Parents intentionally keeping the 2 month old baby awake
I‘ve been a nanny for 8+ years now and have never ran into a situation like this so please let me know your thoughts.
I’ve been working for this family since March. Unfortunately there have been ongoing issues around communication, boundaries, and consistency in how the baby is cared for. From the very beginning there was red flags and I should’ve know better. First red flag: Family wanting to pay me $16 an hour because ”all the baby is gonna do is sleep anyway” (I didn’t accept that and negotiated)
Fast forward:
One of the main concerns is that the parents have been intentionally keeping the baby awake. (Baby is almost 3 months) Their philosophy is, if they keep him up much more during the day, he will sleep through the night.
I addressed this early on with them and tried to explain to them that trying to keep them from napping during the day, in fact, does not work with newborns because sleep is extremely important for them. They got very defensive with me and said articles written by pediatricians about sleep are false and mom even said to me” She’s a pysician“ she knows what’s best for her baby. They also said this is the reason they wanted a nanny instead of putting him in daycare.
There have also been repeated last-minute schedule changes and late-night messages, which I find very disrespectful. (mainly from mom) On top of that, they are constantly watching my every move through the cameras inside the home.
Keeping baby up intentionally goes against healthy sleep routines and has made my job much more difficult.
Overall, the situation has been feeling increasingly unstructured and unprofessional from my perspective and I don’t think I can continue to work for this family.