r/NannyBreakRoom

So I have 2 NK one is 2 years the other is 6 months. I take them out of the house multiple days a week and anytime I need to add something to the diaper bag I just get annoyed honestly. There is stuff in it that I will never need when they are with me and it just gets in the way. So I’m curious do any nannies have their own diaper bag? Also would any NP feel weird about their nanny asking to have their own?

I think I mostly need to vent, but I’m also curious how other babysitters/nannies would handle this.
I’ve been babysitting for almost 3 years and have worked with many different families. For the last year especially I’ve been working with families in San Francisco. I originally started doing it part-time while I was still a student, so I was charging around $20/hr.
At the time I didn’t think much of it because I was studying, competing in college athletics, and babysitting was extra income. But I graduated recently, I’m still looking for full-time work, and babysitting has basically become how I’m surviving in the meantime.
Looking back, I’m realizing how much I tolerated because I was scared of losing work.
I would commute over an hour across SF for $20/hr. There were days I woke up at 6am, traveled across the city, worked basically 8am-6pm taking care of a toddler, and still charged $20.
I’ve also had families change the time after I was already on my way or already in their neighborhood. One time I waited around for almost an hour because the child wasn’t ready/separating from the parent, only to eventually be told I could leave, and initially I didn’t even ask to be paid because I felt guilty.
Another family that I had become very close with eventually just stopped responding to me while they still owed me money.
And with another family, I had to text the dad THREE separate times asking for $120 he owed me. Weeks later I randomly saw him at the park and had to bring it up again before I finally got paid.
The embarrassing part is that I genuinely liked a lot of these families. I cared about their kids, talked to the parents almost like friends, checked on them when they were going through things, etc. Because the relationship felt friendly, I constantly felt guilty advocating for myself financially.
I think I confused being kind/flexible with having absolutely no professional boundaries.
Now I’ve decided my rate going forward is $32/hr on weekdays and $35/hr on weekends, with more depending on multiple children/responsibilities. I have almost 3 years of childcare experience and references from multiple families.
I told two older families about the increase today and both decided not to continue with me.
And weirdly... I’m actually proud of myself.
A few months ago I probably would have immediately said, “Okay, never mind, I can still do $20.” I was so desperate to survive that I accepted almost anything and then convinced myself I should just be grateful someone was giving me work.
I’m realizing now that someone being friendly with me does not make them my friend when it comes to employment, and liking someone’s child doesn’t mean I need to discount my labor.
I’m still unemployed, so turning down work feels terrifying lol. But I’m also exhausted from commuting all over San Francisco, rearranging my life around other people’s schedules, chasing people to pay me, and then feeling like THEY are doing ME a favor.
For other babysitters/nannies: does $32 weekday / $35 weekend sound reasonable for someone with almost 3 years of experience in SF? And how do you keep a warm/friendly relationship with families without letting that blur your boundaries around money and work?

Idk wtf is stressing me out but I need a break from these kids. The constant attention seeking is making me lose my fucking mind. I know its just because back to school but holy hell. Like i can only put myself in time out so many times.

Has anyone ever been with a family long term and found it more emotional than you thought when the job was over?
How does the separation effect the children? I mean I was a their caregiver and constant big buddy for a very long time. I was a consistent adult who showed up, knew them, cared about them, played with them, helped them, comforted them, and was woven into their normal life. Then poof I’m gone. Was They are boys and now are ages 11,9&6. When I started it was just one 18 month old. I have gone to visit them a few times, but that just makes me miss them more. I guess I’m just wondering how that separation effect young children.

my nanny mom has been complaining about a bunch of dumb shit to me lately like being annoyed by being expected to work at the job where she’s paid 500k/year (her own words!!!) and having to parent all of her children for a few nights alone like i’m not taking care of them 50 hours a week alone and how she doesn’t like the carpet and wants to get it redone a third time. meanwhile i’m out here fighting for my sanity lmfao. feels like i’m in the parasite movie where the wealthy woman is talking about how nice the rain was, meanwhile the driver’s home was flooding 😐

EDIT: Just made the CPS call and am glad I did. Huge thanks to all who commented.

