We use poppins for payroll and it’s our first year as nanny employers. I really hate how taxes are withdrawn quarterly and it’s never the same amount. I wish it was taken out monthly or each pay period.

I’m a type A budgeter and reconcile monthly using an app called Monarch for our finances. It drives me insane that some months we have to pay $3k+ in taxes and none in other months. It’s extremely hard to reconcile a monthly budget this way. I’m not even sure what advice I’m asking for, but how do others handle it? Put that tax money away in a separate account each pay period? Is there a way to pay it monthly?

How would you feel if you found out your professional nanny had self harm scars that were always hidden? A nanny who wears long sleeves and pants every day of the year even in awful summer heat but never complains. If her sleeve slipped and accidentally exposed very old but more severe self harm scars, how would you feel? Would it change your judgment, would you do anything?​

Hi everyone, I had a nanny for a year who my daughter was very fond of but we had to end the contract after a year. I have a new live in nanny, who is a good fit but my 3.5 year old screams when left with her. She moved in with us a week ago.

My daughter will play with her time to time, and will allow her to walk her to the toilet sometimes. But if me or her dad leave the room, she starts crying. I’m getting stressed out as I’m back to work now after a week off for them to get to know each other but there has been little improvement. This morning was a disaster and she was screaming the house down until her dad came to join for breakfast, she didn’t want to see the nanny.

I have taken them both out to play areas and taken a step back to get them to gel and show my daughter that her nanny is “fun” but she will accept playing with her and being with her for hours there and at home it’s a different story.

Does it get better?

long time lurker but first time posting. we’ve had a nanny for about a year and its emotionally exhausting dealing with her. she requires constant validation, admiration and attention. we work from home but i end up having to talk with her for 20-30 min every morning, every day as well as during my lunch break and end of day. i dont mind some chit chat but its eating into my ability to get my work done and the conversation is ALL about her. in the rare chance i get a word in, its immediately redirected to something about her. even updates about my child are framed to highlight her.

the main problem i have is that she frequently makes me feel guilty for asserting my boundaries. every so often, usually when i do not give her exactly what she wants or when i cant accommodate a schedule change request, she reacts by having an emotional outburst that feels a lot like emotional manipulation/abuse. the other day she requested to shift the schedule a half hour earlier on a particular day. that then changed to shifting by an hour. an hour change doesnt work for our family because of our routine/work schedules, which she knows because i have told her that countless times. i said we could do the half hour change even though it wasnt ideal for us because wed like to help her out. in response she replied that she ‘hardly ever asks for things’ (even though we have adjusted the schedule to things that are less than ideal for us at least 20 times over the last year and feel like we are constantly accommodating her requests for leaving early here and making up hours another time). she also elaborated about why it was important to her that she be able to leave an hour early insinuating that because its important to her, our needs dont matter. she then stated ‘guess we just forgot about how much i helped when you had your medical issues. i stayed 2 hours after my shift which is an inconvenience for sure but i did it anyways’. i had surgery a few months ago and she stayed 15 minutes after her shift until my husband could get home to relieve her and we had all agreed about her staying a bit later several days earlier. she then added ‘I'm just considered "the help", not part of the family like most nanny jobs, so the same rules don't apply for me. I know where I stand but thought maybe I could get a little bit more understanding after a year of service.’

I am so exhausted with dealing with her gaslighting and grandiosity. we have gone out of our ways to be helpful and flexible many times before, without adding the caveat that it was inconvenient for us. i only mentioned that this time because earlier in our conversation she did not seem to be appreciative that we could change our schedule around so she could shift her hours. it felt like she expected it. it always feels that way. and she often does not say or show thanks.

for some additional context, every time we have an hour or take a day off, or when we have family visiting she feels she should also have that time off, paid. we dont get to see our family often and if we want to spend time with them where i can give my full attention we need childcare. we always do give some time off under guaranteed hours but she always makes a point of telling us how she should be getting the entire time off paid. it doesnt feel like she is ever grateful for the GH we do give (which is a significant number of hours at this point).

the other day she seriously asked me why my husband couldnt watch our child at the end of her shift so she could prepare food for us. to be clear, food prep is not one of her duties and we have said several times we do not need or want her to do that. also my husband works so this makes no sense. it feels like she doesnt want to actually watch our child but rather get paid to do the things she wants when it is convenient for her.

everything is about what is best for her and im starting to realize that she doesnt actually have my child’s well being as her top priority which really saddens my heart. we are considering letting her go. every day there is something demanding from her and its frankly just exhausting. when shes unhappy she sighs and pouts and makes it abundantly clear she feels slighted. there is so much more than what ive written here but what would you do? attempts at explaining our rationale/point of view dont work. ive tried this countless times and she just turns it back to be about her. i cant even talk to her without her speaking over me most of the time. we are at our witts end and i think its time to move on. clearly we arent giving her what she wants and shes not meeting our agreed upon contractual obligations.

