Our nanny comments all the time about how she feels bad about eating our food or thanking me for eating our food. When she started, I told her she could help herself to anything here. Isn't that normal? Do most other nannies bring their own lunch?
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I always ate their food when I was a nanny. I would even make a list of what the kids and I wanted.
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@Bao: I told her she should let me know if there are certain items she wanted stocked but she hasn't given me anything yet!
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@winniebee: is she older or younger? I was 17-22 at the time so I was poor and always ate what the kids ate
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Haha! When I nannied I would sometimes snack on their food, but I generally brought my own for meals. A big part of that was that I'm a vegetarian and they ate a ton of meat, but I definitely felt weird sometimes eating their food and preferred to just bring my own.
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What a sweetheart! Maybe other families she has worked for didn't want to feed her?
When I nannied in college I was always so disappointed in the food selection in my family's house. Haha.
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@Bao: She's 30. She's been a nanny for awhile but based on a few things she has said about her last family, I don't think it was a warm inviting environment!
@mediagirl: I like to think we have pretty good food around here, haha.
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I feed my nanny snacks and drinks (and lunch when we go out), but she likes to bring her lunch from home. She told me she liked Coca Cola, so I bought a 4-pack of 2L bottles from Costco for her, haha.
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Hmmm... we've only left B with a nanny three or four times, but she never ever ate our food and I could barely talk her into having some tea. I don't know if she was on some special diet, or it was because she was at work... but if she forgot her lunch, she took B and went home to eat.
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Our nanny always brings her own food. I think she prefers it that way.
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@HabesBabe: She likes diet coke and we keep the house stocked with it anyways! She literally just sent me a text saying she was feeling guilty for drinking all of our diet coke and wants to buy some for the house!
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It sounds like she is just being nice. I was always fed "their food" as a nanny! I was welcome to eat anything and I definitely did! Who wants a low blood sugar nanny?!
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@Greentea: not me! I figure it's the least I could do
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Our nanny brings her own lunch but we always tell her she's welcome to help herself to anything she wants. I think we have this dynamic for a few reasons: we are in a share so we rotate houses, and we started out with infants so we didn't necessarily have a ton of lunch food around in the early days (DH and I both usually bring leftovers for lunch). If we have a ton of good leftovers (like, from LO's birthday party, for example), I usually text her the night before and tell her that we have x, y, or z if she doesn't want to pack a lunch.
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@jape14: Same.
We tell her to eat or drink whatever, but (shockingly) she's not too keen on eating pouches, cheerios, and baked green beans (my son's snacks that are usually on hand). I also pack my son's lunch every day in his lunch box so she's not having to really cook anything for him. We're not a huge snack family and we take leftovers for lunch. If, for instance, I go get muffins in the morning, she will have one.
I definitely don't specifically buy food for her. Reading this thread, I'm starting to wonder if I'm not the norm. If she asked for something, I totally would, but my grocery bill is high enough without having to feed a 4th person lunch every day!
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@LBee: we have a 3.5 year old and a 11 month old and they eat snacks galore, fruit, and I work from home so want a stocked pantry! I cook most nights so we almost always have some leftovers going on....we like to eat!
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So the two families I've nannied for just kind of sucked at regularly getting groceries lol so the agreement generally was that I could eat what they had but not to expect there to be anything. With my last family I had my own fridge and kept food there but if they had dinner leftovers or whatever they always set them out for me. Sometimes I would eat some of their ice cream but I always felt bad about it so it didn't happen often and I didn't eat much of it.
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Mine always brought her own food but i told her she was welcome to whatever we had. She kept kosher though which i think is why. Either that or she was less than impressed with our options (which prob sucked lol)
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We used to pay our nanny a lunch allowance because she was super picky about food. At first we tried to arrange it so that we would buy food for her at the grocery store when we did our weekly shopping but she immediately asked for the cash instead..
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We tell ours that she is welcome to anything we have, and sometimes she'll eat something. I always point out whenever we have yummy things like home-made cookies, brownies, pie, banana bread, etc. She'll usually eat those! (My sister comes over weekly and usually bakes!)
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our nanny always brought her own lunch and i constantly told her to have whatever she wants from the fridge. Sometimes she accepted coffee when i made extra.
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I keep telling our nanny to help herself and to let me know what I can buy for her, write things on our grocery list, etc. I'm sure she eats a few things here and there but she always brings a lunchbox with her too. I wish she would tell me what to buy!
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I think she sounds sweet. When I would babysit they always told me to eat whatever I wanted and I took them up on it
I would just keep telling her to make herself at home and throwing in little things that you know that she likes and making sure that she knows that they are for her.
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Ours have always brought their own food, but we've only had them 1 day/week. I've always told our caregivers/babysitters to help themselves to whatever we have, but I'm not one of those people who go out of our way to buy anything different or make sure there is a stocked pantry or fridge! If I have baked something, I make sure to tell them to have some, though.
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Yes, it's normal!
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I cooked lunch for our nanny, and had a list on a whiteboard of available snacks. We meal plan, so I didn't want her having free range to all of the food. I'd make sure I had lots of healthy snacks on hand. We discussed this being part of her compensation (in a way), and it was never awkward.
Maybe just a refresh of: "Hey, I wanted to let you know that anything in this cabinet (or part of the fridge) is totally up for grabs. I want you to feel nourished while you're here, and I'm happy to provide food for you!" -- or ask if she has any favorite produce or snacks you can stock for her.
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