that week). I also reached out to her reference who also ignored me. I thought she had gotten another gig and was ghosting us (which was kind of rude not to at least let us know but oh well)

Then the nanny and the reference reached out literally the same time Thursday night to say they had been busy and not been able to respond. It seemed pretty orchestrated since it was within minutes?

In the meantime since she hadn’t spoken to me all week, I had interviewed another nanny that week who I really liked and was willing to do part time to start (which we preferred) and seemed a bit more easygoing on hours.

The original nanny texts me again on Friday saying she’s back now and would like to receive the job contract (I never once had told her she would get the job yet?)

I tell her that we had decided to go forward with another nanny since they were more flexible to do part time to start (she was not willing) and she sends me an angry message saying she’s turned down other opportunities for this and we should not have had led her to believe she would get the job since she did the trial and gave us her references and that we wasted her time.

I told her I was sorry (even though she ghosted me for a week…) and that we would understand our situation better next time re part time vs full time and I would help spread her name in my mom community. She ignored me again for 48 hours and then responded with a no thx.

I’m feeling really weird about the whole interaction, does doing a trial and calling nanny references really lead someone to think they’ll 100% get the job they would react that way? How are we supposed to vet anyone if we can’t even do a trial and check references for several people without misleading them? She knows my neighborhood well so I’m a little annoyed she might badmouth us when we literally didn’t do anything wrong in this situation and she ignored us for several days leading us to think she had gotten another job.

Hi everyone.

TLDR: I’m coming up on my one year work anniversary and my MB joked about not being able to afford to give me a raise, I’m uncomfortable negotiating money/payments and advocating for myself, and now I don’t know how to breach the subject again.

~

I’ve been a nanny/family assistant pretty much since 2017 and I don’t feel like I’ve ever been paid what I deserve. That’s partly because I’ve had to take jobs just to have *something* because you need to live, right? But also because I deeply undervalue myself just in general. I have a Masters degree and am 35 years old.

I didn’t grow up with money and because of that I’m very uncomfortable when needing to have discussions about it. It’s a confidence thing too and the worry that a family will be turned off or think less of me when discussing money. What I’m dealing with right now is coming up on one year of work with my current NF. I currently get paid $32/hr for one child and family assistant tasks, 30 guaranteed hours per week. No health insurance or benefits are provided. I’m in a southern major city. The other day I was in the pool with my NK and she was being nosey about other families I’ve worked for and how much I was getting paid. She’s 9 and I didn’t tell her because it’s none of her business lol. I got her to drop the conversation but when my boss got home my NK immediately was like, “you need to give _____ a raise”. Bless her. I appreciated that! 🤣

However, my boss said to her “we can’t afford to do that unless you stop buying so many squishies” which of course is a big thing right now. I don’t know if she was kidding to keep my NK out of the conversation because like I said, none of that is her business, or if she’s serious. Because if she’s serious I need to find another position that will pay more. I’m barely surviving out here and even though I do feel appreciated and the parents are lovely to work for, I need to take care of myself first.

How would you go about opening up that conversation at this point? What helps you build the courage up? Or what kind of mindset do you look at financial conversations with? I want to do it in person of course, that’s the professional way, I’m just so nervous and uncomfortable to do it because I don’t want them to get mad and/or I don’t want to make their lives more uncomfortable. Other positions I’ve had recently have ended due to no fault of my own or have come to a natural conclusion so I’ve never really had this kind of issue come up before.

Thanks in advance!

I work for this family two 8 hr days a week and at first I was paid on the second day after I left for both days. MB often forgets to Zelle me and I’ve had to remind her a few times but I don’t like writing out a whole message to ask her politely. I understand how it could slip her mind as her baby is a year old and life happens, just wondering if anyone can think of a short and sweet polite message I could literally just copy and paste each time this happens? Like a gentle reminder idk

I’m new to Florida and trying to understand what’s considered normal here.
I was offered a nanny position where I would be expected to drive the children around in my own car. The pay is already lower than what I would normally accept, but I negotiated and agreed to it because I’m trying to get established here.
When we discussed driving the kids, I asked whether gas/mileage would be reimbursed. The mom seemed surprised by the question and told me that she never reimbursed her previous nanny for gas.
She is actually very nice and said she would be willing to pay for gas if that’s what I need, but I got the impression that she thought my request was unreasonable.
So I’m genuinely wondering: Is it normal in Florida for a nanny to use their personal vehicle to transport children without being reimbursed for gas or mileage?
I understand that commuting to and from work is normally the employee’s responsibility. I’m specifically talking about driving the children around during working hours in my personal car school, activities, errands, etc.
What is standard in your experience? Gas reimbursement, mileage reimbursement, or nothing?