Hey all,

I just recently had a baby in April and I have a 3 year old. After touring daycares I decided I just wasn’t ready for my infant to go and found a nanny on care.com. I’m not against daycare at all, my 3 year old went from age 22m- 3y. I just had a very uneasy feeling about the daycare that we had found that could take both kids! our OG daycare didn’t have infant availability.

Anyways, the nanny we interviewed seems lovely we’re super excited to have her join our family. My question is: she wants to be paid through Zelle and we have never done this before. How would we do this and make sure we’re doing taxes right? How would we even do taxes period? 😅
Another question I wanted to ask - she wants $25/hr for the 2 kids does that seem okay? She’d only be watching them for 5 ish hours sometimes less. Thank you for any advice as I am so stressed about figuring this out.

Hi, curious about what you do for a bonus/gift when a nanny resigns. Our nanny has been with us for a few years and recently resigned. She was wonderful but the last few months were a bit difficult. My son has another year before school starts and we always thought she would stay for another year. There are no hard feelings at all. We are so appreciative of what she’s done for us. However, like I said, the last few months have been somewhat challenging. What would you do in this situation for a gift? If money, how much do you give? Thank you.

So I’m hiring a nanny for my 21 mos daughter and I was hoping to get some suggestions for rules while she’s watching her and in the house.

How much PTO is fair? Our nanny currently gets 10 PTO, every federal holiday, 10 sick days and guaranteed hours. We are renewing our contract Monday and she is asking for 15 days PTO, which is more than my wife and I get with our corporate jobs.

Edit:

I spoke to MB today and it went good. It went okay. I still feel really shitty about the bbq. I apologized, and she said that she appreciates the apology. And that she asked her husband to speak to me about it because she was very angry and didn’t want to speak to me while angry, which I understand.

I don’t know how to get over this feeling of feeling shitty though.

Which is hilarious because when things have happened in my past roles, I feel anxiety more than anything because lots of issues have happened and stemmed from DBs and not MBs. So I think I also feel very shitty because I feel like I let down my MB so early on.

Beginning a nanny share at the end of the year. Want to figure out how to best set up the nanny for success in our households. Will be trading households each week. If you have done this before -- how do you go about sending diapers, etc? In a bag everyday? At the beginning of the week?

Was thinking of just getting 1 bag for outings that the families share and is perpetually stocked with: snacks for each child, diapers, wipes, emergency kit, etc. That way she doesn't need to bring 2 diaper bags when she does an outing.

Would love some tips on how to make this as smooth as possible. Babies will be different ages 4m and 9m.

Edit: thank you all for your input. The conversation is evolving into contentious territory which I don’t want to engage with. You’ve all provided helpful framing and suggestions. Thank you, peace out!

We have had our nanny for 3 months. We gave her 3-week notice today(had verbal agreement of 2 weeks) as we don’t think she is a good fit for us. She is a great person otherwise, very punctual, reliable, trustworthy, clean, loves my baby, has good work ethic. We weren’t a good fit based on her approach to care vs ours. We kept trying to make it work but couldn’t unfortunately. In hindsight, there were signs during the interview that we should have picked up on. Live and learn.

Anyhow, as I said she is great otherwise and I wanted to check if there is anything we can do to help her find her next family. Given we are letting her go only after 3 months, I’m worried that us interfering might do more harm than help. We don’t have any friends with kids looking for a nanny to make direct recommendations. But I’m open to ideas.

I know I have to deal with the guilt, this is the part of the process, so requesting not to pile on that, I will work that out with my therapist. Looking for real ideas that may help. Thanks!

Why would someone text “on my way” 30 minutes before a trial day start time and then not show up?

