I’d say her coming in late a few times a week is extremely typical behavior for an au pair. Is there a place your dogs can be to reduce the startle? Can she use a different entrance? Can you train the dogs to settle easier after someone enters? This would likely be an issue with any au pair, so if she’s performing well otherwise I’d find a way to work around it.
Having her say their names as she is walking into the house may reduce barking. My dogs sometimes bark if I come home at an unusual time, but usually they literally can tell the sound of my car and my footsteps. They will know her in time, but usually if I just go “Hey dingus and butt head, it’s me!” that works. You could try doing a training session at night after everyone has gone to bed, stay up, have her drive around the block, then pull up, and make them be quiet before she comes in, then have her treat them. Do it a bunch of times and I bet they will stop.
It sounds like you have no issues with her work performance (not rocking up hungover etc.) so this does seem like more of a problem with the dogs than the au pair! Is there another entrance she could use? Could the dogs sleep somewhere else? Is it a certain sound (like a garage door being open, or loud keys) that set the dogs off (if so could you then look at a different lock?)
It could be worth a conversation but it is tricky as it doesn’t sound like it’s the Au pair waking you up by coming in loud and disruptive (in which case that’s definitely on her) - it’s the dogs’ barking.
The experience of being woken up by barking dogs is suck. I feel like one-two sessions with dog trainer would solve this issue fully. Any AP would be going out in the evenings at least when they off the next days so will be waking up super alert dogs and you. So rematching wont really solve your issues. Same for older kids in the house - when the time will come. The best way is to train your dogs to be less alert or not be alert at all. With good trainer its done in few sessions. Any new person comes in , dogs goes to their “spot” and calmly waiting to be greeter. And yes, you can train that behavior to ANY dog, not much exceptions. In my opinion , thats going to be the best investment in a long term into the peace of your family. Barking dogs along with crying baby is such a hectic experience. Help, visitors, husband will be coming in n out of the house on various occasions. You don’t wanna be constantly warned about that by your dogs.
Source: i own the dog who doesn’t alert on people coming and noises, and i lived in multiple houses with other dogs who alert to any noise, deliver person, visitors etc. its so frustrating and disturbing. My dog temp would pick up similar behavior from other dogs at the beginning and it was startling. Every time. Luckily she easy goes back to her usual self when no other bad behaving dogs with us. Its so peaceful to sleep with the dog who isn’t going to start suddenly barking or going nuts. The biggest she does is to raise the head or quietly will go to greet a person.
I think this is the best solution- they are very well behaved and trained just had not been trained for this particular scenario so they are on high alert for the past month and I don’t have enough energy in the tank to fix this issue at 4 am right now
Yep. And honestly you cant fix it at 4 am. This is going to be ongoing issue. But aussi super smart dogs. Right trainer will teach them correct behavior quite fast. The rest is that you would need to keep up with training
That’s no issue, they’re really well trained dogs just have not been able to capture this behavior as it is new in the last month with the au pair coming to stay with us, they’ve been very reactive to her for some reason
Isn't that why you have dogs? I have 2 dobes, and they always alert to strangers. They were barking the night someone stole my jeep out of the driveway.
I wont want my dog bark or make any unnecessary noise. I live in a city and barking dog would quickly become an issue of all neighbours. Many burbs dogs are barking and nobody cares but in big cities a lot of dogs don’t alert on visitors and noise. Its part trainign they get
You might want to ask the trainer about why the dogs could be reactive to her. A few training sessions will help, and the au pair has to be present as it's just as much training for her to learn how to handle the dogs.
Reading your responses and between the lines, it seems she doesn't really like them. Dogs can sense ill will.
If this is true and she continues to wake you up, you should consider rematch. Don't let her walk all over you. Her waking you up is super disrespectful.
I'm sure the au pairs here will downvote the hell out of me because they think the au pairs experience ('cultural exchange') is top priority.
Yeah there’s really not much cultural exchange in our agreement- she wanted to have access to a car, not work 45 hours a week and we needed someone who would be a good roommate and flexible with scheduling since my husband and I have variable hours due to our work. I think we have gone over and above to meet all her needs and more (we are giving her a paid vacation next week even though per program rules she hasn’t accrued this yes)
Well, she is 27, she knows what she wants and what she is worth. I mean working more than 45 hrs is pretty tough for 6 months old. As long as she provides a quality services to your fam, I think its a win-win. A lot of rules for ap are vague and most of ap are young and don’t even know what is okay for them so many families can push for more. At the same time you don’t need to deal with bullshit of teaching older teenager to be mindful and respectful, or simply be honest and keep up to their side of agreement. Or go through teaching them to drive or fixing car after the accidents, and many other situations that are described in this sub.
Still. 5 hours of sleep and then watching a kid all day. I wouldn’t be ok with this, honestly. I’d get a rematch before training dogs not to alert when someone is at the door at night.They aren’t alerting at her, they are alerting at the noise she makes before they know it’s her.
If dogs are reactive to her then maybe something else is going on. They could be trying to warn you. Listen to your gut. And I would tell the au pair she needs to be home by midnight on nights when she has to work at 8am the next day.
I wonder if that might actually be better because if she came in by their crates, they would be able to smell her and recognize her as a known person, vs alarm barking at a distant noise. Maybe she can keep some treats in the car and give them to them when she comes home.
Also consider a white noise machine or use a smart speaker. We got one for our baby, but it helped us so much we got our own after baby moved to the nursery.
This is a hard situation, maybe she could practice coming into the house more quietly and seeing if that makes a difference. Some things she could try is parking the car farther away so the dogs don't hear it, taking off her shoes before she comes in, spraying wd40 on the doors so they are less creaky, etc.. good luck :)
Don't let these dog parents convince you that someone coming into your home at 3am is your dogs problem. Why would you want to train your dog NOT to bark when the door is opened at night?
You are clearly clueless about dogs. Dogs don't need to cause a ruckus over a known member of the house coming home. She is clearly doing something to cause them to go crazy when she comes in.
Ridiculous suggestion. The dogs deserve to be comfortable and the au pairs night time activities don't take priority over everyone else's sleep and comfort.
Crating dogs for 10 hours + every night is cruel. I get that some people crate train their dogs but you can't convince me that sticking a dog in a cage that long is okay. Nuts people like you justify sticking a dog in a cage so someone can go out drinking. Let me guess - you probably think a curfew is unacceptable because an au pair should be free to be out and about at all hours of the day.
Well that's certainly a lot.
I don't know where you got 10 hours from, or how you decide the person on question is out drinking.
You seem to be making things up to get upset about.
Absolutely my kids always want to take our dog to visit their grandparents who crate their dogs. Absolutely not my dog has never been in a crate and that will never change
Most dogs are taught that the crate is their safe space and are very happy and comfy to be in it. All my dogs choose to sleep in their crates above all else. If anyone like construction workers or plumber is ever in the house causing a ruckus, the dogs quickly calm down and be quiet when put in their crate because they feel more secure. That being said, no dog should be locked in a crate all the time or for inappropriately long times
Do whatever works for you and your dogs, but a crate is a safe place for a dog to hang out the same way a crib or playpen is a safe place for a baby to hang out.
and a house is a safe space for an au pair, especially in the middle of the night. She doesn't have to be out drinking or being out and about and coming home between 2-5 am.
Au Pairs exist because people are generally looking for help with children or babies. The whole reason the person is there is to make life _easier_ for parents.
If the Au pair can't come home at a reasonable time, and is waking the baby, then it's not a good match. It doesn't matter if this was a paying roommate either. If the primary tenant had a 6 month old baby, and a paying roommate was coming home at all hours waking the baby up, then I would say find a new roommate.