Hi all, I could really use some advice here. Apologies in advance for the length of the post, but trying to give all useful info to get some guidance here. I (26F) nannied for an extremely wealthy (not billionaire but multi-millionaire) family in NYC for a year and stopped working for them about 3 months ago. In those 3 months, I've been getting updates from the other nannies that things are getting much worse. I'll quickly lay out relevant info about the family and then get into why I think this is a CPS call ASAP (ranges across parental outbursts to car seats to deliberately over medicating kids at night) and why I'm still hesitating a little. I left this job for a handful of reasons including their parenting, how they spoke to and treated their children, lack of proper payment, and how they spoke to me and treated myself and their other staff (they had me for 52 hours during the week, an au pair doing the same, a weekend nanny who stayed at the house from Friday to Monday, and one, sometimes two, night nurses on weekdays.) Overall they had 24/7 childcare in the home from at least one professional. The mom was stay at home and their grandmother was often there to visit. The dad was usually working or on business trips so wasn't closely involved, but was around. The kids were deliberately all born back to back to be close in age (not all natural births / from the mom) and at the time I left the kids were 2.5, 1.5, and 6 months.

I'll leave out any issues with treatment to staff / payment issues etc and focus only on treatment towards the children. I also want to make sure that my own feelings towards the family aren't clouding my judgement with whether or not to make a CPS call, which is part of why I'm seeking advice here. This was my first full time nanny role, but ever since I started I could tell something was just off. Candidly, at first I largely attributed it to the level of money in the household and some different personality types of the family. The way the mom talked to the kids also never sat right with me but having never had children myself, at first I gave her some grace thinking she's tired, she's stressed, even with all of the help in the home having three young children must be a lot on her. But it would escalate to the level where she was really yelling at and cussing out these kids under the age of 2, even with nannies right there and offering to take over for her.

She would lose her temper on the kids for normal toddler and baby stuff (making too much noise, dropping food on the floor etc) and in one instance, I saw the mom forcibly drag the (at the time) 2 year old who was having a meltdown towards the bathroom, basically tossed her inside and slammed the door on her. I had to get her out because the child was throwing her whole body against the door and hitting her head on the door trying to get out and I was worried she would hurt herself. I heard from another nanny that on a day I wasn't there, there was an incident where the mom again lost her temper and very forcibly yanked the same child into the elevator (elevator is inside the home) by her arm, and had been holding her by the arm lifting her off the ground that way while screaming and cursing at her. Since I've left, a different nanny told me that the mom was angry at the 1.5 year old and put him out in the backyard with a pool and locked the door to come in since he was being too loud. She told the grandmother and that nanny who was in the room to leave him there and not to go outside with him. There was a gate around the pool and that nanny could see him from the window but said he was clearly trying to find a way into the gate (he loves the pool and is very much a water baby, but he certainly cannot swim.) Also since I've left, a nanny told me that the mom was reading a book to the 2.5 year old and the 1.5 year old was trying to come up on the couch with them. It was bothering the 2.5 year old, who was getting fussy, and the mom, who wanted alone time with that child. The nanny was coming to get the younger child from the other room and saw the mom forcibly push the 1.5 year old off the couch. He fell and started crying. The mom didn't know the nanny had seen this and acted like it was a total accident and he slipped saying "I told you to be careful!"

There are a few more instances where the mom hasn't known that a staff member saw what really happened and lied when a child got hurt or cried from something she did. She has a penchant for lying, usually white lies, in general, to the level that other family members comment on it. But I definitely don't think they know that the lying extends to when the kids get hurt. There's been other instances where she's taken a child to the doctor when they've hit their head and told other family members an inaccurate portrayal of what happened. None of these instances have occurred when the dad is in the home, and to my knowledge while he knows she yells at them and has a temper, he doesn't know it extends this far.

Another main concern of mine was the amount and the frequency to which she would give the children Tylenol at night (or tell myself or other nannies to.) This mostly started when she went down to only having one night nurse and she was exclusively for the youngest child (who was born while I worked there and 6 months by the time I left.) This mean that the mother was responsible for the other two older babies if they woke in the night. She would claim they were teething and needed tylenol, that they were sick, or that as a mom she just could tell they needed it, even when they were displaying no symptoms. Multiple night nurses and nannies told her it was too much and could damage their liver etc. but she insisted they needed it. One nanny, who is in school to be a nurse, kept track of the amounts and frequency and went to one of her professors, asking if this was okay (I only found that she did this after I left.) He told her, not knowing any additional info about the family, that it was a CPS case. To my knowledge she hasn't reported it, she's the only one I'm not still in close contact with and I just found this out recently.