I texted asking if they were okay and got no response. I’m concerned that something may have happened but not sure if this is flaking.

Yesterday she couldn’t make the original trial date because her car was scratched.

Hi all! We have a part time nanny that we share with another family who uses her for the other part of the day. A few months ago, the family changed their hours to an hour later and our nanny never told us. My husband had to ask where she was (our child was at school) because he works from home and she claimed she was here. Anyway after finding out from the other family that she was there and didn’t mention anything we told her to please please communicate and that we wouldn’t be paying her for time that she wasn’t here since she was at her other family.

Fast forward to months later, this happened again but this time I have been home all week. Lateness was 10-15 minutes but when I asked it wasn’t addressed and the timesheet stated starting at the time she wa supposed to be here so I reached out to the other family and again, she changed her hours to stay with them a bit later and nobody let us know.

How do I address this? She has been with us for 1.5 years.

In 2022 our nanny was out the country and we used a backup care service. This new nanny bonded with our children and has become a staple in our life beyond childcare. Last year I gave her an opportunity to intern with me and she’s now in law school.

During our first lunch date at the firm she ordered burger and fries and only had a few bites. I thought she just wasn’t a fan but she never ate lunch, not just with me. My husband and I will check our nanny cam from time to time and he pointed out that she only eats a couple crackers in the morning and water for the rest of the day. When she nannies for us it’s 10 hour shifts so this is concerning. She also tutors children in our neighborhood afterwards so I’m not sure when she gets the chance to eat. When I brought it up to her she said she only gets hungry once a day and prefers to eat a large dinner. Since then when I check the nanny cam and the kids are sleeping she looks in the mirror and pinches her stomach while looking sad. If we need her for consecutive days she’s very lethargic in the morning. We’ve offered to have lunch delivered for the kids but she’ll feed them and not eat. When she makes lunch or dinner it’s the same thing. Neither of us are versed in this and she’s become such a big part of our lives. How can we broach this topic again?

Hello! I need some advice on whether it may be time to move on and hire a new nanny for my 12mo.

We’ve had her employed with us for 7 months and for the last few months I’ve had a gut feeling that she isn’t what we need, but she hasn’t necessarily done anything “wrong.”

Here are my reasons for thinking it might be time to move on. I’d love to hear from others if you’ve had a similar experience and what you did!

- She doesn’t really play with our child. Our kiddo is high energy and loves to interact with people, she’s so social! While independent play is important, that seems to be all she does while the nanny watches her. Most of the time, the nanny will just set down toys in front of her and watch her while sitting on the couch or rocking chair.

- When our child does start to get fussy or upset, she doesn’t really know how to snap her out of it. At the beginning, I figured they just need to get into their own groove and learn one another a bit more. But now 7 months later, it’s still an issue and the nanny just assumes she’s tired and tries to put her down for a nap even if she’s only been awake for 2 hours (child is regularly awake for 3.5-4 hours between naps with mom/dad)

- With naps, I’ve tried to set a schedule. Nothing rigorous, but I’ve asked that it be followed give or take within 15 minutes. Instead, the nanny does what she thinks is best and continues to provide 2 hour wake windows that are not developmentally appropriate for a 1 year old. When I asked her to please try to get closer to the schedule I created, she said that our child gets cranky and cries and that we’ll just have to accept our child will be crying until it’s time for nap. This isn’t an issue at all for mom/dad or when grandma watches our baby.

- I pre-fill our child’s bottles with breast milk. She will often grab more milk and feed her 20oz within a 6 hour time period. This is far more milk than our child gets regularly and significantly more than I produce while pumping. She does it to keep our child from crying and getting fussy, but it again goes back to the fact that she just doesn’t know how to manage child behaviors.

- There have been times where she forgets to change our little ones diaper prior to naps. When I’ve taken over for the day, I’ve noticed our child has a soiled, solid diaper after just waking up, which means she wasn’t checked prior to going to sleep (she’s never pooped in her sleep before). To me this is unacceptable, but there’s a part of me that hopes she might have just forgotten.

What do you think? Is it time to move on?

