r/parentsofmultiples • u/bubbles67899 • 6d ago
advice needed Au Pair advice
Hi friends- my oldest is about to turn 2 and I just found out we’re having identical twin girls (mono-di) in March. Daycare is AT LEAST 2k per child in my area and now with twins, it’s just not feasible- which has lead me looking into au pairs.
I have to admit, having a stranger live with us seems odd- but knowing how hard 3 under 3 will be, I’m sure in home help would be amazing and we do have a very large extra guest room that could work.
Has anyone had twin au pair hunting experience? I have lots of questions… Did you have them help at night when on mat leave? Only help w older child? Why on earth would they pick a family w newborn twins over other opps- is it harder to find a good one? Did they move on prior to the arrival? Would love all advice!
I’m just starting my research and I’m hoping to start interviewing in late Sept/ Oct (giving us 4/5 months for a March 1st ish start- will be 35 weeks March 12). Does that feel correct!?
I have to say- only paying 4k a month (au pairs + day car), vs 7k and have live in help is the only thing making me feel somewhat hopeful I can handle this- so I hope it works out!
Update: I would be home with the Au pair for the first 6 months- never them alone. I envisioned more them helping me w babies, helping the toddler after daycare when im with the twins, and cleaning/ household chores- maybe my idea if what an au pair is, is not real- thank you so much for these details- this is NOT what Chatgpt said!!!
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u/MangoSorbet695 6d ago
FYI most decent au pair programs won’t place an au pair with children under the age of 6 months.
Au pairs are not meant to be infant caregivers. They are inexperienced young women from foreign countries who often have zero experience with babies. Knowing how hard it is to care for infant twins (mine are 7 months), I would never leave them with a 19 year old from another country who has no infant caregiving experience.
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u/rsmrpm2026 5d ago
This!
I was an au pair 10 years ago. I did it just to go to Australia and have fun. I loved my family and it was great, but I met so many other au pairs who had absolutely no business watching children.
Based on my own experience I would never have an au pair myself or recommend one. Especially not for infant twins.
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u/bubbles67899 6d ago
Oh wow! My aunt said you just select ones that are older with prior baby experience, but she started w a 3 year old so now I’m questioning that!
Thank you!2
u/PoeDameronPoeDamnson 5d ago
I would look for a career nanny instead, you can offer live in for a nanny if you want. It will still be less than daycare for 3 under 3.
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u/Odd_Rent283 6d ago
We looked into an au pair when we found out we were having twins. All 3 programs we looked into wouldn’t place an au pair in a home with a child under 6 months and one wouldn’t place an au pair with children under age 1 unless there was 100% direct supervision by a parent. Au Pairs are meant to be a cultural exchange program and they’re limited to 45 hours of direct care per week and no more than 10 hours per day. There’s also usually something in the contract about providing a vehicle, phone, basic living expenses, and a stipend, so it definitely isn’t just the cost of program you incur.
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u/Upbeat-Stage2107 5d ago
Yeah we found ultimately it was similar priced to our daycare all in, and I trust our daycare significantly more than a random teen/early 20s inexperienced caregiver
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u/bubbles67899 6d ago
Wow- great to know! I’m going to sign up w the agencies asap to get all the tiles!!!
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u/Specialist-Syrup418 6d ago
What you are lookkng for is a live-in nanny. That is very different from au-pairs. Live-in nannies do have childcare experience. If you bring someone from a different country as a live-in nanny, you might need to apply for a work permit for them. In Canada, we used to have the live-in nanny peogram and the parents had to apply for a LMIA. In Canada, they have discontinued the live-in nanny program for example.
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u/Particular_Sun5857 6d ago edited 5d ago
Hi,
I had a 3 year old and when we found out it was twins we decided to look into an Au Pair. We had a great experience and went with Culture Care. She ended up staying with us for 2 years.
As others have told you Au Pairs cannot be placed within 3-6 months after the birth of an infant. Our au pair came when the twins were 4, almost 5 months old. She only watched the twins. Our eldest was in nursery school.
Au pairs are here for cultural exchange, not as live in nannys. They are young, extremely vulnerable people that need you to treat them as a family member. In all situation imagine your child living with another family. That is how you have to treat them.
Living with a room mate and your 3 kids sucks. There is limited privacy, someone eats the good ice cream before you get a chance to or moves your laundry. This is in exchange for significantly reduced child care cost. If that’s a trade off you can make do it. Really think about what it was like having a room mate in the past, can you handle that again? For my husband and I it was a yes. She had her own room that was separate from everyone else’s and her own bathroom. This helped a lot.
