Hellobee Boards

I always tell babysitters to help themselves to whatever, but I think you need to lay the ground rules the first day, either she can eat/drink what she wants, or make food off limits. You could also ask her what types of things she likes to eat so you that you always have something on hand.

Is she allowed to leave the house with baby? Take a walk with the stroller around the block or to a nearby park, especially when the weather gets nice?

I would maybe set some rules about cleaning (or not, if you don't need it). Especially for when the baby is older, do you expect her to put away all toys at the end of the day? Do any laundry? Clean up the kitchen?

Good luck!

We do not feed her, but say that anything at the house is open to her. There was a post recently about this and it seems I was sort of the outlander in not feeding her. I pay her a good salary and kind of thought it was a little weird for me to also buy her lunch?

Honestly, we just keep the communication open and there are constantly things I'm remembering to tell her. I just texted the nanny this morning. We probably text at least once during the day while she's there.

One thing is I would set ground rules in terms of expectations early. I never told my 2 day a week nanny that I would like the dishes put in the dishwasher and not the sink - we are a year in and it's too late at this point to mention it.

@MrsADS: Hope it went well! Just wanted to chime in for you and others that setting ground rules early on is key. I had this tip and it really helped with our current PT nanny. We don't have a contract but I basically just sent her an email laying out our expectations in an informal way and told her if she wants a more formal agreement we are open to that too.

I was torn about food and considered just buying her some freezer meals and asking what she likes, but our older kids would of course want whatever she has. So I just told her she can eat whatever we have, she is welcome to bring her own food but if she eats something different from what the boys have, to please "sneak" it so they don't see it and want it. Then I described some of the things we usually make for meals (sandwiches, leftovers, etc) to get her started. She's been coming about 4 weeks and it has worked out so far.

We don't provide food for our nanny and typically she brings food from home or buys stuff when she's out and about with the kids. I agree with the other posters and don't think you need to provide food. We do, however, give her extra money or gift cards to the supermarkets b/c she usually buys her food there and then many times shares it with the kids b/c, of course, they want to eat what she's eating.

We've had our nanny for 3.5 years and she's become part of the family. She's a professional nanny, so we never really had to ask her to do things/not do things. She loads/unloads the dishwasher, cleans up after the kids and when the kids were younger, kept a log of their meals/naptimes/diapers. Otherwise, we always have a morning and evening debrief on the kids.