Before the COVID-19 pandemic, many parents went to the office or their workplace. But now, many parents are working from home full-time or several days per week. This dynamic can be tricky to navigate if nanny care is happening in the home. But it doesn’t have to be!
Below, we cover our top five tips for parents and nannies to make working from home and nanny care work together seamlessly.
Pro Tip: If you need to sneak into the kitchen for a quick snack or beverage, make sure your nanny has the kids engaged in an activity. Kids have amazing hearing!
In this article, we’ll discuss:
– Establish Expectations
– Set Clear Boundaries and Have A Conversation About Who Is In Charge
– Proper Home Office Setup
– Planning the Week
– Plan to Minimize Distractions
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Working from home has changed many things, and as we all know, it has affected nanny care as well.
Before COVID, many parents went into the office or workplace for their career. But as we all know, many parents are now working from home, either full-time or part of the time.
This dynamic can be a little tricky to navigate if nanny care is also happening in your home, but it doesn’t have to be.
Clear expectations and communication are key to ensuring that everyone is on the same page.
Here are five tips for how to make working from home and nanny care work together seamlessly.
Tip #1: Discuss Expectations
A nanny is an important member of the family’s team, and it’s important for the nanny to understand how they can best be supportive in a work-from-home situation for the parents.
Do the parents need to be able to stay laser-focused, or is it okay if the children pop in occasionally to say hello?
Or perhaps the nanny has been put in charge of coordinating breastfeeding for the infant with the mother?
You should develop a system for when you need to get a hold of the parents whether that’s texting, or simply knocking on the door.
Some families say they want to come in and use common spaces to fix lunch for example, but then go right back to work.
Other families say “I want to come in and have lunch with my kids during my lunch hour”.
Mapping out clear expectations about what the parents prefer, and how the nanny should handle those situations is critical for a smooth working relationship when parents are working from home.
Tip #2: Set Clear Boundaries and Have A Conversation About Who Is In Charge and When
If the children are older, and can be involved in the conversation about what it means to have a parent needing to focus on work while working from home, make sure to involve them, Make sure that the children understand that when the nanny is in the home, the nanny is in charge during the day.
This might also mean that nannies will need to have a conversation with the parents, so that they know if a child is crying or throwing a tantrum the nanny has the situation handled, and the parents don’t need to pop in they can stay focused on their work.
Tip #3: Have A Proper Home Office Setup
And parents, speaking of staying focused on your work, consider the layout of your home office and the common spaces in your home.
Ideally, home office spaces are set up away from the main living areas in a room with a door that can close.
Now sometimes of course, you have to make do with the space that you have which may mean that the home office space is underneath a busy upstairs living room floor, or perhaps it’s next to a child’s bedroom or playroom.
Because of this, it might be a good idea to invest in some noise canceling headphones if you haven’t already, so that you can stay focused on your work parents, and the nannies and children can have fun. Some parents even add soundproofing materials to the walls of their home office!
Which is a good segue to the next tip…
Tip #4: Be Proactive With Planning the Week
Nannies can ask parents if they have any events coming up where it’s crucial to have quiet in the home. This could mean a conference call or a presentation.
Parents might want to communicate what these times are via shared calendar (Gmail is a great solution), but the important thing is to give the nanny advanced notice so that they can have adequate time for planning ahead.
And Tip #5: Have A Plan To Minimize Distractions
And by this, we mean minimizing distractions for the kids.
Toddlers often have a really tough time transitioning between parents being home and nanny care.
When a parent needs to come into common spaces during the day, a quick text to the nanny gives her a heads up, that way she can either switch rooms that she is playing with them in, or she can engage them in an activity so the parent can sneak by unnoticed.
This means parents are able to move about the home and not disrupt the flow of the day with the nanny and the kids.
Parents, it can be really hard on your nanny and your children as well if you’re popping in unannounced.
Keep that in mind and be mindful, and we do recommend having some system to minimize distractions where you can quickly communicate with your nanny if needed.
Those are five tips to help successfully navigate working-from-home situations when nanny care is also happening in the home.
We hope this information was helpful.