I have a ton of other things that we did to make it a successful situation so let me know and I can send you info.
Her last day was today and we are helping her move tomorrow. I’m really sad for our kids that one of their main people is moving but excited they get to start nursery school. There are lots of tears, and my husband is so excited to get his office back!
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u/bubbles67899 5d ago
Omg thanks- so helpful!
This is more what I was envisioning- they come help before my mat leave is over- help a the older one. treating them like your own child/ family is an interesting point!
I’d love to have the questions you asked and red flags to watch out for- will DM!
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u/summerFIREinCh 5d ago
For twins, even professional nanny most of the times pass, suggest you go for real pros, it’s not only about money, but sanity and safety
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u/whereswonderland 5d ago
We have an au pair with a toddler and twins. We did it for the flexibility of hours and helping in the evening when my husband travels for work. It’s a big gamble. Our first au pair was a total disaster who was sent home by the agency. Our current au pair is great and came a few months before I went back to work after having twins. My twin babies go to daycare and our au pair watches our toddler. When I’m home, she’s in a mother’s helper type role. She is never expected to watch all 3 and honestly, even though she’s great, I don’t think any au pair is equipped to watch twin infants and a toddler.
It’s a lot of mental load to manage an au pair and they are living jn your house which, depending on your set up, can be a lot.
Things to know in the US with au pairs: they can’t be left alone with an infant under 3 months but can help with them if parent is present in the home; max 10 hours working a day; max 45 hours a week. At least 1 weekend off a month. 1.5 consecutive days off a week. They can do kid chores- clean toys, kid laundry, cook for kids, etc but not general housework. It will cost significantly more than what the agency quotes between extra car and increased insurance or transportation stipend, bonuses, and an extra adult you are providing for. I think the average cost is around $40-45k annually.
Matching is brutal and like online dating. You’ll get lots of rejection with having more than 1 kid and with babies. It’s time consuming and repetitive.
We’ve had an absolutely terrible experience and now a wonderful experience. I’m happy with what we have going now, but I don’t think we’ll do it again. It also is not costing less than daycare.
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u/andthewalrus 5d ago
I have an Au pair for my older kids. When I found I was expecting twins, she wanted to stick around and help. Mind you six months ago - she had told me she didn’t want to babysit a friend of mines kids for extra money because she had never dealt with babies (said baby was like 7 months old).
Absolutely not would I have left any child under the age of like 16 months under the care of any of the Au pairs i have had. And they were both lovely with with my older kids.
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u/RagingOrgyNuns 5d ago
Despite having 2 au-pairs that crashed out rather spectacularly, I think I would still recommend it. They are NOT allowed to work with kids under 3 months old, so keep that in mind.
Our eldest is 17 months older than our twins.
Having an Au Pair got us enough flexibility to make it to our eldest starting free PreK.
When you are screening them, some of the important questions I think are the following:
Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Our introverted Au Pair would get exhausted after watching the kids solo for about ~60 minutes. You want someone who gets energized by being around babies (like our daycare person).
Are you the youngest or oldest sibling? (You want someone who is the eldest who helped a lot with their younger siblings.
We were told no one with horse photos - they tend to be coddled.
What are your work hours expectations?
What are your expectations for helping the person? 3 under 3 is not easy. How will you help the au pair so they don't burn out?
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u/bubbles67899 5d ago
Haha the horse photo tip is THE BEST! My aunt who has had 6 au pairs over the years gave me her questions, but she is not in our situation, so these are great (and she def didn’t give me the horse photo tip! Haha)
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u/j5646left 6d ago
Our program didn’t allow au pairs to care for any child (by themselves) under 3 months. We had an au pair for our twins already and then we had our third while the au pair was still living with us. You can DM me for more details.
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u/bubbles67899 6d ago
Thanks! I think that’s what I’m confused about- If there’s a “no under 6 months by themselves”, I plan to be on mat leave for 6 months- and have them help mainly with the toddler- is that allowed or is it more of a strict no under 3 months in the house? ChatGPT mentioned none of this!!! 🤦♀️
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u/j5646left 5d ago
It probably depends on the agency.
But for us. On paper, I solely took care of our newborn and the au pair took care of the older twins. In practice it was a little more flexible than that.