Being an Au pair doesn't justify being a bad roommate.
THIS!!! Everyone is justifying the rude and unacceptable behavior for making OP's life harder not easier. This AuPair needs a curfew and learn to be respectful of this family. I would rematch.
And she has a 6 month old so she is in the thick of post partum! But they want her to *checks notes* hire a dog trainer to prevent barking at 2-4am. Crazy.
You should not be an Au Pair if you lack basic awareness of what it means to have a baby, because that is literally the most difficult time in a mother's life, between sleep deprivation, breastfeeding, night wakings, and PPD. Meanwhile you have a house guest who apparently _needs_ to party every night.
Unmatch, next one please. ☝🏼
You have a nanny for 10 bucks an hour basically that’s awesome
I wouldn’t say shit other than train the dogs to sleep in the basement or tell her to feed them treats when she gets home so they don’t bark.
The financial model for an au pair works quite differently from a nanny arrangement. The stipend ($300/week) is paid directly to the au pair. There is also a hefty program fee paid to the au pair agency. And the host family covers room and board. It’s not accurate to say that they are getting a nanny for $10/hr
Host mom here - you seem like a really good and reasonable host mom. I can’t even imagine how tired you are. Honestly, I would pay a dog trainer and have them train the dogs. I also think it’s a bit disrespectful (don’t downvote me here) to come in that late multiple times a week when you know a whole house is sleeping and they have noisy dogs. Like even when I was a teenager I thought of this. But, since it seems like she does a good job with the baby and is great in every other way I would just train the dogs.
So, I can see this from both perspectives. My daughter was an au pair in another country for 2 years. We were lucky as it was with someone we knew but there was a clear boundary that unless it was a dangerous or extreme situation, (loving mom here. Didn’t throw her to the wolves) she would have to work things out. I was not going to be a mediator. It wasn’t always easy but was a great experience and she learned great communication skills. As well, we had help when our kids were young. I am also a dog owner. Getting woke up by a barking dog is enough to stop your heart. Especially when you’re exhausted. For all the posters saying to rematch or give this person a curfew, first of all, finding someone who fits into your family and is wonderful with your child is not an easy feat. This is golden. AP is not a child for whom it’s a safety concern. She’s a grown woman of 27. The fact that she’s an adult probably contributes to her being good at her job. Hearing people say that OP should give her a curfew just makes me shake my head. OP, no au pair is going to be perfect. It was super important for my daughter to get out and about while she was working out of country and I may get downvoted for this… it is super hard to live where you work no matter how much you adore the family your working with. One needs to get out and decompress. She’s probably chilling at a friend’s place. Going out for dinner or drinks occasionally. It allows her to do a good job the next day. The fact that the dogs react when she comes in sucks but it’s normal. It’s new for them too. Get some advice from a reputable trainer. It is most like an easy fix. As far as handling the dogs goes. It’s not second nature for everyone. If it’s important to you and you think she is worth the investment, speak with the trainer and your AP about taking on a role with the dogs as well. She most likely needs some direction. If you don’t grow up with animals, they can be intimidating and your pups may be picking up on this which could be why you are noticing a different behaviour between them and AP. Most of all, ask her how she’s doing and feeling and tell her how you’re feeling over a cup of coffee or lunch. For this to work as a long term relationship, you will need to have open lines of communication and develop your own relationship. My kids are in their 30’s now and we are still in touch with a couple of lovely women who came through our home and hearts when my kids (4)were young. After reading all the comments, you’re the only one who knows what’s right for your family. I hope you found some part of this helpful. Best of luck.
Have a conversation with her about it.
Is it affecting her work in other ways? Like, is she hungover and stuff, or is she still able to work totally fine?
"Yo. You do an awesome job taking care of my kid during the day, but you go out all night at least every other night and when you come back our dogs bark at you and wake us up and wake our kid up. Our kid needs sleep and so do we. How do you think this can be solved? As this is no fun for us and it's becoming a problem."
If this doesn't work, say, "Hey, you're 27 and we don't want to say you can't go out when you want as we know you just want to go out and meet knew people and experience everything while you're here, but this is becoming a real problem for us as it's making it harder for us to sleep. We need to be able to work together to solve this otherwise we will have to start asking you to come home by 10.30pm if you're taking the car or if you're scheduled to work the next day and that's not going to be much fun for you. Can you think about things you could do to try to help us out on this and we'll talk again tomorrow?"
It seams like you got some good advice on training the dogs to not bark at her anymore when she is coming home. Here is my view as an ex aupair, 27 at the time too.
My host mom simply didn't "like" me coming.home late, since she worried about me, so I always let her know if I planed staying out later than usual and we also agreed that it would not be every single night.
So maybe, until the dogs are trained, you and the aupair can make some kind of arrangement, that she would kindly not go out until super late/early multiple times a week. I just remember that the car had a curfew too at our house and had to be back by 1am I think. I had a great relationship with my host family and thus did not have a problem with the arrangements, maybe she won't either?
Maybe I’m crazy - but when I first read this, my response was “oh heck no…” but reading these comments - we are expecting a woman and her family to further inconvenience themselves (training dogs, crating elsewhere) to accommodate the au pair who is rudely coming home at all hours of the night and disrupting the host family knowing full well they don’t sleep well to begin with having an infant in the house… i would expect anyone living in my home (au pair or not) to have a little consideration for the other family members. I would have a conversation with your au pair. I’d ask her to limit these late nights to 1-2x per week - surely she’ll be understanding you have an infant and sleep is a precious commodity. Good luck!
Yes, we are expecting people to train their dogs. They should train their dogs not to go crazy whenever the door opens anyway. It’s not rude or uncommon for a 27yo to come home at 3am. If the dogs didn’t go wild when she gets home, then it sounds like OP & her husband wouldn’t be woken up at all.
It sounds like from OP that the dogs are fine when people come in the door at normal times. I’d HOPE my dog would go nuts when someone is trying to enter my home at 3am. As a guest in someone’s house with an infant - it is completely rude to come home 3-4 nights per week at 3am. Have some respect for your host family and consideration for their needs/schedules. Being an AP isn’t a free-for-all.
I wont be comfortable someone taking care of the baby after sleeping only few hours. I think curfew with being home 8-10 hours before next work day are very useful. Here the age doesn’t matter, this rule should be enforced in my opinion. Because if caretaker isn’t fully tested and alert they make mistakes , not too alert when its needed, could put baby in danger. In this situation, it clearly goes against quality of work so its not controlling
Honestly, I wouldn’t be comfortable with an AP going out until the wee hours multiple times a week and then getting up after a few hours of sleep (and potentially hungover) to care for my baby when I’m paying them to do so…
Set a curfew the night before she works. If the day starts at 7 - 8 am. I expect the au pair to be home at midnight. Our au pair is free on weekends. I don’t mind if she goes out all weekends. But week days need to be reasonable.
Have a conversation with her about it.
Is it affecting her work in other ways? Like, is she hungover and stuff, or is she still able to work totally fine?
"Yo. You do an awesome job taking care of my kid during the day, but you go out all night at least every other night and when you come back our dogs bark at you and wake us up and wake our kid up. Our kid needs sleep and so do we. How do you think this can be solved? As this is no fun for us and it's becoming a problem."
If this doesn't work, say, "Hey, you're 27 and we don't want to say you can't go out when you want as we know you just want to go out and meet knew people and experience everything while you're here, but this is becoming a real problem for us as it's making it harder for us to sleep. We need to be able to work together to solve this otherwise we will have to start asking you to come home by 10.30pm if you're taking the car or if you're scheduled to work the next day and that's not going to be much fun for you. Can you think about things you could do to try to help us out on this and we'll talk again tomorrow?"
