Au Pair cost - 6month baby other dilemmas

Smashing

I've never heard of anyone in their 30s being an au pair. It's a young personss job - a way to see the world, get experience and experience a different cultures. You'd be looking at finding someone younger or employing a nanny.

Milky_Mocha

Thanks for all the replies. They are really valued and have made me think twice about certain aspects. For fear of making my original post too long I omitted certain details.

Yes I do work full time at the moment but intend to work four days a week after maternity leave, with slightly reduced hours on each of those days.

Lilac lady, I was also concerned about whether she'd be physically able to cope with the second child's arrival so its good to get a perspective from a 60-ish year old.

Suziq, apologies if using the term 'elderly' is inappropriate. I wasn't entirely sure. You're right about the risks of letting her go. I'd certainly regret it if I ended up with a 'disaster' and I've been so lucky so far. The childminder who has my daughter 2 days a week is a Godsend and they absolutely adore each other. I have taken my current live in help out with my daughter to show her how to spend time with her - not much - any of the aforementioned activities would be fine but each time she has found an excuse not to do it. She considers it irresponsible of parents to let their children play in the open. In her day children always had lots of siblings or lived among cousins their age so they just kept each other amused.

Shellsuit, yes I do all of these things with my daughter and so does her Dad - we take her swimming, on her bike when I get home around 6, he plays football with her, we read her bedtime stories and all but we feel sorry for her when for the times we are at work she's home bored all day with no personal interaction. Maybe we are overreacting and she is getting enough activity. I know that when she's with the childminder (we do use a local childminder as well for two days) they have so many activities and she comes home shattered so perhaps she's fine. I do prefer some live-in help also hence my dilemma.

Titch89, I think you misunderstood the point about the scrapes and cuts. I'm not worried about these as they are part of growing up but my live-in carer uses these as an excuse for her not to play outdoors.

I don't really mind what type of help I get - au pair/ au pair plus / homeworker, as long as its live-in in addition to my daytime carer, but yes it would be a fair amount of hours. I do realise, though that it is likely to cost a bit more than what I'm paying now. My current carer was hired under different circumstances, though, as she is a distant relative and we do fork out more to her for incidentals (e.g. we paid for her flights to visit family - approx £800 return),gave her an advance to cover an emergency and then did not deduct it from her wages as initially agreed. She had initially offered to do the work for much less as she said our daughter is practically her grandniece but we insisted.

I know using the word 'fired' sounds a bit harsh but my thoughts were that she is now unsuitable for the sort of tasks we require as circumstances have changed since 1.5 years ago.

I think what I'll do is to keep her on, as yes, time flies and DD will start school before we know it and we would still have someone trustworthy who fits in. When the new baby arrives and its time for me to go back to work I could let DD go to the childminder for the 4 days instead of 2.

Again, I appreciate each and every reply.

Hell_Dans_Un_Handcart

Errata wrote: »

I'm not sure if the OP works or not. In any case it's illegal to leave a child under 2 in the sole care of an au pair, although the employee seems outside the au pair age range.

I also was told this by an agency, when I was looking into hiring an au pair (it was a pain because they are cheaper than nannies, sob). Might be worth investigating, OP?

I know a lot of people do nanny shares these days to save cash.

ebaybaby

Did anyone watch "Personal Services" the ast few weeks on CH4? A couple of weeks ago it featured Au Pairs and according to this the OP is not paying hers a "pittance". Im sure someone said on the TV approx £60 per wk is the going rate, thats for childcare, cleaning duties, ironing etc.

tutkusmom

Hi,
I was an au pair years ago,there is an age limit to au pairs ,i think you can do it untill the age of 27 if i am not wrong,i can't remember it now,it has been 10 years since i did it.

An au pair works 5 hours a day usually monday till friday which is 5 days a week plus you have to babysit twice a week.You are aloud to do whatever you want to do outside of working hours,going to a language school or meeting friends etc.I use to take the kids to school come back home and do a quick cleaning on the days when i didn't go to school.I then had to pick the kids up from school and give them tea and look after them till their mother got back home which was 5-5.30pmish and that was it.

