Nanny Duties before baby's arrival?
- Thread starter lanamac
- Start date
during those 6 wks, i would spend time familiarizing her with:
1) diaper changing - what are the exact procedure you'd like her to follow? e.g. are you going to use wet wipes or rinse babies bottom in a basin when they poo? which diaper cream are you going to use? does she know where to buy diapers?
where to clean the baby when he's pooed and how to clean off the area after you are finished.
2) preparing the babies crib - how often are you going to change the sheets? what about bumper guards?
3) preparing the babies milk - are you going to exclusively breast feed or not? if you are going to give formula - teach her about making the formula
4) sterilizing procedure - teach her what and how to sterilize the baby bottles / teets/ pacificers
5) washing babies clothes - are you going to wash separately? do you have a specific washing liquid for the babies clothes (I don't - but some people do...you need to decide).
that's all i can think of for now...all the best!
1) diaper changing - what are the exact procedure you'd like her to follow? e.g. are you going to use wet wipes or rinse babies bottom in a basin when they poo? which diaper cream are you going to use? does she know where to buy diapers?
where to clean the baby when he's pooed and how to clean off the area after you are finished.
2) preparing the babies crib - how often are you going to change the sheets? what about bumper guards?
3) preparing the babies milk - are you going to exclusively breast feed or not? if you are going to give formula - teach her about making the formula
4) sterilizing procedure - teach her what and how to sterilize the baby bottles / teets/ pacificers
5) washing babies clothes - are you going to wash separately? do you have a specific washing liquid for the babies clothes (I don't - but some people do...you need to decide).
that's all i can think of for now...all the best!
By nanny, do you mean helper... or someone who is contracted to work only with the baby? If it's helper, you can get regular stuff done around the house like cooking, doing a thorough clean of different rooms, running errands and get some rest yourself. Our helper joined three months before our baby was due and she is a very efficient worker, so did have a lot of free time but that was ok. She knew when the baby came it would be more hectic and she stepped up to the plate. But it was useful to have us get used to her and her to us, and also to have healthy home-cooked food. I didn't do any specific baby prep stuff - was my first baby and frankly I was clueless - except for arranging his stuff and I wanted to do that myself.
We hired a nanny for our child. She started 4 weeks before the baby was born. In that period of time she definitely worked shorter hours. Here are some of the things we had her do (note, she is a nanny and not a helper):
* Organize the baby's room (including washing and putting away all the baby's clothing, linens, toys, etc.) She had a lot of input into where things were placed
* Familiarize herself with the shops where we would be purchasing baby items and the items we were likely to buy on an ongoing basis
* Read some baby cookbooks as she would have less time to learn 'baby cuisine' by the time baby was old enough to eat
* Familiarize herself with local parks, playrooms and other baby friendly places
* Familiarize herself with the best route from our home to my office so she can bring baby to visit me at lunchtime several days a week
* We discussed how we expected our baby's bottles, bedroom, clothing, etc. to be cleaned
* We talked to her about our expectations regarding childcare and our views regarding raising a child
If your nanny doesn't have a current infant/ child CPR certificate and first aid certificate, I would consider sending her to an intensive course during that period of time also. There are also courses tailored to helpers for infant care and hygiene, etc., which may or may not be useful depending on the experience and background of your helper or nanny. We sent our helper (not our nanny) to these courses, although we knew that a lot of the class would be too basic for her as she is already very good, she did learn some useful tips for preventing and treating diaper rash, etc. that I wasn't familair with.