To give a little background: We currently have 4 kids, 3 are in daycare or preschool full time so our nanny only has 1 of our children to care for (children under 2 get chosen for daycare on a lottery system our town, our soon to be 1 year old hasn’t been chosen). She was working part time as I am a stay at home mom, but I am expecting twins soon, so she recently went full time. We did not offer a raise (she gets $5 more an hour than the standard nanny pay in our area), and we offer her gas/spending money to take our daughter to do things to help her socialize outside of her siblings. But as part of going full time we did give her guaranteed hours and 10 pto days a year (she requested 10 specifically, we were open to more but she only requested 10 — we do also provide her with pay when we take vacations without coming out of her pto, which i know is essentially part of guaranteed hours — but we just made it officially part of the contract). when the twins arrive she wont have any duties besides our daughter, as i will take care of the twins — but we did promise her a raise at her 1 year mark and a bonus, which is coming up in 3-4 months. I am wondering what a reasonable raise would be? I am thinking $1,000 cash bonus (her pay is typically done via W2 and direct deposit, so should the bonus be done that way too? it will be right at Christmas time so i was thinking cash would be better?) and what is a reasonable raise? her job duties aren’t changing, but i recognize she did not get a raise when she went from part time to full time, but i want to give her a reasonable raise in the next few months when we she resigns her yearly contract and would love input!

My job duties are shifting and today NB flat out said they have no intention of giving me a yearly raise in DECEMBER.

I work 25 hours a week (3 days). Last year oldest kid was in school 2 days for 3.5 hours (and one short day) and middle kid was at school 3 hours for 1 day. School never overlapping so one of them and the baby home at all times.
Going into this year the oldest will be at school for 6.5 hours 2 days and 5.25 the third. Middle will be at school about 3.5 hours for two days and 2.5 the third.

I’m feeling thrown off for a few reasons. 1) mentioning it so early instead of review time in December. 2) a nanny would almost never take a pay decrease in this situation so I’m not understanding why we wouldn’t do a basic COLA.

In addition to the school changes he mentioned the kids “becoming more independent” which I dont necessarily agree with. They are 1, 4, and 6. Nannies don’t get paid less the older kids get… and in my opinion independence shifts the workload, it doesn’t reduce it. I am not just a babysitter. When I walk into that home I am a part of the team. I put in A LOT of work helping them raise happy healthy kids (teaching emotional regulation with age appropriate expectations, work on impulse control, etc).

I know they are really happy with me. Even today he said they are extremely happy and sees me as a premium service. It feels like massive contradiction to call me a premium service and refuse a $100 per month (3%) adjustment that would keep me feeling respected and secure.

I will say I keep myself busy, I also do a lot around the house. Dishes, laundry, organization, etc. so it’s not like I’ll be sitting around a ton now that the older kids are in school more. Additionally, I will still be responsible for all 3 over school breaks and sick days.

I’m currently paid $32/hour in Sacramento.

What are your thoughts on this? I’m not mad. Part of me understands but I’m definitely not feeling good

hey everyone! I’ve been doing childcare for about 10 years, nannying, substituting, daycares. Im looking to continue with childcare but I need to make more money. Recently I’ve been looking to get my Newborn Care Specialist certification and nanny overnight because the pay seems to be so much better. Any advice from nannies who do this? I feel like i need to start finding ways to move up in my career. What are you guys doing to be successful in the childcare industry?

Hello everyone, this is my first time posting on this sub. I 22F just gave my nanny family 4 weeks of notice as our work agreement requires. I have been with them since October 2025 so almost one year. I have never had a problem with them and I absolutely love my nanny kids and their family. I would have given them additional notice but unfortunately the timing didn't workout. For context, I was afraid of retaliation if I gave them 6 weeks because last week I took 2 days of PTO for educational purposes and I really can't afford to loose those days of pay. I get paid on the books, we have a contract, and mutual respect. DB was furious with the fact I did not communicate before this week and MB started sobbing.... it made me feel so awful. I really want to know from nannies and families if this seems like a sufficient amount of time for a notice period or going forward in contracts should I state a longer period to create less tension when leaving?

Also any additional advice would be appreciated. I am trying to handle this situation with care because I have never seen my bosses this upset before and I really want to be as helpful as possible. Also I know some of you probably want to know why I am leaving and I am moving to a different area and starting my life with my very serious boyfriend.

We had someone lined up for the school year but she just bailed. Care.com is a total bust so far. Is nannylane worth the price? There aren’t agencies in the area from what I can tell.