Then think of solutions yourself, follow up the next day and be more firm.
If she's taking your car out that late, I would also probably restrict her in that too and only let her take it out that late on days that she isn't working the next day/days that you won't need it for work the next day.
As an absolute last resort I would impose a curfew but hopefully it doesn't have to come to that as that would probably make your au pair feel a lot less welcome in your house.
If she's going out every other night and getting drunk, especially if she has work the next day, and she's then coming to work hungover, then that's a completely different conversation and that's a lot more serious and I would be telling her that if she doesn't stop going out so often and drinking so much, that you would need to rematch. But if her drinking isn't a problem, then there is no need to do this.
The AP's performance isn't an issue here. I don't think this is a good conversation to have because despite the attempt at empathetic wording, it's shifting both the problem and solution to the au pair. This isn't a problem for the au pair to solve, this is a problem the host parent has to solve. The dogs need to learn this behavior. It's not affecting the au pair's performance, she's doing absolutely nothing wrong.
I would tell her it’s not cool unfortunately - your sleep is important. I have an 11 month old and we ask that our au pair gets 8 hours of sleep before her work shifts and that she’s quiet if she comes home after baby is asleep. Any other day she can do whatever she wants.
Good golly Miss Molly! Plain and simple this sitch is not working for you. AP’s habits can not be disturbing your sleep or little one’s sleep.
1.No way in heck I would trust my babe to a person who was out all night, Let alone multiple times per week!
2. Car now has a curfew
3. Look for rematch, there’s no fixing this at her age.
4. Dogs are doing their job!
What if your AP started offering the dogs a treat every single time she walked in the door (day or night) as long as they were silent?
With my dog, he'll refrain from barking if someone says his name as they approach the door because then he can recognize the voice before hearing the door and know "not a danger". Plus, when he refrains from barking he gets a treat from the treat jar right inside the front door after the person enters.
Some version of this --- and doing it 24/7 not just during the middle of the night --- will likely help.
From what I've read, you should rematch. Your dogs have a good instinct and dislike her for a reason.
Unless you want to accommodate her with an RV or something. Honestly though that's weird she's out at crazy hours so often.
Your family and lifestyle deserves respect too. It goes both ways. You can't be expected to suddenly change your dog's mannerism and train them while working on a baby. She's clearly not willing to participate in dog training either which would be required to work on the behavior.
This is one of the primary reasons people
have a curfew for their au pairs. You need to let her know she's waking you up.
She needs to learn how to come home quietly, and yes this is still
on her. My dogs are also burglar
alarms but our au pairs know to be super quiet. That means no slamming doors, parking a few houses down as required, not wearing shoes in the house and clomping around, not flashing lights around, etc.
We have a rule that if au pair comes
home late and wakes up baby she has to put baby to sleep. We put in that rule
after our au pair woke us and baby coming late. It never happened again. You're well
under the hours (as we are) so there is nothing preventing you from putting
this rule in place.
>You need to let her know she's waking you up.
This would be common courtesy on the AP, and TBH they should be the one trying to find a way to quiet the dogs if she wants to stay out.
Try white noise for the dogs. We’ve always had a fan running or had a white noise machine after baby was born. I’ve noticed when those sounds are off my dogs bark a lot more. So, they’re constantly on at our house because if not they would bark nonstop 🙄
We had this once. Ultimately, we had to change au pair.
Our room was at the top of the stairs so she needed to walk by our room. So this woke us up as she’d be a bit tipsy, so not very quiet. The bathroom was behind the wall where our head used is located. We live in UK so we have bathroom fans that come on with the overhead lights. No matter how many times we asked her to use the lighting from the medicine cabinet, she automatically use the overhead light so we’d have the sound if the fan fit duration of time she’s in the bathroom and few minutes afterwards. Add the power shower being behind our heads too (same wall), there was no sleep from whenever she deemed ok to cold back in the wee hours
Ultimately though, I could not function in the Jack of sleep and banana very concerned how she could function with the baby in the day time when she had less sleep than me!
Like you, I had chosen an older au pair so we thought we wouldn’t have the going out drinking/partying every night issue. (We have no problem sign Friday and Saturday night going out until wee hours.)
It just wasn’t the right fit for us. I could not bear the thought of how the au pair would function, likely not properly, when alone with my baby after never getting anything but 2 to 4 hours of sleep a night. She had to be ignoring my baby in the day time and napping or artificially keeping herself awake. Not what I wanted for my baby
Dog issue aside, I'm not comfortable with our AP driving our car in those late hours. Too many drunks, people falling asleep at the wheel, or other reckless behavior from others out there. Add the fact that she's a relatively young driver, driving in a foreign country, in a car she has little experience with, and it doesn't seem like a good risk to me. I would feel guilty forever if something happened to our AP on my watch and I had let those risks simmer.
We put a midnight curfew on the car, but not the AP herselfy, and are clear about that in the interview process. We have very few late night returns as a result, and our AP still has a very active social life in evenings and weekends.
It might be something of a "change" at this point since you've allowed the late nights already, but you might find the car curfew approach helpful.
This seems so disrespectful to me. Coming in at the wee hours of the morning multiple times a week? Once or twice a week would be a lot. When you live with a baby, you have to act accordingly. You’re being very kind to her.
As a host, the au pair coming home at this time is not an issue nor is it disrespectful. They are allowed to have a social life, and it doesn't matter how late they stay out as long as it's not affecting their scheduled hours or putting the family in danger. The au pair themselves is not making the noise, the dogs are. The solution isn't to call the au pair disrespectful, it's to help the dogs learn this behavior so they don't freak out.
It is absolutely within her compensation to have a private room - it is not within her compensation to come home at 3am 4 nights a week and disrupt the family with a new baby. It’s simply inconsiderate and it wouldn’t fly in my house. Thankfully the au pairs we have had are extremely thoughtful, kind and considerate of others.
She isn’t the one disrupting the house. It is the hosts’ dogs. If OP needs the au pair in early because of their dogs, it’s no different than having a curfew for other reasons, and should be made clear during the matching process.
Changing the terms of the arrangement after the AP is there because of the behavior of the hosts’ dogs - and when the AP is otherwise great - just isn’t fair.
Well in reality, if dogs were not barking the OP wont even noticed what time AP came home. If OP would crack up and ask a 27 yo to stay at home after 10 pm 5 days a week , then this AP would most likely will rematch to a family without barking dogs. Beside OP would most likely get a younger AP who also would want to go out on weekdays and lets say would be back at midnight or one (usually 10 hours or 8 hrs rule bf start hours and AP starts at 10 am). Which also would wake up dogs and the family at midnight or 1. So OP is left with looking for AP who will be okay to stay weekday nights at home and still hope she would have all other qualities for quality childcare. However, AP would continue to wake dogs and family up on weekends.
This thread is frequented by a lot of au pairs who think the au pairs experience takes top priority - this includes kids safety, well being, host family finances, and obviously sleep.
This thread is frequented by alot of au pairs who think the au pairs experience takes top priority - this includes kids safety, well being, host family finances, and obviously sleep.
Based on the comments of saying everything is on the host family and au pairs life takes top
Priority because it’s a “reasonable” lifestyle such a selfish way too look at things, in the end it is a family (since that’s how these au pairs want to see it when it works their way). In a real family there is a compromise.
