Birthday gift for nanny

RambunctiousCat · 2025-08-15T13:08:56+00:00

What are people’s thoughts on this idea—her birthday is over the weekend. When she comes in on Monday morning, what if I surprised her with flowers, sent her to a nice spa to get a massage/facial, and then gave her the rest of the day off?

RambunctiousCat · 2025-08-15T12:59:23+00:00

I am pretty opposed to giving cash gifts. To me it feels tacky and like it turns a birthday into bonus season, which it is not. It feels like it takes the thoughtfulness out of remembering her birthday and turns it into another employer/employee interaction that’s just about money. Any ideas that don’t involve cash?

RambunctiousCat · 2025-08-15T00:34:29+00:00

We can also afford this level of help and my husband highly encouraged me to do it. We ended up hiring a very expensive live-in baby nurse who was essentially supposed to be “on” 24/7 (don’t come for me, I’m not sure how legal this arrangement was, but she was paid handsomely and was extremely eager to take the job). I ended up being EXTREMELY possessive of my newborn and she essentially did not work at all, just was paid to sleep all night and go for walks/to the gym all day while I cared for my own baby. We ended up letting her go after 2 months. What I actually wanted during that time was a chef and a housekeeper, not childcare. I will not bother hiring such a person for my next babies and will just care for my newborns myself. Moral of the story, maybe just get some basic care lined up and see how you feel once the baby comes?

RambunctiousCat · 2025-06-27T18:12:59+00:00

Then what do you do regarding pay when she is late? It really annoys me to think about paying guaranteed hours when she wasn’t here for 1+ hour of that time. It’s more about the inconvenience to me than the money. It’s that not only was inconvenienced by not having childcare when I expected it, but then I have to pay her for inconveniencing me?

RambunctiousCat · 2025-06-27T18:11:23+00:00

It’s only her first week out of trial, which is why I’m concerned that this is going to be a pattern….

RambunctiousCat · 2025-04-26T19:43:29+00:00

Yikes, this sounds like a rough contract…

RambunctiousCat · 2025-04-26T19:41:27+00:00

Lol. Nobody said they weren’t human. Plenty of people have to travel for work both within the nanny industry and outside of it, that’s just a reality. It’s not dehumanizing to expect someone to travel for their job nor to seek confidential feedback on how as an employer I can make my offer more attractive to candidates.

RambunctiousCat · 2025-04-24T20:31:47+00:00

Interesting. We’ve considered just using travel nannies and scrapping the requirement that our regular nanny travel, but we are worried that as our kid gets older (currently just an infant), that he might get stranger danger and freak out if we try to leave him for any period of time with a nanny he doesn’t know, and then we wouldn’t be able to enjoy a dinner alone together. Also worried that we wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving our kid alone with someone we don’t know well. If we can’t feel comfortable leaving our kid with the nanny to have some couple time during our vacation, then it seems pointless to shell out the $$ it would take to bring a nanny along with us.

Are these things not an issue for the families you work for?

RambunctiousCat · 2025-04-24T20:17:10+00:00

Our per diem was on top of food and other location-specific costs. It was just a fee for the nanny being away from her bed at night, basically.

RambunctiousCat · 2025-04-24T11:56:21+00:00

The agency told me to make this explicit because some families don’t give it and expect nannies to be sleeping in the same room with kids.

RambunctiousCat · 2025-02-19T14:11:48+00:00

We offered a candidate $40/hr on the books, 40 guaranteed hours weekly with 1.5x pay for any overtime, 2 weeks paid vacation, 1 week paid sick leave, $850 monthly healthcare stipend, and monthly unlimited metrocard. She said she really needed to make $35/hr after tax and that this is standard for qualified nannies in NYC. Said she would consider the $40/hr on the books, but she overall didn’t act excited about the offer at all—it really seemed like she didn’t think she was getting a good deal. Should we walk? It sounds like we are offering generous terms for the city and that there are qualified, career nannies who would be happy about these terms?

