Can anyone give us an advice on using au pair

gingin_2

missk_ensington wrote:

Whats the DLA got to do with an au pair???!! I don't see the relevance myself.

Actually it is quite standard for an au pair to cook and clean, if not it wouldn't ask about it in the questions from the agencies.
I don't think I am asking too much for an au pair to pick up a phone and call someone if I blackout, and ensure my son doesn't drink bleach or anything!

What is Aupair?

"Aupair" is French for "on par," reminding host families that, although an employee, their international visitor is to be treated as a member of the family. An aupair is a young person who spends time abroad in order to learn a foreign language and a foreign culture whilst living as part of a family in a foreign country. In return for full board, lodging and pocket money, aupairs agree to help with the children and perform light household duties.

They are well educated, usually to university degree levels or attending a university. Aupairs become full-fledged family members, sharing a cultural exchange experience which often leads to a lasting relationship with the host family.

What Aupairs Do...

The aupair's childcare responsibilities may include:

- Awakening the children, dressing, bathing and feeding them
- Playing with children and helping them with their homework
- Preparing light meals or helping to prepare meals, making children's beds, doing their laundry, ironing their clothes
- Taking/collecting children to and from school, appointments or outings requested by the host family
- Shopping, vacuuming, dusting and some other light housework
- Staying home if necessary while children are absent from school due to illness or holidays
- Baby-sitting - up to two evenings per week.

The au pair is not a cleaner or a housemaid. Their responsibilities do not include heavy housework unrelated to the children such as cleaning the windows, cleaning the home or polishing.

It cannot be too strongly stressed though, that au pairs are not qualified nannies or domestic servants, they should not be expected to take sole responsibility for the children or household duties.

Bogof_Babe

I think some of you are giving miss k_ensington a bit of a hard time here. She is genuinely asking for information, and at no time has she said she wants cheap labour. She is in an unenviable situation so I don't blame her looking at all the options to keep her son safe and give herself a bit of support. No-one has to work for her if they don't like the package on offer - it works both ways.

Those who pooh-pooh the talk of £50 pocket money as being inadequate obviously have a far higher level of disposable income than I do!

I just wish you could get equivalent live-in help for old folks in their own homes - that would be a huge weight off my mind. But I digress...

bikerqueen

even though you say her room will be nice, in your first post dont you say that the house you live in is derelict? Won't that be a problem?

*Magnolia*

Just to share my experience, I worked as an au pair a few years ago while travelling, I am from Australasia and I worked on a farm in the UK, caring for a baby and a 3 year old. I was also expected to do a lot of cleaning, and also chop firewood, which took an hour a day in the snow and was rather difficult to do whilst still caring for the children, as was the cleaning. There was always a big list left for me each day. I prepared dinner too.

I was paid 60 pounds a week and lived in so my food was provided.

The children were lovely and I am still friends with their parents and send presents on birthdays and Chritmas, and vice versa.

I got that job off the https://www.greataupair.com site and had to go for an interview first. I was there for 6 months.

The same family have been let down on 3 occasions by au pairs who left within the week or took the flight and visa into UK provided by the family and never showed up.

My advice would be to allow the Au Pair to focus on your child and don't expect a major amount of cleaning- your child is far more important. Suggest activities such as reading, painting, playing outside and going for walks, and don't let them plonk your child in front of tv all day.

Could your Au Pair be homesick? Take that in to consideration as well and do your best to be a friend to them- my bosses took me to the pub on occasion and out shopping, etc. It is hard to be away from your family and country.