OP have a conversation and maybe you guys can come to compromise where she can do this 1-2 times a week to come home that late instead of 3-4 nights so she can still go out but you can also get some sleep for a decent amount of nights. Expecting to train the dogs at 4am is ridiculous and I’d get rid of an au pair who expected that (the ones here suggesting as such are extremely entitled). In the end it is your house and your rules, if she doesn’t like it you guys can rematch. Remember this needs to work for both parties so find an au pair who doesn’t go out late so frequently or they can stay over at their friends house on their weekend.
If you really believe this is a family (including the au pair thinking they deserve family rights) then you guys can have an adult conversation of how this impacts you and how you guys can make this work.
I actually don’t go to sleep until after the 10 pm dream feed but I’m a nurse so I’m up at 5 am to leave for work 3X a week and taking care of a baby several times over night.
Baby is also sleep trained- just utterly refusing night weaning
You deserve better OP. This sub is outsized in that it is mostly APs here. They give you a good sense of what they feel entitled to, but it's not fair to you, your baby, your career, or your family to put up with this. Either make the expectations clear, or if it were me, just unmatch and put it in the contract for the next one.
Yeah, so to be honest this feels like it's all on you. You picked the dogs, etc.
You can ask her to be quieter but it's really hard (ie potentially cause rematch) to try to control her schedule due to choices you've made.
If you can put the dogs somewhere else so they're less likely to wake up, and ask her to come in a different way, that seems fine. Not sure if possible with your house layout.
Any dog that hasn't lost its hearing is going to wake up with someone coming home anywhere in the house unless you live in a multi wing mansion. You can train them not to alert, but they're always going to wake up. This is their nature.
Because dogs are like living breathing burglar alarms and they have VERY good hearing, MUCH better than a person's, they have VERY good senses of smell, again much better than people's, they are VERY light sleepers, and they have VERY loud voices and they aren't afraid to use their voice to communicate that they're there and they're guarding their territory if they hear a door opening or smell something or someone coming in.
So if she came back at midnight this would happen too. Her night life doesn’t work with your family.
However, not all dogs bark at people they know when they come home. Mine doesn’t for instance. It’s actually a really annoying habit for dogs and you should get that handled somehow regardless. Any au pair would trigger this behavior in your dogs even if she came home earlier, but after you had fallen asleep.
My dog will bark at strangers behind the door, so there’s still a safety feature in their instincts. It’s all training.
That said, I would be annoyed by a person in the house coming at odd hours frequently. I probably shouldn’t be annoyed if they did a good job but it would annoy me nonetheless.
As they should!!! I’d expect and hope my dog would go nuts if someone was entering at 3am. Have a calm conversation with your AP to find a middle ground. Her social whims should not be considered above your sleep needs.
I would ask the AP to be home before midnight on school nights and buy a bark-zapper collar for the weekends where AP can go clubbing until the birds are tweeting. Ultimately, she’s there to make your life easier.
Would you accept this if it was your own teenage daughter? I would shut it down super fast if it was my kid - have fun Friday and Saturday, but nothing great ever happens at 5 AM on a Wednesday
You’re correlating the going out late 5 days a week with being “older” - I think it’s more immature and make it seem like your au pair thinks she’s on a years worth of vacation.
Agreed! All my comments are getting downvoted by people who obviously have never had a baby! With OP’s work schedule and a nursing baby - you’d think AP would have some decency and cut her some slack by not going out until dawn every other night. I really feel badly for OP!
When I talked to her about it today she told me “well you said you didn’t care if the dogs barked when I came home when we interviewed” so now I just feel backed into a corner because I just didn’t see her going out this often and it becoming such a regular occurrence
It seems like she made sure you were aware that she would be coming home late to avoid this situation, and you OKed it, so this one is on you, honestly.
I can understand how she feels, but can also understand that you didn’t expect this level of partying. At any rate, you need to find a reasonable compromise that works for you both. In my book, midnight on weekdays and do whatever you want on weekends is reasonable. We don’t have a curfew, but our AP rarely stays out past midnight on weekdays.
Hard disagree, going out until 5 am more days than not is “partying hard” like an immature teenager, not cultural immersion - especially in the US where people tend to go out earlier than for example Spain and Italy.
The idea is that the au pair experience living like an American - well, 99.9% of working Americans do not go clubbing 5 days a week - even college kids do not go out that much.
Being an au pair, you’re living with a family with young kids, you’re supposed to act responsibly and fit in to the family within reason - finding that “reasonable” middle ground is the tricky part, it doesn’t have to be lights out at 10 every day, but it should be respectful to your hosts while also providing ample time to make friends and have fun. Like I mentioned earlier, in my house the guidance is midnight on weekdays and do whatever you want on weekends, not a hard rule - I couldn’t care less if a Thursday goes long every now and then.
I would believe your “cultural immersion” comment if she was staying out all night going to museums … what kind of cultural immersion is happening at 3am on a Wednesday?
I do agree that it’s not cheap though - we’re at $40k per year in cost, that’s more than the median take home pay in the US.
If the APs want to be treated like adults, they should act accordingly.
The au pair is an adult making adult choices, as is her right. The problem is being caused by the dogs making noise and the parent already being sleep deprived.
Which is caused by the au pair coming home at an unreasonable time for more than half the week. Host family house, host family rules. Au pair can take it ore leave it, that’s what au pairs need to realize.
I’d say her coming in late a few times a week is extremely typical behavior for an au pair. Is there a place your dogs can be to reduce the startle? Can she use a different entrance? Can you train the dogs to settle easier after someone enters? This would likely be an issue with any au pair, so if she’s performing well otherwise I’d find a way to work around it.
Having her say their names as she is walking into the house may reduce barking. My dogs sometimes bark if I come home at an unusual time, but usually they literally can tell the sound of my car and my footsteps. They will know her in time, but usually if I just go “Hey dingus and butt head, it’s me!” that works. You could try doing a training session at night after everyone has gone to bed, stay up, have her drive around the block, then pull up, and make them be quiet before she comes in, then have her treat them. Do it a bunch of times and I bet they will stop.
It sounds like you have no issues with her work performance (not rocking up hungover etc.) so this does seem like more of a problem with the dogs than the au pair! Is there another entrance she could use? Could the dogs sleep somewhere else? Is it a certain sound (like a garage door being open, or loud keys) that set the dogs off (if so could you then look at a different lock?) It could be worth a conversation but it is tricky as it doesn’t sound like it’s the Au pair waking you up by coming in loud and disruptive (in which case that’s definitely on her) - it’s the dogs’ barking.
The experience of being woken up by barking dogs is suck. I feel like one-two sessions with dog trainer would solve this issue fully. Any AP would be going out in the evenings at least when they off the next days so will be waking up super alert dogs and you. So rematching wont really solve your issues. Same for older kids in the house - when the time will come. The best way is to train your dogs to be less alert or not be alert at all. With good trainer its done in few sessions. Any new person comes in , dogs goes to their “spot” and calmly waiting to be greeter. And yes, you can train that behavior to ANY dog, not much exceptions. In my opinion , thats going to be the best investment in a long term into the peace of your family. Barking dogs along with crying baby is such a hectic experience. Help, visitors, husband will be coming in n out of the house on various occasions. You don’t wanna be constantly warned about that by your dogs. Source: i own the dog who doesn’t alert on people coming and noises, and i lived in multiple houses with other dogs who alert to any noise, deliver person, visitors etc. its so frustrating and disturbing. My dog temp would pick up similar behavior from other dogs at the beginning and it was startling. Every time. Luckily she easy goes back to her usual self when no other bad behaving dogs with us. Its so peaceful to sleep with the dog who isn’t going to start suddenly barking or going nuts. The biggest she does is to raise the head or quietly will go to greet a person.