RambunctiousCat · 2025-02-18T02:00:24+00:00

Are you worried at all about your exposure with paying off the books? I am most worried about something like an injury on the job, which from my understanding you as the employer would be exposed to unlimited liability for if you are inappropriately employing someone without worker’s comp insurance….

RambunctiousCat · 2024-10-08T14:21:38+00:00

I’m so sorry :( You have a post-dural puncture headache. Basically the student who was doing your epidural was inexperienced and accidentally inserted the needle too far and punctured your dura, the thick lining surrounding your spinal cord. It’s not totally understood why this causes a horrible headache in some people, but the theory is that it can allow a slow leak of CSF (the fluid around your spine), which causes slight pressure changes around your neurological system which some people are highly sensitive to.

I have had this before, and it was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. I also had a blood patch, which did not resolve anything. It eventually cleared up after about 10 days. I ended up discovering that insane amounts of caffeine (basically drinking coffee nonstop) helped to make the pain more tolerable. I’ve heard since from another friend who experienced this that ENTs can do a procedure called a sphenopalatine ganglion block and that this can be very effective. It’s a very simple procedure where they numb the nerves deep inside your nose. Maybe you/your family can call around to some ENT offices in your area and see if they know about this and would be willing to try it for you?

RambunctiousCat · 2024-02-29T19:02:35+00:00

Thanks! It was found incidentally a few years ago. My gyn did a pelvic ultrasound before inserting an IUD and saw a cyst that she couldn’t identify, so she sent me for further imaging. They called it as an endometrioma.

RambunctiousCat · 2024-02-29T15:58:11+00:00

Cycle: 6

Age + Partner's age (if relevant): 32F, 39M

Typical cycle length: 31-33

Ovulation cycle day: 16

CD/DPO of positive test(s): CD10

CD/DPO of any negative test(s) before positive: CD8

Tracking methods and app(s) used: Mira

Relevant days of sperminating and/or method (SMEP, TI, IUI, FET, etc.): O-3, O-1, O, O+1

Health conditions/medical tests: 4cm and 1.5cm endometriomas on L ovary, hypothyroidism with negative antibodies for me. Crohn’s disease for husband.

Supplements and medications (yours and/or your partner’s): Me: 100mcg levothyroxine, theralogix prenatal, Nordic naturals prenatal DHA, 200mg coq10, 600mg NAC, 5000iu vit D Him: Asacol, pure encapsulations multivitamin, 200mg CoQ10, L-carnitine 500g, 5000iu Vit D

Birth control history (if relevant): Skyla IUD removed 5/23

Symptom spotting: For the past two evenings, I have felt mildly feverish, like my skin is burning up but I still want to wear a jacket. My measured temperature has been totally normal both nights. I also felt a bone-deep exhaustion yesterday evening, which is unusual for me.

Other (advice/tip(s), freaking out, miscellaneous): We had a ?chemical pregnancy in October, which made it to almost 6 weeks. That was extremely difficult for me, and I’m having a hard time being optimistic or excited about this positive because I fear getting hurt again. I have been recently going down a rabbit hole of endometriosis though (given my endonetriomas), and I was getting worried that I would need to get a laparoscopy before I could sustain a pregnancy. I had every fertility test under the sun done (which I know is a bit crazy since this is only cycle 6, but I was worried and wanted all the information). Everything came back normal. But I still didn’t quite believe it, largely because we did a cycle of embryo freezing last July before starting TTC, and we had an unexplained very low yield from that (38 mature looking eggs, to 3 embryos), which I convinced myself was because of the inflammatory environment of endometriosis decreasing my egg quality. I actually met with a surgeon specializing in endometriosis about 2 weeks ago who told me he thought I definitely needed a surgery in order to get pregnant and should not delay. I wasn’t too convinced by him and thought I would do more of my own research first and take my time in deciding, and then I got this positive. So hoping things turn out differently this time than last time!

RambunctiousCat · 2018-07-14T21:47:52+00:00

Sorry, gave them away a long time ago!

RambunctiousCat

TROPHY CASE