Month: June 2015

Leaving your nanny job

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye….All good things must come to an end.

It’s cliché but it’s true, and this time of year is often a time when jobs end. Moving on is part of nannying, children don’t stay young forever and the summer before starting school is often a natural break point, but that doesn’t make leaving your charges behind any less painful.

Work with the parents to prepare your charges for the transition. It’s very distressing for children to suddenly learn that it’s their beloved nanny’s last week with them. You need to give children time to process the change, ask questions and be reassured. Pretending that it isn’t happening will only make it harder in the long run for both you and them. Your charges will pick up on your feelings through your notice period no matter how much you try to hide it.

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Summer maths

School may seem a long way away but you can keep those mathematical skills ticking over and even developing, all while having fun.

Count – forwards, backwards, every which way. Start from different numbers and don’t be tempted to go on from 20 all the way to 100 if you don’t need to. At an early age this means saying a sequence of numbers to 5 or 10 but back that up with counting out concrete objects 1…2…3 and the understanding that ‘3’ relates to the total number of objects as well as what you say when you put the third object down. Bring this in naturally, for example you’re pouring drinks for your charges and their friends – ask them how many they need, get them to count out the glasses, count as you’re pouring the drinks. Count the number of petals on a simple flower or try to count the number of petals on a daisy – are they all the same? Get children used to the idea of estimating by guessing a number before you count the petals. Use mathematical language like the first swing and the second swing. Make collections and count them out, and use the shells or stones or sticks you’ve collected to sort them later.

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Students for summer childcare

Every year university students use their long summer break to earn a bit of extra cash to support them through their studies. Often young women, although some young men too, who like children see spending a summer as a nanny as the perfect solution. Students can be a great alaternative if you’re considering a summer au pair, but there pros and cons to weigh up.

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Top 10 messy summer activities

  1. Give the soft toys a bath
  2. Paint with ice crayons
  3. Improvise a mud kitchen
  4. Make ‘potions’ with grass and flowers
  5. Finger, hand, foot, knee, tummy painting on a huge sheet of paper outside
  6. Tie-dye a white t-shirt
  7. Try large scale splatter painting
  8. Throw wet sponges at targets
  9. Make a shaving cream slide – it’s like a water slide, but messier
  10. Water pistol painting!

Top 10 for sunny summer days

  1. Get out the paddling pool, fill it up and stay in there for hours
  2. Make a sundial
  3. Draw on the patio, the pavement and the walls…
  4. …then wash it off again
  5. Have a BBQ
  6. Rescue frozen animals or figurines (put animals, lego men, playmobil etc in ice cube trays or small bowls of water in the freezer and let the children work out how to get them out)
  7. Blow bubbles
  8. Plant a butterfly garden
  9. Skip
  10. Have a water fight

Settling in a temporary nanny

You might have a temporary nanny to cover a gap in childcare, to fill in for your usual nanny, or over a period like the school summer holidays. Whatever the reason you’re likely to be able to spend less time showing her the ropes and letting her bed in, and you need to be quicker to correct anything that looks like it’s going downhill.

Most temporary nannies are very flexible and adaptable people. Nannies who temp long term often choose to do so because they enjoy the variety temping brings and are happy to do things your way. They are experienced enough to get on with the job and quickly develop a good relationship with their new charges. They are also a dab hand at asking the right questions to get the information they need from you, which means you don’t have to tell them absolutely everything about your life in case it’s relevant.

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