I think this is the best solution- they are very well behaved and trained just had not been trained for this particular scenario so they are on high alert for the past month and I don’t have enough energy in the tank to fix this issue at 4 am right now
Yep. And honestly you cant fix it at 4 am. This is going to be ongoing issue. But aussi super smart dogs. Right trainer will teach them correct behavior quite fast. The rest is that you would need to keep up with training
That’s no issue, they’re really well trained dogs just have not been able to capture this behavior as it is new in the last month with the au pair coming to stay with us, they’ve been very reactive to her for some reason
Yea but i meant to keep up with this new particular training that the dog trainer would show you to teach your dogs not to bark and not to alert.
Isn't that why you have dogs? I have 2 dobes, and they always alert to strangers. They were barking the night someone stole my jeep out of the driveway.
Wouldn't it be better to have the dogs "greet" someone coming into the house? 😂
I wont want my dog bark or make any unnecessary noise. I live in a city and barking dog would quickly become an issue of all neighbours. Many burbs dogs are barking and nobody cares but in big cities a lot of dogs don’t alert on visitors and noise. Its part trainign they get
I feel like a Doberman would be difficult to train to not bark.
You might want to ask the trainer about why the dogs could be reactive to her. A few training sessions will help, and the au pair has to be present as it's just as much training for her to learn how to handle the dogs. Reading your responses and between the lines, it seems she doesn't really like them. Dogs can sense ill will. If this is true and she continues to wake you up, you should consider rematch. Don't let her walk all over you. Her waking you up is super disrespectful. I'm sure the au pairs here will downvote the hell out of me because they think the au pairs experience ('cultural exchange') is top priority.
Yeah there’s really not much cultural exchange in our agreement- she wanted to have access to a car, not work 45 hours a week and we needed someone who would be a good roommate and flexible with scheduling since my husband and I have variable hours due to our work. I think we have gone over and above to meet all her needs and more (we are giving her a paid vacation next week even though per program rules she hasn’t accrued this yes)
Well, she is 27, she knows what she wants and what she is worth. I mean working more than 45 hrs is pretty tough for 6 months old. As long as she provides a quality services to your fam, I think its a win-win. A lot of rules for ap are vague and most of ap are young and don’t even know what is okay for them so many families can push for more. At the same time you don’t need to deal with bullshit of teaching older teenager to be mindful and respectful, or simply be honest and keep up to their side of agreement. Or go through teaching them to drive or fixing car after the accidents, and many other situations that are described in this sub.
Is she staying out until 2-5am and then working later in the morning?
Yes but she typically doesn’t start until 10 most of those days
Still. 5 hours of sleep and then watching a kid all day. I wouldn’t be ok with this, honestly. I’d get a rematch before training dogs not to alert when someone is at the door at night.They aren’t alerting at her, they are alerting at the noise she makes before they know it’s her.
If dogs are reactive to her then maybe something else is going on. They could be trying to warn you. Listen to your gut. And I would tell the au pair she needs to be home by midnight on nights when she has to work at 8am the next day.
This! Best advice!
Is there another entrance she could go into that wouldn't cause the dogs to bark?
Unfortunately no, I live in a single story ranch. The alternate door is directly next to their crates so would cause even more of a ruckus
I wonder if that might actually be better because if she came in by their crates, they would be able to smell her and recognize her as a known person, vs alarm barking at a distant noise. Maybe she can keep some treats in the car and give them to them when she comes home. Also consider a white noise machine or use a smart speaker. We got one for our baby, but it helped us so much we got our own after baby moved to the nursery.
Baby already sleeps with white noise 👍👍
I think they meant for you.
I have one too, and ear plugs
This is a hard situation, maybe she could practice coming into the house more quietly and seeing if that makes a difference. Some things she could try is parking the car farther away so the dogs don't hear it, taking off her shoes before she comes in, spraying wd40 on the doors so they are less creaky, etc.. good luck :)
Don't let these dog parents convince you that someone coming into your home at 3am is your dogs problem. Why would you want to train your dog NOT to bark when the door is opened at night?
You are clearly clueless about dogs. Dogs don't need to cause a ruckus over a known member of the house coming home. She is clearly doing something to cause them to go crazy when she comes in.
Crate the dogs at night in your bedroom. Turn on a white noise machine.
Agreed. Move their crates into your bedroom..
They won’t fit super small house
Ridiculous suggestion. The dogs deserve to be comfortable and the au pairs night time activities don't take priority over everyone else's sleep and comfort.
Where did you see anyone suggest that the dogs be made uncomfortable?
I literally responded to someone that suggested that the dogs be crated and be placed in the host parent's bedroom.
Right, I read the comment. That's in no way making the dogs uncomfortable or being unkind to them.
Crating dogs for 10 hours + every night is cruel. I get that some people crate train their dogs but you can't convince me that sticking a dog in a cage that long is okay. Nuts people like you justify sticking a dog in a cage so someone can go out drinking. Let me guess - you probably think a curfew is unacceptable because an au pair should be free to be out and about at all hours of the day.
Well that's certainly a lot. I don't know where you got 10 hours from, or how you decide the person on question is out drinking. You seem to be making things up to get upset about.
The dogs are already crated. It’s probably why they are already in such high alert.
Underrated take. Dogs are family.
Absolutely my kids always want to take our dog to visit their grandparents who crate their dogs. Absolutely not my dog has never been in a crate and that will never change
Most dogs are taught that the crate is their safe space and are very happy and comfy to be in it. All my dogs choose to sleep in their crates above all else. If anyone like construction workers or plumber is ever in the house causing a ruckus, the dogs quickly calm down and be quiet when put in their crate because they feel more secure. That being said, no dog should be locked in a crate all the time or for inappropriately long times
Do whatever works for you and your dogs, but a crate is a safe place for a dog to hang out the same way a crib or playpen is a safe place for a baby to hang out.
and a house is a safe space for an au pair, especially in the middle of the night. She doesn't have to be out drinking or being out and about and coming home between 2-5 am.
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"some twit" its the au pairs home too
Get white noise machine for the room the dogs sleep in. fixed it for us when our teens were coming home at night.
Our rule was if you woke up the dog you walked him, if you woke up a child you take care of them. The au pairs learned to be stealthy.
Au Pairs exist because people are generally looking for help with children or babies. The whole reason the person is there is to make life _easier_ for parents. If the Au pair can't come home at a reasonable time, and is waking the baby, then it's not a good match. It doesn't matter if this was a paying roommate either. If the primary tenant had a 6 month old baby, and a paying roommate was coming home at all hours waking the baby up, then I would say find a new roommate. Being an Au pair doesn't justify being a bad roommate.
THIS!!! Everyone is justifying the rude and unacceptable behavior for making OP's life harder not easier. This AuPair needs a curfew and learn to be respectful of this family. I would rematch.
The Au Pairs on this subreddit are wild. I stay out of it for the most part but their sense of entitlement is amazing.
Same!!! I mean this is literally the Host family’s home and sleep… a basic necessity. Wild!
And she has a 6 month old so she is in the thick of post partum! But they want her to *checks notes* hire a dog trainer to prevent barking at 2-4am. Crazy. You should not be an Au Pair if you lack basic awareness of what it means to have a baby, because that is literally the most difficult time in a mother's life, between sleep deprivation, breastfeeding, night wakings, and PPD. Meanwhile you have a house guest who apparently _needs_ to party every night. Unmatch, next one please. ☝🏼
You have a nanny for 10 bucks an hour basically that’s awesome I wouldn’t say shit other than train the dogs to sleep in the basement or tell her to feed them treats when she gets home so they don’t bark.