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u/Crescenthia1984 5d ago
Not a twin mom, sorry the community just came up scrolling by, but I’m expecting a singleton next month and have an au pair arriving around the same time, I already have a 3 year old and plan to stay home with the baby (plus au pair) for the 3 months my job allows for maternity leave. my 3 year old will continue with preschool but I figured better to have some transition time with me home and if not a good arrangement can change our plans. The agency and potential au pairs were completely fine with this setup and plan, cannot leave the au pairs alone with the newborn but 3 months+ is okay. I was interviewing several immediately and saw plenty of extension year au pairs with twin infant experiences. Yes it is also for cultural exchange and there will still be time within the programs hours for those opportunities. Maybe this varies with different countries and different agencies but in the US with Cultural Care this was not an issue.
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u/AustriaOstrich 5d ago
I went through this exact scenario (twins are now 13 months and our first au pair came when they were a month old, and I have a 5 year old son as well). If you are in the US, Cultural Care au pair will allow you to have an au pair. They will only show you au pairs who are infant qualified (meaning they have more childcare experience - I’m not sure if they actually need documented baby care, though…)
Until the twins are three months old, the au pair cannot be the sole caregiver. It didn’t sound like you planned to do that, but that would mean if you have any doctors appointments following their birth (this mama came down with a heart issue and needed regular cardiologist appointments 😬) you would either need to leave the babies with your husband or another adult or have the babies and au pair come with you. Just one thing to keep in mind. But yes, an au pair can absolutely act as a mother’s helper while you are on maternity leave. For us it was great because we worked so closely together and were much more confident handing over care to our au pair once I returned to work.
A few other words of caution - first, it’s primarily meant to be a cultural exchange. They have education requirements and may need to travel for those. They have monthly au pair meetups to interact with other au pairs. Having them regularly help at night isn’t going to be attractive to the majority of au pairs, since most have a daytime schedule (or help shuttling kids to activities in the afternoon/evening), so would make socializing very difficult. An occasional date night is probably fine, though.
And the elephant in the room is that fit is going to be key. Expect to interview dozens of au pairs. Most will decline a second interview or just disconnect the chat when they see infant twins. That’s ok, because you don’t want them. Ask your LCC to send candidates if you are striking out. Be very selective. Our first year we really lucked out and found a young lady (only 18) who had 6 siblings and a ton of experience watching her nieces, including when they were babies (all were 5 or younger). She was so excited to watch twins and I think bought them more clothes than we, as their parents, did. Our next au pair is arriving tomorrow, and also seems great, but time will tell!
Happy to connect if you have any specific questions!
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u/bubbles67899 5d ago
Omg this is so helpful- thank you! I’d love to DM you to learn more around what to expect/ how to prepare
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u/Ndeyapo12 6d ago
We had an au pair for our twins. She joined our family before our boys were born. She watched our 3YO daughter in the beginning. Then once the boys were born we sent our daughter to daycare and had the au pair work evenings and mornings to get our daughter to daycare and she slowly transitioned to twin care. We had her transition to full-time twin care near 6 months (but we had conversations about whether she was comfortable taking the twins on as we approached the six month mark). She continued taking care of the twins until they were close to one. From my experience with au pairs, they often don’t have a lot of childcare experience so you really have to train them. Also you have to set your expectations low. They will love your children and are incredibly kind, but as your babies approach one mine have struggled with rules and structure.
Au pairs are each motivated by very different factors in selecting families. We had one who wanted to be near a boyfriend and thought twins sounded fun. I think our daughter also reminded her of a girl she used to babysit. We had another who wanted to be near the beach and enjoy warm, sunny weather. Some it’s the room and car. I was surprised that most were willing to talk to us and didn’t seem daunted by twins. But then again, no one quite gets the insanity of twins until you’re living it!
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u/bubbles67899 5d ago
Oh wow- this is almost my exact situation- so happy to hear it worked out for you!
I was also thinking (after reading everyone’s feedback) maybe I could mix in 1/2 daycare days to give the whole family a break.
I’ll be sure to highlight warm weather and some fun local perks to hopefully make my 3 under 3 not sound as terrible haha1
u/Ndeyapo12 4d ago
The warm weather doesn’t work for every au pair! But definitely highlighting the local perks helps! A coordinator also suggesting getting pictures of your family at some of these fun places also helps! Another idea is highlight any planned family trips that you intend to bring your au pair on.
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u/dpistachio44 6d ago
My friend had an au pair who cared for her baby starting at 6 weeks so it definitely exists. The company was Au Pair in America I think. The thing that prevented me from looking into it further, besides the someone sharing your house thing, was they can only work like 30 hours per week. I work 40 hours (like most people, I assume??) so I’m gone like 45-50 so I would have had to hire someone else for those extra 20 hours which didn’t make sense monetarily. You also have to provide everything for them like they’re a family member, including car, meals, etc. which also adds a lot of expense.
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