Are these reasons to terminate nanny?

TheresaV

Normally I work p/t from home. So, normally I am here to somewhat monitor what's going on with our nanny and our kids. We have three kids 6 mo's, 21 mo's and 3 years old. Usually she only watches 2 at a time.

 Friday we went out of town overnight and our nanny had the kids from 10-5, then G'ma picked them up. Then she came over again on Sat and stayed until we got home at 2pm. I decided this would be a good time to check the nanny cam that we have up, but never look at. Something told me to check it since we'd been gone.

• While kids were napping, the nanny disappeared from sight for almost 2 hours. This leads me to believe that she was in the basement either sleeping or watching TV. We stated in our nanny agreement that nanny was not to sleep while on duty at any time.
• She wrote down, and we paid her for arriving at 8am on Saturday. Nanny cam showed her arriving at 8:35am. The kids were dropped off by G'ma at 10 am, but I'd given the nanny a list of tasks to do for that morning from 8-10am. She said she didn't have time to finish them all, and then I discovered she actually arrived late and proceeded to talk on the phone for 1/2 hour.
• On several instances she went 30 and 40 minute stretches without interacting or acknowledging the kids at all. They would be in one part of the house, while she was in another.
• She talked on the phone several times for 30 minutes stretches while watching/ignoring the kids.
• All the while, we got home to still having a pile of laundry to do and various other tasks that were not completed.

I REALLY liked this nanny. I thought she was a great fit for our family and I never would have thought that she was taking advantage of us like this. She obviously breached alot of rules and lied. We've grown to really enjoy having her. She's been with us for 6 months since my youngest was born. While I'm in the house able to watch, everything is fine. Should I fire her? Or just make sure to be here while she's here at all times?

Confused.

 

pharmernicole

Boo..

I guess if I were in your situation, since you really like her, before you terminate her, I would sit down and talk with her about this. Sometimes just the 'threat' of potentially losing her position would be enough to know that you're prepared to enforce the rules that you have.  ..maybe there's an explaination? I don't know.. I'm just playing devil's advocate.. 

kamcfarlane

the lying about the time thing would really get me. the rest isn't that big of a deal and i think would definitely warrant a discussion before letting her go. i think we all have times at work when we're not the most productive and i think those things are pretty normal. saying she got there at 8 when she go there at 8:35 - that's stealing. maybe if it was 15 minutes or so, but it's the better part of an hour.

that being said, i also understand what a PITA it is to find new childcare, so it's definitely easier to sit over here and say that! good luck!

AlisaS

Wait  - she is leaving your kids in a room alone without watching them for long stretches of time? That is not even safe.

Pesky

Two things bother me:  1) blatantly lying to you about things and 2) ignoring the kids or being in another room from them for extended periods of time.  I have small kids and NO WAY can I safely leave them alone for that long. 

Given that, yep, I'd be looking for a replacement.  Regardless of how nice or whatever she seems, she would have a very difficult time regaining my trust given that.  Sounds like she is great provided she has constant supervision.

megs54321

I would tell her exactly what you saw on the nanny cam (I assume she knows you have one?  If not, I'd tell her now), and explain to her that her actions were unacceptable.  We all have "off" days, but in childcare you can't let that affect the kids.  Tell her you will be closely monitoring her, and that you love her being with the kids, but you need her to also do her job.  I would hesitate just firing her, because it can cause the children a lot of stress to lose someone they've become close to, so suddenly.  If she continues to slack off, I would find someone new to nanny, and have them alternate days for a while, until the kids are used to the new one, before you send the old one packing.  HTH!

vegetarian_chica

Pesky:

Two things bother me:  1) blatantly lying to you about things and 2) ignoring the kids or being in another room from them for extended periods of time.  I have small kids and NO WAY can I safely leave them alone for that long. 

Given that, yep, I'd be looking for a replacement.  Regardless of how nice or whatever she seems, she would have a very difficult time regaining my trust given that.  Sounds like she is great provided she has constant supervision.

 

I agree.

katydid2007

I'd fire her without hesitation. She lied and is leaving your children alone without supervision. She's not a good employee -- she's a good liar.  Get rid of her and put your mind at ease. The point of having a nanny is knowing that you can be away from home and that your children are in good hands. If you need to be around to watch, she's not right.  There are great nannies out there - don't waste any more time on this one.

 

smiles4ya

Does she know there is a nanny cam?

She would be gone in my book. 

DallasHorn

This is a hard one.  I tend to agree that sometime we are all guilty of doing things to "push" the limits and that perhaps just addressing it as unacceptable and if anything happens again she is fired is enough.

The thing about leaving the kids...I don't like that BUT I will counter...when is she supposed to go to the bathroom?  How do YOU go to the bathroom when you have the kids by yourself without a husband?

One thing you could do is front her about the things you could confirm outside of the nanny cam - for instance...the time she arrived (who watched them for the night - someone has to be able to verify her arrival time)...the time she dropped off the kids (grandma can vouch) and any chance she used your house phone?  Get a log of the calls from your provider to show they were made when you were NOT home.  The reason I say this is if you intend to give her a 2nd chance, then I personally would NOT want her to know there is a nanny cam.

DallasHorn

P.S. Be sure to let us know the outcome!

TheresaV

Thanks for all your input and suggestions everyone. She's supposed to work again on Wed. We can't NOT say anything, and if we do say something specific she's going to realize it was because of the nanny cam and she's going to probably get really emotional and defensive and quit anyway.  I'm tempted to try to give her another chance and somehow reiterate that certain things are just cause for termination without letting her know that WE know EXACTLY what she did.

 Part of me feels like it's too late and that my trust for her  is just gone at this point. I'm just not ready to send my 21 month old to school/daycare and I would NOT want to go through this nanny thing again. The last one we had was 21 and a complete flake! (not because of her age but she happened to be very young in addition to being a flake!)

 

Feb3

Are you saying she doesn't know about your nanny cam?