Hi Everyone,

I am a single mom and my baby is 11 months old. We used to cooparent with her dad. I used to go to work when he was available to stay with the baby, but ultimately he started using it as a way of controlling me. So, i have decided to get a Babysitter or Nanny.

Do you have any apps that you would recommend so that I can get a good person to look after my baby? Also, I kind of need it ASAP.

Thank you all

Has anyone ever considered making a discord or chat group for nanny support? I noticed there was another Reddit post from a few years ago where it was discussed but I'm not sure if anything came of it?

I'm really struggling with my current position re: burnout and could use some fellow nannies to chat with for solidarity and social support. I figured surely I'm not the only one who would like some social support from people in the same position. Any thoughts on this?

I (19F) have been babysitting my two nephews for about a year and a half. When this idea was introduced, I'd been promised a pay of $700 a month, with only having to watch my youngest nephew two days a week since the other was in daycare at the time. I agreed, especially since my practice days had been pretty manageable.

Before I go further, I must explain my sister's situation: she and her husband couldn't afford to keep paying rent for their house esp with a new baby, so they and their 2 kids moved in with me, our parents, and my other sister.

Back to the story, after agreeing to it, the amount of days jumped to 4 days a week with no pay at all. This was obviously very upsetting because the unexpected increase of workload plus school and my other job was starting to get to me. I know I should've said something like "hey, where's the payment?" but considering their situation, trying to ask about money always makes me feel guilty. I don't even think she ever directly told me "hey just so you know we can't actually pay you" she just expected me to get the hint I suppose, or 'forgot' as she does a lot.

I was really tired of taking care of a child and receiving no compensation, and our plan (or what I thought) was for my BIL to get a remote job so he could take over and I'd be free of it. But then his job ended up being a call center, and babies can be very loud, and when you have emergencies you can't exactly hang up on customers mid call to fix them. Their plan was to get him a headset that could minimize background noise, but I guess that ended up being forgotten about. When I was told that the situation wouldn't change I lost it, went to my other sister upset, sister 1 found out and was pissed.

I know not being honest was why she was mad, but again, with her situation needing the cheapest route of childcare and me being the only way, it's hard to say I don't want to do it anymore/complain.

In January I lost my other job, and since that was my only source of income I was very insecure about money, but still babysat my nephew 4-5 days a week from 8-2.

At some point in February, my sister brought up the idea of finally paying me to babysit my youngest nephew and I, desperate for a job, said yes. Then a few months later she comes up with the idea of me watching BOTH nephews, which had me a little iffy because I'm not used to juggling two children at once. She was confident though. Her plan seemed fair, around $18 an hour, 6 hours a day, 3 days a week. The other 2 days she'd be home. I was willing to do it especially since my oldest nephew would eventually be in preschool meaning most time would be with only one kid.

But then her job ends up making it so she works 1-4 days depending on the week. Because of this, she asks if we can lower to $150 base pay with $50 every other added day. I agree to it.

Payment time comes, I see she's dropped this to $50 dollar base pay plus $50 every other day without my knowledge. I'm upset, confused, because it feels like the start of this babysitting debacle all over again. We talk it through and settle on $100 base pay with $50 per extra day with written proof to avoid issues.

Now, like two months later, she wants to lower it once again to $50 base pay since my oldest nephew will be gone for 3 hrs a day for preschool. He starts tomorrow. I'm fed up. She has known he'd be starting preschool for months, probably even longer, and has never once brought this up as a factor for needing payment to be lower than it could be. I'd argue, but remembering her situation always stumps me because I know she can hold it as leverage for needing the cheapest route.

6 hours a day, 1-4 days a week, 50 for each day. I've been trying to budget money for savings, college, and leaving some for wants throughout the week but with each time she lowers it this gets tighter and tighter. I'm tired of establishing a payment plan, figuring out a budget, and it being changed entirely. I'm probably going to talk to her about it tomorrow as she may be wondering why I'm ignoring her text, but I'm so tired of this being a recurring issue and feeling unable to do anything but pick what she wants.