We had an au pair live with us for 9 months last year. We have two daughters, who were ages 1 and 3 at the time. Before we brought our au pair home, I did all sorts of googling to try and find out what other families’ experiences had been like, so if you’re trying to learn from others’ experiences, here’s ours for the books!
My husband and I have been working from home running our digital marketing business since 2020, and we have tried all different kinds of childcare. When I had my first daughter, I tried working from home fulltime while caring for our baby (LOL, that didn’t last long). We then moved on to an in-home daycare, eventually switching to an early learning center at a school, and finally transitioning to using a nanny at our own home. We hated having our girls gone at school for so long and loved the idea of in-home care by using a nanny, but unfortunately we just never had great luck finding good nannies (frequently calling in sick/canceling on us last minute).
We loved the idea of having an au pair to get the reliable childcare that we desperately needed, all while keeping our kids home so we could still spend time with them throughout the day in between work projects.
We signed up with an agency called EurAupair, started interviewing potential candidates, and matched with our au pair in December of 2021. It took a few months for her to get her visa and she joined our family in March of 2022.
Now, before I dive in to the pros and cons of getting an au pair, here’s a little more detail about our experience.
What’s it like having an au pair?
Having an au pair is like bringing home a new member of the family. The au pair program is an awesome way for a cultural exchange experience; you get to learn about the country that your au pair is from, and your au pair gets to learn what life is like in America!
On a day to day basis, having an au pair was like having another member of the family move in with you. I was 26 when we had our au pair and she was 23, so for me it was like having a younger sister help around the house and with the kids. If you and your kids are older, it might be more like your kids having an older sister.
It took a little bit of time to get used to having someone else live with us, but we quickly settled into our routines. Au pairs are permitted to work up to 45 hours per week, so we set her daily schedule as 7:45am-4:00pm which left a few hours to use each week for evening and weekend date nights.
Now let’s jump in to the benefits and disadvantages of having an au pair.
Benefits of Having an Au Pair
1. Dependable Childcare
We had nannies call in sick too many times, which was frustrating for working parents. It’s impossible to work from home with two young kids, so whenever a nanny called off, one of us had to clear our schedules in order to watch the kids.
Even if you don’t use nannies, daycares often have scheduled closings for parent-teacher conferences, as well as certain weeks off for holidays. It can be tough when your daycare’s holiday schedule doesn’t align with your work’s holiday schedule.
Having an au pair eliminated all of that frustration. She lived with us, so she was never late to work. If she had a cold, it was very likely that we all would get it anyway, so that didn’t hinder her from taking care of the kids (same thing if the kids had a cold). Of course, if she was ever truly sick she could have the day off.
She worked around our work schedule, and if we ever had a long day or got done early, we could adjust her schedule accordingly (and use those extra hours for date nights!)
2. An Au Pair Will Get To Know Your Kids Super Well
Because she lives with them, an au pair gets to know your kiddos very, very well! No more leaving pages of notes for babysitters. Of course it takes time in the beginning for an au pair to learn your kids’ routines, quirks, and habits, but once she’s been living with you for a few weeks, odds are she will know just what to do in almost any situation.
Our kids thrived having someone who lived with us be their primary caregiver during the workday, rather than dealing with the daily transitions of either going to daycare or having a nanny show up at our house. Our oldest daughter especially struggled with transitions, and would often have a meltdown whenever the nanny showed up to our house in the morning, because she knew that meant mom and dad were leaving.
Since our au pair was always with us, our kids grew to love her as a member of the family. There were no tearful transitions when mom and dad had to start working, because they were already used to spend lots of time with our au pair!
3. You Can Be As Spontaneous As You Were Before Having Kids
This was probably my favorite part about having an au pair. There were nights when my husband and I put the kids to bed and were in the mood to go out. If our au pair was home and she didn’t have other plans, she was always down to be on duty – a particularly easy gig when the kids are asleep!
We went out with friends and on childfree dates all the time when we had our au pair. It was amazing always having childcare on standby!
