How to Make Expectations With a New Nanny
Starting a relationship with a new nanny can be a little unnerving. You hope that you will like them and your children will like them and that the feeling will be mutual. You want this to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, so the last thing you might think is to establish a law before they even begin. But you must.
Okay, “making the law” isn’t entirely necessary, but it’s important to be honest about your expectations – even if the nanny in question is your colleague’s child or your sister’s friend, and it’s a little awkward. Because it’s much more embarrassing to do it later, after they repeatedly broke the screen time rule, they didn’t even know what you had, or they invited their boyfriend without asking because they thought it was okay.
Put everything in writing
Are you going to look like a Type A parent when you first walk them into the kitchen and hand them two pages of instructions? Yes, probably. This is actually a good thing, because you can use your thoroughness as an excuse to laugh at yourself and ease the awkwardness. “I know this is a lot of words, considering that I’ve only been away for two hours,” you might say with a laugh. “It is more helpful for me to write this because I can never remember to tell all our nannies when I try to get out the door!”
And then verbally hit the highlights. You don’t have to explain the instructions word by word to them, but you do have to indicate your priorities, whether it’s that kids go to bed by a certain time or that junk food is limited. If you plan on hiring this person on a regular basis, you can take a little more time here and make sure they understand your policies, guest policies, your child’s bedtime schedule, and so on. If this is most likely a random situation or someone you think you won’t rely on very often, you might decide to be a little more relaxed.
Topics for discussion
When you write your rules and expectations manifesto, there is a lot to touch on. Suzie Zeldin, co-owner and COO of Smartsitting , tells Care.com that first you need to think about what you would expect from a sitter in the first place:
Zeldin says communication is key to making sure your nanny understands what you are expecting and feels capable of fulfilling her role.
“The most important thing is not to mesmerize the sitter with a list of responsibilities they didn’t know about, and then they walk into your home and feel that the setting is different from the one originally reported,” she explains.
For example, you might ask them to cook a kid’s lunch and clear the dishes from the table, but you don’t expect them to load and start the dishwasher. Once those expectations are clear, you can begin to get down to some ground rules. Here are some questions to watch out for:
- What screen time limits do you want to set?
- Does your child have food allergies or do you have restrictions on what and when children can eat?
- Do you agree that the nanny invites (approved) guests while they are babysitting? What about personal phone calls?
- Do you prefer not to have them post pictures of your child on social media?
- How and for what reasons should they discipline your child?
- How much would you like them to interact / play with your child? (You can invite them to study together if they don’t know where to start.)
If you didn’t do it from the start
Maybe you thought it was going to be a one-off situation and this person turned into an ordinary seated person. Or you assumed that they knew that you didn’t want the kids to stand in front of the TV while you were away, but you are pretty sure that is exactly what happened. The sooner you fix it, the better.
A simple text for a day or two will do: “Hey kids had so much fun with you! I wanted to mention that I noticed that they were watching the shows when we got back and we usually don’t release them after 6pm. It is my fault that I forgot to tell you! Just for your information next time! “Or you can answer that question the next time they come,” Oh, by the way, we’re really trying to cut down on screen time. We’ve been too careless about this in the past! Can you make sure all electronics are turned off by 6:00 pm? “
If you really need to start over, you can print out these two pages of notes you should have given them originally and say, “I know I should have done this years ago, but life was crazy! I am so sorry to leave you in limbo with no clear direction until now. You did a great job on the go, but hopefully this helps with any questions you may have about how we want to tackle (insert pain point here). “
Chances are, if you have a nanny to keep around, this is all you need to do to correct course. In addition, over time, everything changes, children grow up, and the rules change. These conversations will continue even with regular babysitters, so it’s good to get used to it.