In addition, the 2.5 year old gets recurring yeast infections, UTIs, and diaper rashes (she is the only child that the mother bathes herself and she does not properly clean her privates. The mother also is often the one with this child and the one changing her and will leave her in poopy diapers for hours and again will not properly clean her privates.) Since this child is the only child the mother does bedtime with, the 2.5 year old does not get her teeth brushed. At all. Unless myself or another nanny sneakily has her do it when the mom goes into another room or if we start bedtime early before the mom is there. If we said "time to brush teeth" etc when the mom was there, she would just say she doesn't need it or that's okay for tonight. None of the kids have been to the dentist either.

As far as car seats, they rarely use them. In fairness they're in NYC and rarely have a need, but when they do transport the two toddlers in an uber or with a driver, they will just sit the 2.5 and 1.5 year old kids on a lap, starting even when they were about 6 months younger. They instructed myself and the nannies to do the same and I said I wasn't comfortable putting an, at the time just under a 1 year old, on my lap in the car. The mom didn't like that answer but didn't push the issue with me. The (now) 6 month old does have a stroller that collapses into a car seat but when the mom is with him, she doesn't properly strap it into the car and will get upset if a nanny does. She just kind of puts it on the seat and holds it there.

All three kids also will have food taken away as a punishment (if they're too loud, throw any food on the floor etc.) Even when at an age where it was developmentally very normal to make a mess and throw food, if she was there at dinner time, she would take it away fro the kids or from the nannies and make sure the nannies took the kids upstairs to go straight to bed.

It's worth quickly noting without going into unnecessary details on this part that the first nanny they had before me quit for how the family treated her, and sent them a huge email detailing how to improve treatment of both staff and kids. A short term nanny before me quit for the same reason. The nanny they hired after me has now quit for the same reason. Out of the people who worked there when I did, multiple were on contracts and felt the same way but saw the contract through since it was shorter term. Many of these other nannies have children and or grandchildren and have been nannies for decades. I trust their judgement and all of them agree that certain things with the children are unacceptable. Some are wary of a CPS call because they want the family as a reference and some are just overwhelmed by working full time and having kids of their own. By now, only one nanny who was there when I was is still there. She is only there a few days a week and is trying to find another job but financially she just can't quit yet.

Most concerning of all to me is that recently, right after the latest nanny quit, the mother was telling one nanny how stressed she is and that she fears she might "hurt herself or the children." I believe her.

Most of me thinks this is on CPS, not me, to decide and to just place the call and do my part. Down the line, I may really wish I did. This is what I'm largely leaning toward. I used to worry that the kids would get taken away and put somewhere worse but after doing more research on CPS I highly doubt that much would happen at all. There isn't much to do since the parents need no financial or substance help. I'm not sure what someone from CPS would really even be able to do other than make note of it being alarming but not outright an unfit environment. But it matters to me that something is just on file. If this gets worse and another nanny, nurse, or teacher places a call, it may help to have something else on record. Or god forbid if one of the kids gets old enough to call.

What's making me hesitate is:

1. I'm worried I'm overreacting or misreading how serious this is out of love for these kids (they're perfect babies and I spent many 12 hour days with these little ones) and admittedly out of a distrust and dislike for the parents
2. With how wealthy these people are, I'm worried CPS won't do anything at all and that I'll only risk retaliation from the family without anything being done. If I do report I'll try to make it anonymous but they aren't stupid and some details only a nanny could know which leads me to my biggest drawback:
3. I'm worried about risking the employment of the nanny still working there. She is the one who the mom told that she's concerned she may harm the kids and I don't want her to face retaliation and lose income that she needs to support her own family. I could leave out this comment, or try to make it more vague, but I think it's important and some of the other stories come from this nanny too. I don't want to include things in the report that will make the family blame her, but I also don't want to leave out paramount information. I honestly don't know what to do.

One of the other nannies has told me if I make a report that she'll join, and one is on the fence and stressed with her own kids and grandkids.

Overall, the dad knows some but not all of these issues. I think all parents and guardians involved deserve to know the full extent of what's happening with their children, in their home, and unfortunately a CPS report may be the only way for him to find out. The mom is already high strung and now is in over her head. I don't think she's a bad person but she needs help. So do her kids.