All that being said, it wasn’t all roses and butterflies. There were some downsides to having an au pair.
Disadvantages Of Having An Au Pair
1. You have to give up a room in your house.
Prior to getting our au pair, the extra bedroom in our house served as a guest room and a “sleepless night” room. My husband would often have trouble sleeping, and so he would migrate over to the guest room at some point in the night so he wouldn’t wake me up.
We did miss having this room after our au pair joined us. Maybe you never use your extra bedroom though, in which case this point won’t matter.
2. You’re expected to invite your au pair with you whenever you do things as a family, because they are now a part of your family.
In order to help our au pair adjust to her new life in America, we invited her everywhere with us (this is definitely expected of host families, at least in the beginning). We wanted to help build our au pair’s confidence by showing her around, with the idea that she would eventually start venturing out on her own.
While our au pair was a very sweet girl, there were definitely times that we just wanted to hang out as a family unit. But in order to make sure she felt at home with us and part of the family, we always invited her to come with us.
3. You always have to be “on.”
You know what it’s like when you have a friend or a family member staying at your house. No matter how close you are, there’s always an element of being “on” that isn’t there when it’s just your own family around.
We certainly all got very used to living together, but we definitely always felt like we had to make conversation when she was making food in the kitchen, doing laundry, or just generally hanging about the house.
4. You have to navigate being a host parent and an employer, at the same time.
This was especially tough for me since I was so close in age to our au pair. I probably erred too much on the side of trying to be her friend, and so it was a little awkward when I had to give her correction or set boundaries as her employer.
As the host parent to an au pair, you are trying to help this new member of your family navigate life in a new country, while also teaching her how to care for your precious little children. It’s a lot of responsibility for any person to take on.
5. If your au pair doesn’t make friends, it’s easy to feel like you have become responsible for their social life.
Unfortunately, our au pair did not make an effort to branch out and make friends on her own. She would happily hang out with us whenever we did things with our friends, but she did not make her own friends.
This eventually became tough for us because when she wasn’t working, she would stay holed up in her room. It got a little awkward because since she had no social life of her own, we felt like we needed to invite her out with our friends more. It was a little weird that she didn’t have any social circles of her own. I understand that we were not responsible for her making friends, but it created a slightly weird dynamic that she wasn’t interested in making her own friends. It felt a little bit like she just wanted to piggy back off of our own circle of friends, rather than putting in any effort on her own.
6. If it’s not working out, things get real awkward, real fast.
We ultimately ended our contract with our au pair after 9 months not because of anything she did, but because I made the decision to step away from our family business in order to be full time with our kids. It was the best decision ever for our family!
Since I was going to be a full-time SAHM, we obviously no longer had a need for an au pair, and so we began the rematch process.
Even though our au pair understood our reasons for ending the contract early, the last couple of weeks that she lived with us while she searched for a new family were pretty uncomfortable. Once she knew that she would be leaving us, she spent even more time hiding in her room, and started emotionally pulling away from our family. It wasn’t ideal way to end the experience, but I understood her struggle with the transition.
If you have to end your contract with your au pair for any reason, you still have to house them and pay them for two weeks while they look for a new family. These two weeks can be pretty uncomfortable.
So, is getting an au pair a good idea?
For a lot of families, having an au pair is totally worth it! It can be so hard to juggle the schedules of two working parents and the schedules of the kids, and having an au pair to help can be amazing. It certainly was so helpful for us during a period of our lives when our schedules were crazy!
For us, though, I don’t think we would get an au pair again. First of all, we won’t need one — I do not plan on going back to work in our business, and even if I ever did, it would only be on a very part-time basis. Secondly, for me and my personality, I don’t think I want to have someone else live with us again. As amazing as the flexibility was to go out with my husband all the time sans kids, I’d rather have my house to myself and just have to schedule babysitters again. 🙂
Every family’s needs are so different, but I hope hearing one more au pair experience will help you make the decision for yourself.
I’d love to hear from other families who have had or currently have an au pair. What other pros and cons of having an au pair that would you add to this list? Let me know in the comments. Cheers!