SHARING YOUR HOME WITH NANNY

When my husband and I found out we were going to have twins, one of the first decisions we made, after the decision that NO, we would NEVER BUY A MINI-VAN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE (and yes, we’ve stuck to that!) was that we would hire a nanny instead of use day care. That turned out to be one of the BEST decisions EVER! (Probably even better than that mini-van decision, although that could be a toss-up!)

But before you hire a nanny, you must be prepared for many adjustments. It’s not easy having another woman in your household. Not for you or your husband. For him, it’s like having two wives sometimes, and not in the good way! For you, you’re sharing almost everything. And sometimes that’s good, because you’re able to share a lot of the responsibilities and delegate a lot of them to her. But you have to remember that she is basically in charge of the house and the kids from eight to five or so while you are gone.

I know, you’re thinking, “No way, Karen, it’s MY house and they’re MY kids and I’M the boss whether I’m there or not.” And in theory, you’re correct. But the reality is, you ain’t there and you ain’t the one making the decisions. Yes, you set the guidelines on how to run the household and what the children eat, drink, play with, etc. (And of course it’s all filled out in The Caregiver Organizer that you leave for her.) But she’s the one handling the minute by minute details that come up, day in and day out.

The bottom line is, you must be prepared to let go. You cannot maintain the control that you’re used to having when you have a nanny. It will just end up stressing you out, plus putting huge amounts of stress on your nanny, which will not be a good situation for your kids. If you try to micro-manage a nanny, she will end up leaving you. She needs to have a certain amount of independence in order to do her job effectively. That does NOT mean to let her do what she wants, of course. She is still your employee, taking care of YOUR KIDS, and that always gives you the right, and the duty, to keep your eye on her. But that’s another post for another day!

So just look at it this way… you now have a wife! Hmmm, interesting!

Karen