Any advice, thoughts, comments, or questions are welcome. I think I know what needs to be done, but I thought I would seek advice here first. I'm open to anything, even if it isn't what I thought, or letting me know I'm wrong about something. If you've read this whole thing, thank you so very much.

For those of you who do occasional sitting outside of your main position, do you have a written policy about payment, cancellations, etc. I’ve never put a policy in place, but I want to. I had a family cancel on me one hour before the booking today. They paid me in full without being asked, which I appreciate, but I don’t want to depend on someone’s thoughtfulness. I am curious if you have a short document that you send to families and what is the gist of it?

I am at my wits end with my oldest nanny kid. He is 2.5 years old. I have been with him since he was 1. When I started they had just adopted another baby boy. So I have a 2.5 and a 1.5 year old. The youngest is as sweet as pie. The oldest is a terror. He screams at the top of his lungs every time something doesn’t go his way. Flops on the floor bangs his head, he bites and throws heavy toys at his brothers head. He pushes, kicks and punches his brother. Don’t get me wrong they laugh and play together but at the point the brother is just used to it. I’m an assertive nanny. From the beginning when I say no I mean no. This usually helps when they become 2-4 years old. This child is currently screaming his lungs out because he bit his older brother super bad wouldn’t let go and I took him out of the bath for it. It’s been 5 mins. Things like this happen 25 times a day and it can be from a chicken nuggets simply not being warm enough for his liking.

NF is giving me such a headache. They got a membership to the local pool and insist on me taking kids swimming (2 + 5) however the kids aren’t swim trained. Sure they splash around by the edge but they are scared of swimming and I don’t feel comfortable as one adult supervising two kids under 6 in an activity they are set up to fail. I shared classes and offered to go with kids but the parents never sign them up (even the free ones) and it’s not my role to go ahead and schedule these sorts of things. I’ve straight up told them I don’t feel comfortable and why and they’re like “totally fair” and then later in the week offer me to go swimming again with them and we just repeat the same convo over and over all summer.

I’m with these kids 50-60 hours a week. I do a lot. I advocate and take care of them in the ways I’m trained to do. It just feels so frustrating that the bigger picture is a lot of these parents are so checked out that they’re not participating in activities or learning events that would make things more fun! Dad works part time at his own company so that’s that and mom does not work at all - mostly bed rots all day. So confused as to why they can’t parent. These kids are so sweet - why have them if ya’ll aren’t willing to do the work esp if someone is here helping?!

ETA: i have found someone who has been part of the private nanny group since i started it and have offered them the chance to take over.

i'm no longer a nanny and feel like maybe it'll be better off with someone else. if you're not already in the group, i'm gonna ask 100 questions to make sure it goes to a nanny and not an MB in disguise. 😅

Hi everyone, to quickly summarise I’m (19 F) working in germany, I met my host parents about a week ago and some red flags have seemed to show. Firstly my things have been gone through as I don’t have on my bedroom door. Secondly my host dad keeps giving me a weird vibe and has been making racist and misogynistic comments since I got here. He has also almost been in two fights with cyclists for saying something to them I didn’t understand. I’m not sure if I should continue to work for this family and need some advice. Is this normal?

Some of the racist comments include when I was saying I wanted to practice my German he said “ you should only speak to the blonde “real” germans”

They also had two Au-pairs who both left early about two months in when they were meant to stay for 6-12.

All advice is welcome thank you!

Update* I just escaped the mother started screaming at me, due to me having scarring on my arms. I’d like to note that these scars are years old and healed. Told me she did not hire a problem and that I was not allowed to talk about my past or my family if i wanted to stay. I genuinely just had to run out of the house with all my things. I’m a crying mess but i’m safe.

second update*

I’m on my way to family in london, I’m originally from Australia so I am a long way from home but I am safe now. Thank you for the advice

Last two weeks of full time work before the baby goes to school! I say baby because I’ve known them almost their whole life but they’ll be 4 soon. I’m staying with this family part time because I love them and I don’t want to look for a new one just yet. I’m a little nervous about making things work financially but I’m so so so excited to have more time to take care of myself. Also a little nervous about two weeks of full time adventuring with both kids because I don’t really come by that amount of energy naturally. But we’ll have fun!

First week with older NK’s back in school and MB has two more months of maternity leave left.

They’ve decided to keep me on my full time schedule, help older kids in the AM and get them to school.