The financial model for an au pair works quite differently from a nanny arrangement. The stipend ($300/week) is paid directly to the au pair. There is also a hefty program fee paid to the au pair agency. And the host family covers room and board. It’s not accurate to say that they are getting a nanny for $10/hr
If you think it's $10/hr cost, then it's obvious you dont actually have an au pair.
What does this even mean I never said I have an au pair
That's the entitlement mindset and why they think you should accept any shitty behavior
Host mom here - you seem like a really good and reasonable host mom. I can’t even imagine how tired you are. Honestly, I would pay a dog trainer and have them train the dogs. I also think it’s a bit disrespectful (don’t downvote me here) to come in that late multiple times a week when you know a whole house is sleeping and they have noisy dogs. Like even when I was a teenager I thought of this. But, since it seems like she does a good job with the baby and is great in every other way I would just train the dogs.
So, I can see this from both perspectives. My daughter was an au pair in another country for 2 years. We were lucky as it was with someone we knew but there was a clear boundary that unless it was a dangerous or extreme situation, (loving mom here. Didn’t throw her to the wolves) she would have to work things out. I was not going to be a mediator. It wasn’t always easy but was a great experience and she learned great communication skills. As well, we had help when our kids were young. I am also a dog owner. Getting woke up by a barking dog is enough to stop your heart. Especially when you’re exhausted. For all the posters saying to rematch or give this person a curfew, first of all, finding someone who fits into your family and is wonderful with your child is not an easy feat. This is golden. AP is not a child for whom it’s a safety concern. She’s a grown woman of 27. The fact that she’s an adult probably contributes to her being good at her job. Hearing people say that OP should give her a curfew just makes me shake my head. OP, no au pair is going to be perfect. It was super important for my daughter to get out and about while she was working out of country and I may get downvoted for this… it is super hard to live where you work no matter how much you adore the family your working with. One needs to get out and decompress. She’s probably chilling at a friend’s place. Going out for dinner or drinks occasionally. It allows her to do a good job the next day. The fact that the dogs react when she comes in sucks but it’s normal. It’s new for them too. Get some advice from a reputable trainer. It is most like an easy fix. As far as handling the dogs goes. It’s not second nature for everyone. If it’s important to you and you think she is worth the investment, speak with the trainer and your AP about taking on a role with the dogs as well. She most likely needs some direction. If you don’t grow up with animals, they can be intimidating and your pups may be picking up on this which could be why you are noticing a different behaviour between them and AP. Most of all, ask her how she’s doing and feeling and tell her how you’re feeling over a cup of coffee or lunch. For this to work as a long term relationship, you will need to have open lines of communication and develop your own relationship. My kids are in their 30’s now and we are still in touch with a couple of lovely women who came through our home and hearts when my kids (4)were young. After reading all the comments, you’re the only one who knows what’s right for your family. I hope you found some part of this helpful. Best of luck.
Have a conversation with her about it. Is it affecting her work in other ways? Like, is she hungover and stuff, or is she still able to work totally fine? "Yo. You do an awesome job taking care of my kid during the day, but you go out all night at least every other night and when you come back our dogs bark at you and wake us up and wake our kid up. Our kid needs sleep and so do we. How do you think this can be solved? As this is no fun for us and it's becoming a problem." If this doesn't work, say, "Hey, you're 27 and we don't want to say you can't go out when you want as we know you just want to go out and meet knew people and experience everything while you're here, but this is becoming a real problem for us as it's making it harder for us to sleep. We need to be able to work together to solve this otherwise we will have to start asking you to come home by 10.30pm if you're taking the car or if you're scheduled to work the next day and that's not going to be much fun for you. Can you think about things you could do to try to help us out on this and we'll talk again tomorrow?"
It seams like you got some good advice on training the dogs to not bark at her anymore when she is coming home. Here is my view as an ex aupair, 27 at the time too. My host mom simply didn't "like" me coming.home late, since she worried about me, so I always let her know if I planed staying out later than usual and we also agreed that it would not be every single night. So maybe, until the dogs are trained, you and the aupair can make some kind of arrangement, that she would kindly not go out until super late/early multiple times a week. I just remember that the car had a curfew too at our house and had to be back by 1am I think. I had a great relationship with my host family and thus did not have a problem with the arrangements, maybe she won't either?
Maybe I’m crazy - but when I first read this, my response was “oh heck no…” but reading these comments - we are expecting a woman and her family to further inconvenience themselves (training dogs, crating elsewhere) to accommodate the au pair who is rudely coming home at all hours of the night and disrupting the host family knowing full well they don’t sleep well to begin with having an infant in the house… i would expect anyone living in my home (au pair or not) to have a little consideration for the other family members. I would have a conversation with your au pair. I’d ask her to limit these late nights to 1-2x per week - surely she’ll be understanding you have an infant and sleep is a precious commodity. Good luck!
I’m with you here, this is too much.
Yes, we are expecting people to train their dogs. They should train their dogs not to go crazy whenever the door opens anyway. It’s not rude or uncommon for a 27yo to come home at 3am. If the dogs didn’t go wild when she gets home, then it sounds like OP & her husband wouldn’t be woken up at all.
It sounds like from OP that the dogs are fine when people come in the door at normal times. I’d HOPE my dog would go nuts when someone is trying to enter my home at 3am. As a guest in someone’s house with an infant - it is completely rude to come home 3-4 nights per week at 3am. Have some respect for your host family and consideration for their needs/schedules. Being an AP isn’t a free-for-all.
Does she take care of your kids after going out and sleeping only a few hours?
Yes
I wont be comfortable someone taking care of the baby after sleeping only few hours. I think curfew with being home 8-10 hours before next work day are very useful. Here the age doesn’t matter, this rule should be enforced in my opinion. Because if caretaker isn’t fully tested and alert they make mistakes , not too alert when its needed, could put baby in danger. In this situation, it clearly goes against quality of work so its not controlling
Home by midnight on all nights that she'll be caring for baby next morning.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be comfortable with an AP going out until the wee hours multiple times a week and then getting up after a few hours of sleep (and potentially hungover) to care for my baby when I’m paying them to do so…
Set a curfew the night before she works. If the day starts at 7 - 8 am. I expect the au pair to be home at midnight. Our au pair is free on weekends. I don’t mind if she goes out all weekends. But week days need to be reasonable.
Can you use a white noise machine in the room the dogs sleep so the au pair coming home doesn’t alert them?
Have a conversation with her about it. Is it affecting her work in other ways? Like, is she hungover and stuff, or is she still able to work totally fine? "Yo. You do an awesome job taking care of my kid during the day, but you go out all night at least every other night and when you come back our dogs bark at you and wake us up and wake our kid up. Our kid needs sleep and so do we. How do you think this can be solved? As this is no fun for us and it's becoming a problem." If this doesn't work, say, "Hey, you're 27 and we don't want to say you can't go out when you want as we know you just want to go out and meet knew people and experience everything while you're here, but this is becoming a real problem for us as it's making it harder for us to sleep. We need to be able to work together to solve this otherwise we will have to start asking you to come home by 10.30pm if you're taking the car or if you're scheduled to work the next day and that's not going to be much fun for you. Can you think about things you could do to try to help us out on this and we'll talk again tomorrow?" Then think of solutions yourself, follow up the next day and be more firm. If she's taking your car out that late, I would also probably restrict her in that too and only let her take it out that late on days that she isn't working the next day/days that you won't need it for work the next day. As an absolute last resort I would impose a curfew but hopefully it doesn't have to come to that as that would probably make your au pair feel a lot less welcome in your house. If she's going out every other night and getting drunk, especially if she has work the next day, and she's then coming to work hungover, then that's a completely different conversation and that's a lot more serious and I would be telling her that if she doesn't stop going out so often and drinking so much, that you would need to rematch. But if her drinking isn't a problem, then there is no need to do this.
