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Moms who have in-home DC please come in...
I'm going back to work in a few weeks and have a nanny who will be coming to the house to care for my 18mo DD. Does anyone else have this kind of arrangement and if so, what is your DC's day like? Do you require your caregiver to do anything special (eg, walks, daytrips, games, puzzles, etc.)? Do you leave instructions? Any feedback would be appreciated, thanks!
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Re: Moms who have in-home DC please come in...
I share a nanny with a coworker, the girls are watched at my coworker's house. As far as special requests, no.
However, she does take them on walks (weather permitting), but no car trips. She also does educational things with them on her own ~ she was in early childhood education. At 21 months, DD can count to 12, say most of her ABCs and recite multiple nursery rhymes...I attribute a lot of it to the time with nanny. Unfortunately, she spends more time with DD than I do.
We have a nanny who comes to our house. Yes, she takes DS for walks, plays w/ him, etc. She's taken him to story time at the library before (in walking distance).
Honestly- a lot of this is stuff to talk to your nanny about and just express what you'd like her to be doing. It's also stuff I would have asked about during the interview process.
As far as instructions - by and large, no. But if tehre is something new going on w/ DS, I'll talk to her about it in the morning. (For example, we never let him go into our footwell by our front door. HOwever, now that he knows how to negotiate steps, he likes to crawl down there. So we let him. That kind of thing - new stuff he likes to do, stuff we've changed on that he can or can't do, and so forth. Same w/ food. Just today, told her that we're starting to mix in a couple oz. of milk w/ his formula).
We have a log that she keeps- when he eats and what, what his nap time was, and if he has a poopy diaper (I no longer care about pee diapers!). There is a "notes" area and if she does anything like go for a walk, or if he was in an odd mood- she'll jot down a note.
She told us that she once worked for a woman who wanted her to write down in 15 min increments what she's doing all day. She said she seriously had to sit there playing w/ the baby and have the log in her reach all the time - and she spent so much time writing down what she was doing, that she lost a lot of time DOING it! She left after 4 months....
At first, I left more "instructions", but in time.... your nanny will get to know your DD and also you that you'll all hopefully fall into a comfortable routine.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
Are you kidding - our nanny leaves US instructions on what to do on the weekend - lol!
I'm only partly kidding - we do a nanny share with our downstairs' neighbors' 6-month old DD. Since our kids were so young when she started caring for them, she has frankly been the one trying to establish naptimes, etc. There's not a whole lot to instruct her on since it's not like DS is crawling or even sitting up yet, expressing preferences for things or getting into things. You'll have more to tell her about your daughter at 18 mos, frankly.
However, rather than giving instructions, when you are interviewing I would ASK candidates, how do you structure your/the children's days, how often to you like to get outside, will you want to take them to classes, etc. You'd rather have someone already on the same page with you than someone who you have to cajole into doing what you want. GL!
When she started, I gave her a mult-page typed up document describing DS's routine, likes and dislikes, as well as our expectations for her, etc.
Now, I just talk to her each morning and evening and make any special requests. I sometimes leave her notes, for instance if I leave before she arrives. I have an eat/sleep log that I have her fill in, just to communicate what time and how much he ate (bottles and baby food and snacks) and when/how long he napped. We also provided a spiral notebook that she uses to keep a journal of their day together. Some entries are long and detailed; some are short.
As for excursions, our rule is that she must let us know before any car trips. She has twice taken Parker to her own doctor's appointment, which was better than her taking a day off. She let me have plenty of notice for both. She takes Parker to music/play classes at Gymboree twice a week and meets me at work to hand-off Parker once a week. So, a typical week includes three car trips. We gave her a car seat base for her car. And, she knows she is encouraged to take Parker on walks when the weather permits and those outtings do not require prior permission.