Another thing is there is no guarantee an au pair will stay with you as long as you need her to because i know many young girls who got home sick and returned back home after a couple of months arriving to Britain.If that happens ,you will end up having to deal finding somebody else to care for your children who you can trust which is not the easiest thing.Perhaps once the baby is born you can send your older child to a nanny full time where the person who is living with you can concantrate on the baby full time.This way the older one will get enough activities that would suit her age and the baby will get the full attention of your helper as it is a hard job to look after a newborn.

Nicki

What is the current lady's immigration status? Does she have a permit to work in the UK? If not, and you decide to fire her, then you may well find yourself in serious legal problems, should she decide to make life difficult for you. It seems fairly clear she is not an au pair, which is a clearly defined legal term with age and country of origin restrictions for the purposes of UK law. You must therefore pay her the minimum wage. Working out what the minimum wage for her is is more complicated because she is live in. I would advise that you contact a nanny agency for advice on this. If you have not been paying her minimum wage, then you may also be in problems. The way round both of these issues is to ensure that when you let her go, you do so with a generous pay off and plenty of notice so that she leaves you on good terms. The final problem is that you are required to pay her tax and national insurance contributions (based on her deemed wage of £250 per week + the value of her accommodation), and you will be in serious trouble with the tax man if you haven't been doing this and they find out. Treating the former carer well when you dismiss her won't necessarily save you from a nasty shock on this front if you haven't been doing this. Apologies of course if you have been paying all of these things but your posts to date have read as though you've been doing things slightly on the hoof.

As for her replacement, based on what you have posted, it seems that you need someone who can do more hours than an au pair. I would therefore recommend that you again approach an agency to find a live-in nanny. The agency will charge a fee for this but will carry out all checks for you (eg CRB) and will also be able to advise you on minimum wage requirements, notice periods, entitlement to sick pay and maternity leave, etc. I would recommend you go down this route both because of the number of hours you need someone to work, and also because of the need for stability. As others have pointed out, au pairs are a short term placement not a long term one.

If the cost of a nanny is prohibitive, then could you consider using a childminder for both children instead?

Titch89

dogrose wrote: »

£57 for 3 days childcare? wow. is that really what the going rate for an aupair is? does the mimimum wage not apply?

No it doesn't. Generally, au pairs live in the house with the 'host family' and would generally eat their food and use the other stuff that they use.

margaretclare

No, I do NOT think that 61 is elderly!!! I also think that experience, including experience of life, is very valuable.

However, you seem to have a lot of other problems which may not be related to this lady's age. Do I sense that there are 'cultural' differences?

zekepes

I haven't had an aupair myself but a few friends have, including my SIL. They tend to be young girls and are really not expected to work that much, from what I can gather. My SIL had a couple of nightmare ones who turned out to be as much help as having another child (but then my SIL can be a bit unreasonable so I would like to hear the other side, too!) but on the whole they provided a very valuable service!

I don't think any of my friends left their children in the sole care of the au pair though (exceptions being popping out for less than 20 mins). My SIL had a full-time nanny in addition and the au pair helped her a bit (as she has a singleton and twins) and did a bit of babysitting in the evning when the kids were pre-school. The kids also went to kindergarten to mix with other children. VERY expensive I would imagine.

I think you would be very lucky to get an au pair in their thirties. I would imagine by that age, if they had chosen to work with children, they would be fully qualified nannies.

In your situation, I think I would be tempted to have my children with the childminder during the day and the au pair take and pick them up for you (maybe chopping off 1-1.5 hrs of childminder time at each end of the day) and perhaps prepare the evening meal (while the children are at the childminder) and do a little evening babysitting. That would probably add up to the 21 hours or so they are supposed to do and maybe your current au pair would suit that role better.

Errata

It would appear that in fact you are employing a domestic worker. The fact that she happens to be a relative doesn't mean exemption from employment law, immigration law, and tax and insurance requirements.
Could I suggest you do some internet research on the legal position of employing someone to look after your children etc etc.