My 16 month old NK is getting worse
I really need to vent because I feel like I’m slowly losing my mind and I don’t know if I’m being dramatic or just completely burnt out.
I nanny a 16 month old and the parents are doing what they call loving or gentle parenting but it honestly feels like permissive parenting with no boundaries at all. She still doesn’t sleep through the night and it’s not because she can’t, it’s because they won’t let her. If she makes a sound for more than ten seconds they’re already running in and picking her up. She never gets the chance to self soothe and then during the day she’s clearly exhausted which turns into irritability, screaming, and constant tantrums.
When she wants something she screams and they immediately give it to her. So now she escalates so fast because she’s learned that louder gets faster results. She throws food and they think it’s cute. She doesn’t respond to the word no at all and actually laughs when you say it and they laugh too like it’s funny she doesn’t listen. She still has a pacifier because they won’t take it away. Still takes a bottle because they won’t take it away. Nothing ever gets phased out because she’s “not ready.”
What really messes with me is that with me alone she is a completely different child. I’m calm but firm. I have boundaries. If she tantrums I don’t give in and I’ll walk away. Every single time she stops almost immediately because she knows it won’t work. By the end of the week she’s regulated, sweet, and honestly really well behaved.
But the second her parents are in the room it’s like a switch flips. She knows they’ll cave. And when I come back on Mondays after the weekend she is absolutely awful. Screaming, throwing herself, zero tolerance for frustration. It feels like starting from scratch every single week.
We’ve talked about this before. Months ago. We all agreed on things we could try like sleep training, holding boundaries, not giving in to tantrums. And nothing has changed. At all.
By the end of the day my nerves feel completely shot. The constant screaming overstimulates me so bad I half joke about wanting ear plugs but it’s not really a joke. I go home drained and tense because I can literally see what works but I’m not allowed to be consistent since the parents undo it.
I love this kid and that’s what makes it hard. But I’m starting to feel like I’m fighting the environment instead of supporting the child and it’s exhausting.
I don’t know what to do anymore. Has anyone else dealt with permissive parenting being mistaken for love? How do you cope when your boundaries work but the parents won’t hold any of their own? I’m considering leaving the position i’ve had for a year because it’s so bad.