I need to vent (and ask opinions of other fellow nannies)
I am the nanny of a 3 year old and now 4 month old baby. I was working 60 hours plus a week and the parents recently hired a pt nanny who comes 2 half days a week. I like the parents I work for; but the parenting sucks.. It makes for my day pretty rough. Currently training the 3 year old on the potty. Parents have him sitting on his little potty in front of TV. Child was doing fabulous until a few days ago where he just refused to go. I (the nanny) have him in big boy pants all day and he (the child) loves the idea. He wants to be the big kid. When mom has him it's straight to the pull ups- although child doesn't want to. Yesterday (child was going to school with mom- it's a preschool/ parent involved class) He was in big boy pants and I told him he needed to go potty before he left with mom. I mentioned that he had big boy pants on. Mom said I don't want to deal with that at school- he needs to be in pull ups. Child had a total melt down- he wanted his big boy pants.. Parents don't encourage at all.
Other ways she really makes bite my tongue...
Since we hired the new person- I thought it would be nice for the older child to spend quality time with me- I've been with him since he was 5 months old- so I asked mom if it would be okay to take C out while new person was at home with baby- doesn't want baby out in cold- mom refused. "I don't want new person to do nothing while baby sleeps. All he (older child) wants to do is play". No he wants someone's attention!!!! And that's really hard with a little one...
Since new person can set her own days (I'm okay with this) she set to work M and W of next week. Mom has an important conference (C school day) at work; and so I asked her if she wanted new person to come over on that day and I would take C to school. She refused.. "I don't want to change her schedule if I don't have too- um she was changing it anyway as she is going out of town... Really?
Every since baby was born and mom has gone back to work- things in her have changed. I know she is stressed about work and I give her the benefit of the doubt; but I am so frustrated.
About the pull ups - can you not compromise and do underwear at home, pull ups out in town, and just shift the focus to staying dry/clean? We used to do this with one of the kids who had a harder time potty training. He had unpredictable accidents and we didn't want to spend half our lives cleaning them up, so we switched him to pull ups and rewarded him for every day he kept the pull ups dry (this after a long time in underwear with a lot of stress on everybody's part).
ReplyDeleteAs for the situation with the new nanny and wanting to take the oldest on outings, etc - are you expecting to be paid for these hours or just wanting to spend time with him? If the latter, I would stress that. If the former (which I would assume) it's not that surprising that she declines your offers, as it sounds like they hired a second nanny to give you a break, and you're essentially "doubling up" on childcare if you are also working during these hours (and they're paying double).
New babies are stressful for everyone - you included! It takes awhile to find a new normal. Needing to vent is normal, too. :)