Hope that helps a bit!
Magnolia xx

Idontknow_2

I used the above site and found it perfect I would contact them trough email and tell them who we are and what we looked for in an au pair girl and if she was interested to send us a mail back with a chat address or phone number.
The site I listed above does not require you to pay a finders fee. You basiclly cut out the agency price and pay a fee to the website in order to view all the au pairs contact information.
We would also talk before hand who would pay for the flight, mostly it was splitt in half, but when they found their own flight that we would find on other sites cheaper they would have to pay most of it. As to sending them back if you dont like them, make sure you tell her that there will be a trial periode, with us it was 3 months, now if we would send them back because we didn't like them, we found that we should pay the flight back as it's only fair since it was our decision not to keep her (now this never happened). Do not think it's easy having an au pair girl as you won't have much privacy left but you also need to keep in mind that it's not easy for them being in a strange country where they don't know anybody and sometimes don't understand the language fully.
When you look for an au pair, make sure you know in advance what you want, do you want somebody only for the holidays or longer? what country do you want them to come from, and what age do you want them to be, I didn't want them to be younger then 18 and have a basic understanding of english. If your au pair girl doesn't do what you ask do not assume straight away that she is lazy, maybe she didn't understand you... I would only call them lazy when you find them sleeping on the sofa whilst they put on a dvd for your kids, that's why we had random unannounced early days home :-)

Like I said before I had 8 of them, some good some terrible... but in the end it was the best solution for me and my OH as we both work shifts.

If there is anything I could give you advise on send me a pm or mail, i'll be more then happy to assist as I know what it's like.

PS: I would take a longer membership on the site in case it doesn't work out it would cost you more on long term, and keep all potential candidates email address for futher reference.

missk_ensington

Bikerqueen - yes the house is in need of a full renovation, but I would obviously have the au pairs room decorated, with new carpets and curtains prior to their arrival. The bathroom is being done this weekend, and the kitchen in the next 3 weeks, so the major things will be done by the time she arrives (not until August at least)

I don't want a maid, or a full time nanny. Just want a bit of a hand, a bit of hoovering and if she doesn't mind spending an hour or two a week helping me iron, I'd really appreciate that. In return I'll sit and help with her English (I do English Lit at uni, and did Linguistics at A level and in my first year of uni) and I'll take her to Manchester and Blackpool, and book her trains to London and the Lakes so she can see the country.

After much deliberation, my son will still go to nursery 3 days a week (if

missk_ensington

Bikerqueen - yes the house is in need of a full renovation, but I would obviously have the au pairs room decorated, with new carpets and curtains prior to their arrival. The bathroom is being done this weekend, and the kitchen in the next 3 weeks, so the major things will be done by the time she arrives (not until August at least)

I don't want a maid, or a full time nanny. Just want a bit of a hand, a bit of hoovering and if she doesn't mind spending an hour or two a week helping me iron, I'd really appreciate that. In return I'll sit and help with her English (I do English Lit at uni, and did Linguistics at A level and in my first year of uni) and I'll take her to Manchester and Blackpool, and book her trains to London and the Lakes so she can see the country.

After much deliberation, my son will still go to nursery 3 days a week (if I don't send him it'd be fraud because I've already been given the money from the Childcare Grant) so she'll have to do 2 full days during the week and one day at weekend, accompanying me swimming, or something pleasant. In addition I'd like a little help with cooking (is 2 nights a week too much to ask?). I don't think thats much to ask for her £40 a week (which is entirely disposable because everything is included).

Thanks to the people offering genuine advice and tips. I think I'm going to get someone just for one month and see if it works in practice.

I'm using Au Pair World.net and there's a whole load of info about pay, hours of work, duties etc etc. It also says on there that the host should not pay for flights/visa's.

gingin_2

missk_ensington wrote:

Thanks to the people offering genuine advice and tips. I think I'm going to get someone just for one month and see if it works in practice.

Are there Au Pairs that will stay with you for only 1 month?

missk_ensington

gingin- yeah, that's actually all most of them want! A lot of them finish July from uni/college and want to come over just August, or August and September and back for the new academic year in October. The ones travelling further (Oz, South Aprica, Thailand) obviously want to stay a minimum of 6 months, but I'm looking at Italian, Czech, French au pairs so its only 1-2 hour flight.

I'd rather have someone European so that it doesn't cost me too much airfare if I want to send them back!

starlite_2

to avoid starting another thread on a similar topic..

we are looking to make a little extra money from our spare room, and thought about getting a live in nanny who would pay us £200ish per month for rent and bills, and look after our baby two days per week. (we would be entirely flexible so she could organise another job around this)

Do you think this is resonable, given last year we had a lodger who paid £450 per month for the room alone?