What Is Typical for Christmas Giving and Nanny?

Hi Pam,

I was a former Nanny, and I agree with Pam one mom that says a good nanny is priceless. My former employee gave me a $100.00 and a bonus. They gave me that because they love and like me for loving and caring for their daughter and caring for their home.

M.

Hi I.,

My friend suggested me a very special and innovative way of "gift giving" for my co-workers, friends and nanny.It is convenient and yet appealing to the other person.

The gift giver chooses the gift collection to give.The recepient gets to choose the gift he or she wants online and redeems it. The selected gift is delivered directly to your doorstep! No shipping charges.That's pretty cool right?
Check out
http://rpalnitkar.ordermygift.com

You could order a gift album online.There are 7 general and 13 special gift collections from popular brand names like adidas, Sony, Ghirardelli, Cuisinart, and more. Huge selection of home décor, gourmet foods.Also all this comes with a 90-day money back gaurantee.

I am sure you will find it interesting too.

Cheers,
G.

Having been a nanny for many years, a bonus within your means and small gift would be appropriate and very appreciated.

I typically give our au pair a week's salary (currently $176), and a small personal gift (this year we gave an Ipod Shuffle)- but this year, I also took a page out of Oprah's book - and gave her little notes that my kids filled out "What I love about you....." She cried! I think she liked that more than the money or gift!

I.,

An extra week's pay is standard for full time nannies.

Stephanie

I.,
You are a thoughtful employer in these turbulent times:)
I think giving what you can honestly afford is the most appropriate this year. I know there are people who may give a lot to assure nanny stays and sometimes just because they can but not everyone has those means, esepcially now. If you are a good employer all year, treat her well, regard her work as it is, a gift, then I am sure a gift that she can use, a gift card or a small cash gift is appreciated. Today, a lot of people are out of work and are willing to work for less and have more reasonable expectations.

Hi I.!

I am not a nanny, nor am I someone with a nanny, but I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in anyway :o)

A nanny to me, is someone who I would rely on for anything and everything revolving around my most precious children. A good nanny is priceless............

I would go with a generous VISA card, which is something she could use for whatever she wants....Maybe even an extra check, or cash.

Merry Christmas!

~N. :o)

We've had a nanny for 4 years and typically give a gift worth about $100 and then a bonus check of slightly over 2 weeks pay. I think 1 week is kind of the minimum. From the comments below, perhaps we are at the high end but I've heard from the agency that we used to hire our nannies that the range is wide. I think some nannies get $5k. My take is that if you can afford a nanny to begin with, likely you're fairly well off and the extra money to you pales in comparison to how much it means to the nanny. As employers, we complain about finances etc yet expect our nannies to live on much much lower incomes. Then we expect them to take care of our children as if they were our own. So I've chosen to maybe be more generous than some employers basedo on the comments below (which I find shocking) but so far it's created I think loyalty from our nannies and hopefully better care for our children. Last thing I want is for the nanny to be bitter and subtly take it out on our kids over what in the grand scheme is not that much money. Consider what the financial impact would be if you stopped working... That's pretty much the alternative.

Hi I.,

I think it all depends on your relationship with the nanny, for example we didn't just buy our (babysitter) gifts for xmas, but also for her bday and other holidays. For Christmas we gave her an extra $200.00 and a gift. Again, she wasn't our nanny but sitter (she didn't live with us) We also gave her many full days paid when she hadn't worked an entire day, we picked her up in the morning and took her home later on. So while we didn't always do things monetarily , we definitely tried to make life easy for her.
I think as a family we were pretty generous towards her. Given we don't have a ton of money, for what we had, we were quite generous. Additionally, we referred to other friends/family who paid her well.

Because I was curious myself about your question I did a little research and came up with (depending on your financial situation of course) it appears a bonus is a percentage of their total pay usually equivalent to 1/2 - 1 week of their pay. In addition to that people would give a small token gift. I would suggest an age appropriate token gift for example if the nanny is a 20-something a knit scarf or movie tickets. This option appeared to be the most popular. A cash bonus was the prevalent theme.

-LLP

I.,

I am a former nanny and I was given around 200-300 cash for a Christmas bonus and usually a giftcard as well. I am not sure what your relationship is with your nanny,but the families I worked for, we were truly like family. Hope this info helps. I think your nanny would appreciate anything that you gave him/her. Since this is your first year with her, you could give a bonus and a small gift?

Take care and Merry Christmas!!

Molly