I feel like it’s been so awkward that they’re just giving me tasks to do around the home (nk related nothing with baby.) I have been rearranging the rooms, tossing things out etc.

How did maternity leave with MB home go for everyone else?? Maybe I’m just overthinking

The audacity of my NF to leave an instruction list for how they want bedtime routines to go and to put under the dinner instruction “please make sure he eats a good amount”. This NK is so picky, has no patience for sitting for meals, and would truly just eat chips for every meal (he’s asked MB for chips at breakfast before she left for work and she put chips on his breakfast plate that I had already made). I’m just so sick of picky eaters and idc the excuses or reasons people give for it. Yeah kids will push back on everything, food included. Picky eating may be a thing kids do naturally but that doesn’t mean we give in to it. Just the same as when kids don’t want to take baths or potty train. So many parents I’ve worked for don’t care to keep trying to get their kids to eat well and it’s so annoying. Don’t tell me to make sure your kid eats well when you haven’t been doing anything to also do that.

Hey guys! Was having a convo with a friend and it unlocked a memory that I thought you all might enjoy. Here we go…

A while ago I was working for a new NF and was tasked with preparing the child’s lunch for school. It was my first week and we were all still getting into the rhythm of things.

It was already later than my end time, but I knew the parents were busy and I wanted to go above and beyond and also save them the hassle of making the lunch in the morning. I put the lunch in the fridge, texted them a rundown of the day and thanked them for a great day.

I come in the next day to find that the child did not eat their lunch. The reason? There was no fork in the child’s lunch bag. Mind you, I hadn’t even been shown where the lunch bag was stored.

When I asked the dad if it would be helpful for me to start putting silverware and a napkin in the lunch bag so that they didn’t have to worry about it in the morning, his response was “Yeah I didn’t put one in there to teach you a lesson”.

I was gagged. You’re joking. Like you’re really going to deny your child the ability to eat their lunch because you are too petty and lazy to put a fork in the lunch bag???? He was dead serious too.

Anyway. There are other great NFs out there and I encourage you all to not settle for a low effort NF who will let their child go hungry because they lord their power and control over their Nannie’s.

I had a family ask me Thursday night if I was available for Saturday afternoon. I answered Friday morning (I was asleep), that I was only available for half the time. I don’t hear back from the family at all on Friday so I assume they found someone else.

Nope! Wake up to a text from them this morning saying “great; see you then” (5 hours before the job starts).

Incredibly rude and such a lack of respect for my time. No apology or acknowledgement of the lack of response. If I didn’t need the $, I would absolutely say “oh; I’m sorry. Since I didn’t hear from you, I assumed you had found someone else”. Grrrr.

Hi everyone! I have an interview with a potential family next Friday, MB told me it’s between me and one other person what can I do to help me get the job? I would appreciate tips and advice that you guys have. I really want this she seems so nice and so many families have either picked someone else over me or they end up ghosting me. What can I do to stand out?

I have been with my nf for a little over a month...and i can't handle it. This kid (under a year) is awful, the most intense Velcro baby. The parents are helicopter parents who can't bare to see her cry without swooping in and saving the day. VERY against sleep training, so it's cosleep and contact naps. Oh did I mention exclusively breastfeeding but mom doesn't wfh?...or even comes home during the day. So this babe isnt eating.

None of this was said to me during our interviews, in our interviews and meetings she was a dream baby, no issues, but they had never had a nanny before. So I knew first time parents, first nanny, there would be a learning curve, I was prepared for it. I love working with first time parents, but those parents took my advice. These parents are so stuck in their cycle they can't see how much they're messing up.

After the most hellish week, I came home and read over the contract to see how the fuck to get out of it...and i can't. I'm stuck here. I have to give months notice. I can't quit without breaking the contract.

I have no idea what to do. I tell the parents I'm struggling with x, y, and z and they offer no help or brainstorming. Instead I get passive aggressive comments about how I'm doing things wrong all while barely surviving and them knowing that. It's been a month and I'm beaten down, I dont know what to do. I cant out her down, she screams. I can't pick her up, she screams. I can't feed her, she screams. I can't look away, she'll scream. I can't go to the bathroom, she screams. I can't grab a drink of water, she screams. I can't get her to nap without holding her, and even then...she screams.

What. The. Fuck. Do. I. Do.

Ive never met a more difficult baby in my life.