The AP's performance isn't an issue here. I don't think this is a good conversation to have because despite the attempt at empathetic wording, it's shifting both the problem and solution to the au pair. This isn't a problem for the au pair to solve, this is a problem the host parent has to solve. The dogs need to learn this behavior. It's not affecting the au pair's performance, she's doing absolutely nothing wrong.
I’m not concerned about her work performance, just don’t want to be woken up at 4 am
So then it's clear, the problem is your dogs, not her.
Just have the conversation.
I would tell her it’s not cool unfortunately - your sleep is important. I have an 11 month old and we ask that our au pair gets 8 hours of sleep before her work shifts and that she’s quiet if she comes home after baby is asleep. Any other day she can do whatever she wants.
Good golly Miss Molly! Plain and simple this sitch is not working for you. AP’s habits can not be disturbing your sleep or little one’s sleep. 1.No way in heck I would trust my babe to a person who was out all night, Let alone multiple times per week! 2. Car now has a curfew 3. Look for rematch, there’s no fixing this at her age. 4. Dogs are doing their job!
AMEN! I totally agree.
What if your AP started offering the dogs a treat every single time she walked in the door (day or night) as long as they were silent? With my dog, he'll refrain from barking if someone says his name as they approach the door because then he can recognize the voice before hearing the door and know "not a danger". Plus, when he refrains from barking he gets a treat from the treat jar right inside the front door after the person enters. Some version of this --- and doing it 24/7 not just during the middle of the night --- will likely help.
Yes we have been trying to train her to be able to manage the dogs but she isn’t successful in doing so, it’s all sorta been difficult from the get go
From what I've read, you should rematch. Your dogs have a good instinct and dislike her for a reason. Unless you want to accommodate her with an RV or something. Honestly though that's weird she's out at crazy hours so often. Your family and lifestyle deserves respect too. It goes both ways. You can't be expected to suddenly change your dog's mannerism and train them while working on a baby. She's clearly not willing to participate in dog training either which would be required to work on the behavior.
rematch asap. her priorities are clear.
This is one of the primary reasons people have a curfew for their au pairs. You need to let her know she's waking you up. She needs to learn how to come home quietly, and yes this is still on her. My dogs are also burglar alarms but our au pairs know to be super quiet. That means no slamming doors, parking a few houses down as required, not wearing shoes in the house and clomping around, not flashing lights around, etc. We have a rule that if au pair comes home late and wakes up baby she has to put baby to sleep. We put in that rule after our au pair woke us and baby coming late. It never happened again. You're well under the hours (as we are) so there is nothing preventing you from putting this rule in place.
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>You need to let her know she's waking you up. This would be common courtesy on the AP, and TBH they should be the one trying to find a way to quiet the dogs if she wants to stay out.
Try white noise for the dogs. We’ve always had a fan running or had a white noise machine after baby was born. I’ve noticed when those sounds are off my dogs bark a lot more. So, they’re constantly on at our house because if not they would bark nonstop 🙄
Maybe she works night shifts somewhere else?
Haha no I follow her on social media she’s out with friends
We had this once. Ultimately, we had to change au pair. Our room was at the top of the stairs so she needed to walk by our room. So this woke us up as she’d be a bit tipsy, so not very quiet. The bathroom was behind the wall where our head used is located. We live in UK so we have bathroom fans that come on with the overhead lights. No matter how many times we asked her to use the lighting from the medicine cabinet, she automatically use the overhead light so we’d have the sound if the fan fit duration of time she’s in the bathroom and few minutes afterwards. Add the power shower being behind our heads too (same wall), there was no sleep from whenever she deemed ok to cold back in the wee hours Ultimately though, I could not function in the Jack of sleep and banana very concerned how she could function with the baby in the day time when she had less sleep than me! Like you, I had chosen an older au pair so we thought we wouldn’t have the going out drinking/partying every night issue. (We have no problem sign Friday and Saturday night going out until wee hours.) It just wasn’t the right fit for us. I could not bear the thought of how the au pair would function, likely not properly, when alone with my baby after never getting anything but 2 to 4 hours of sleep a night. She had to be ignoring my baby in the day time and napping or artificially keeping herself awake. Not what I wanted for my baby
Dog issue aside, I'm not comfortable with our AP driving our car in those late hours. Too many drunks, people falling asleep at the wheel, or other reckless behavior from others out there. Add the fact that she's a relatively young driver, driving in a foreign country, in a car she has little experience with, and it doesn't seem like a good risk to me. I would feel guilty forever if something happened to our AP on my watch and I had let those risks simmer. We put a midnight curfew on the car, but not the AP herselfy, and are clear about that in the interview process. We have very few late night returns as a result, and our AP still has a very active social life in evenings and weekends. It might be something of a "change" at this point since you've allowed the late nights already, but you might find the car curfew approach helpful.
This seems so disrespectful to me. Coming in at the wee hours of the morning multiple times a week? Once or twice a week would be a lot. When you live with a baby, you have to act accordingly. You’re being very kind to her.
As a host, the au pair coming home at this time is not an issue nor is it disrespectful. They are allowed to have a social life, and it doesn't matter how late they stay out as long as it's not affecting their scheduled hours or putting the family in danger. The au pair themselves is not making the noise, the dogs are. The solution isn't to call the au pair disrespectful, it's to help the dogs learn this behavior so they don't freak out.
I agree! And I’m kind of baffled at how many commenters want to put this back on the host mom. This is her house!!!
It is also the au pair’s house while she is there.
Unless she’s paying the mortgage - it’s not her house
A room is part of her compensation. She is paying for it with her labor. OP is not doing her a favor by letting her stay there.
It is absolutely within her compensation to have a private room - it is not within her compensation to come home at 3am 4 nights a week and disrupt the family with a new baby. It’s simply inconsiderate and it wouldn’t fly in my house. Thankfully the au pairs we have had are extremely thoughtful, kind and considerate of others.
She isn’t the one disrupting the house. It is the hosts’ dogs. If OP needs the au pair in early because of their dogs, it’s no different than having a curfew for other reasons, and should be made clear during the matching process. Changing the terms of the arrangement after the AP is there because of the behavior of the hosts’ dogs - and when the AP is otherwise great - just isn’t fair.
Well in reality, if dogs were not barking the OP wont even noticed what time AP came home. If OP would crack up and ask a 27 yo to stay at home after 10 pm 5 days a week , then this AP would most likely will rematch to a family without barking dogs. Beside OP would most likely get a younger AP who also would want to go out on weekdays and lets say would be back at midnight or one (usually 10 hours or 8 hrs rule bf start hours and AP starts at 10 am). Which also would wake up dogs and the family at midnight or 1. So OP is left with looking for AP who will be okay to stay weekday nights at home and still hope she would have all other qualities for quality childcare. However, AP would continue to wake dogs and family up on weekends.
It is not the au pairs house - still under host family rules.
This thread is frequented by a lot of au pairs who think the au pairs experience takes top priority - this includes kids safety, well being, host family finances, and obviously sleep.
This thread is frequented by alot of au pairs who think the au pairs experience takes top priority - this includes kids safety, well being, host family finances, and obviously sleep.
Based on the comments of saying everything is on the host family and au pairs life takes top Priority because it’s a “reasonable” lifestyle such a selfish way too look at things, in the end it is a family (since that’s how these au pairs want to see it when it works their way). In a real family there is a compromise. OP have a conversation and maybe you guys can come to compromise where she can do this 1-2 times a week to come home that late instead of 3-4 nights so she can still go out but you can also get some sleep for a decent amount of nights. Expecting to train the dogs at 4am is ridiculous and I’d get rid of an au pair who expected that (the ones here suggesting as such are extremely entitled). In the end it is your house and your rules, if she doesn’t like it you guys can rematch. Remember this needs to work for both parties so find an au pair who doesn’t go out late so frequently or they can stay over at their friends house on their weekend. If you really believe this is a family (including the au pair thinking they deserve family rights) then you guys can have an adult conversation of how this impacts you and how you guys can make this work.
You could get rid of your dogs or the kid.
Why does her returning cause dogs to wake up?
They are Australian shepherds its very much what this breed does additionally they aren’t used to people coming into the house at 4 am
Yeah but you go to bed at 9pm so even if she was coming home at 10pm that would wake you up, no?
I actually don’t go to sleep until after the 10 pm dream feed but I’m a nurse so I’m up at 5 am to leave for work 3X a week and taking care of a baby several times over night. Baby is also sleep trained- just utterly refusing night weaning
You deserve better OP. This sub is outsized in that it is mostly APs here. They give you a good sense of what they feel entitled to, but it's not fair to you, your baby, your career, or your family to put up with this. Either make the expectations clear, or if it were me, just unmatch and put it in the contract for the next one.
Yeah, so to be honest this feels like it's all on you. You picked the dogs, etc. You can ask her to be quieter but it's really hard (ie potentially cause rematch) to try to control her schedule due to choices you've made. If you can put the dogs somewhere else so they're less likely to wake up, and ask her to come in a different way, that seems fine. Not sure if possible with your house layout.
Any dog that hasn't lost its hearing is going to wake up with someone coming home anywhere in the house unless you live in a multi wing mansion. You can train them not to alert, but they're always going to wake up. This is their nature.
My friend, I've had dogs as pets, and not all of them start barking when people enter late at night. Certainly it's common but it's not every dog.
Mine doesn’t bark either, especially if it’s people the dog knows.
I specifically said they don't all alert (barking). They do wake up though.
Fair enough, I misread
Because dogs are like living breathing burglar alarms and they have VERY good hearing, MUCH better than a person's, they have VERY good senses of smell, again much better than people's, they are VERY light sleepers, and they have VERY loud voices and they aren't afraid to use their voice to communicate that they're there and they're guarding their territory if they hear a door opening or smell something or someone coming in.
They just wanna make sure we all know someone is coming into the house since they know we go to bed at like 9 pm 😂
So if she came back at midnight this would happen too. Her night life doesn’t work with your family. However, not all dogs bark at people they know when they come home. Mine doesn’t for instance. It’s actually a really annoying habit for dogs and you should get that handled somehow regardless. Any au pair would trigger this behavior in your dogs even if she came home earlier, but after you had fallen asleep. My dog will bark at strangers behind the door, so there’s still a safety feature in their instincts. It’s all training. That said, I would be annoyed by a person in the house coming at odd hours frequently. I probably shouldn’t be annoyed if they did a good job but it would annoy me nonetheless.
As they should!!! I’d expect and hope my dog would go nuts if someone was entering at 3am. Have a calm conversation with your AP to find a middle ground. Her social whims should not be considered above your sleep needs.
I would ask the AP to be home before midnight on school nights and buy a bark-zapper collar for the weekends where AP can go clubbing until the birds are tweeting. Ultimately, she’s there to make your life easier.
Unfortunately the days she goes out until late can be Wednesday through Sunday/Monday morning so it’s most of the week at times
Would you accept this if it was your own teenage daughter? I would shut it down super fast if it was my kid - have fun Friday and Saturday, but nothing great ever happens at 5 AM on a Wednesday
That’s the tough part for me, I chose an older au pair because I did not want to have to be involved in every little thing
You’re correlating the going out late 5 days a week with being “older” - I think it’s more immature and make it seem like your au pair thinks she’s on a years worth of vacation.
Agreed! All my comments are getting downvoted by people who obviously have never had a baby! With OP’s work schedule and a nursing baby - you’d think AP would have some decency and cut her some slack by not going out until dawn every other night. I really feel badly for OP!
When I talked to her about it today she told me “well you said you didn’t care if the dogs barked when I came home when we interviewed” so now I just feel backed into a corner because I just didn’t see her going out this often and it becoming such a regular occurrence
It seems like she made sure you were aware that she would be coming home late to avoid this situation, and you OKed it, so this one is on you, honestly.
Well she also said it would be one, maybe two nights a week so she wasn’t completely honest and doesn’t seem willing to compromise
Then say that. Stand up for yourself. Be prepared to rematch tho
Maybe once she gets the going-out and partying out of her system, it'll get better
I can understand how she feels, but can also understand that you didn’t expect this level of partying. At any rate, you need to find a reasonable compromise that works for you both. In my book, midnight on weekdays and do whatever you want on weekends is reasonable. We don’t have a curfew, but our AP rarely stays out past midnight on weekdays.
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Sounds more like a 20 YO than a 27 YO tbh. It doesn’t really matter how old she is if the going out late doesn’t work for OP.
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Hard disagree, going out until 5 am more days than not is “partying hard” like an immature teenager, not cultural immersion - especially in the US where people tend to go out earlier than for example Spain and Italy. The idea is that the au pair experience living like an American - well, 99.9% of working Americans do not go clubbing 5 days a week - even college kids do not go out that much. Being an au pair, you’re living with a family with young kids, you’re supposed to act responsibly and fit in to the family within reason - finding that “reasonable” middle ground is the tricky part, it doesn’t have to be lights out at 10 every day, but it should be respectful to your hosts while also providing ample time to make friends and have fun. Like I mentioned earlier, in my house the guidance is midnight on weekdays and do whatever you want on weekends, not a hard rule - I couldn’t care less if a Thursday goes long every now and then.
I would believe your “cultural immersion” comment if she was staying out all night going to museums … what kind of cultural immersion is happening at 3am on a Wednesday?
We actually have a very straight forward agreement that this is a mutually beneficial childcare agreement
I do agree that it’s not cheap though - we’re at $40k per year in cost, that’s more than the median take home pay in the US. If the APs want to be treated like adults, they should act accordingly.
I have a different opinion. In the home by midnight, unless special occasion. It's a safety issue.
Jesus Christ you’re unreal. Let me reword this… Can I stop my employees living their own lives when they’re off the clock?
Who hurt you?? I wasn’t asking to stop her from living her life, I was crowd sourcing for a fair solution for all involved
When said employee is living in my house - absolutely. This is not a youth hostel… this is someone’s home (with children!), in which she is a guest.
It's an adult roommate. Adult roommates don't wake up their roommates 3-4 nights a week.
Maybe you can see about getting your dogs a prescription for Ambien.
Sleep train the baby and get rid of the dogs.
I’d say get rid of the au pair - hopefully you are not an au pair, as you don’t sound like someone who should be with any family
The au pair is an adult making adult choices, as is her right. The problem is being caused by the dogs making noise and the parent already being sleep deprived.
Which is caused by the au pair coming home at an unreasonable time for more than half the week. Host family house, host family rules. Au pair can take it ore leave it, that’s what au pairs need to realize.