Here we will go over some basic definitions of child care provider and domestic help options.
Au Pair:
Au Pair is a French word that means “on par” or “equal to”. In terms of American childcare, this is typically a young person from a country other than the U.S. who wishes to experience American culture by living with a family. The au pair provides child care and light housekeeping duties in exchange for a small salary and room & board. In an ideal situation, the foreigner is treated as part of the family and the arrangement is mutually beneficial to both parties. In many cases, the employer also provides an opportunity for the au pair to travel with the family.
Typically, au pairs would work 30-40 hrs per week including occasional evenings and weekends. The expected tasks should pertain to the children with no heavy housekeeping or household management duties required. Au Pairs would be paid a lesser salary than nannies because less is usually required of them.
Baby Nurse:
A baby nurse is someone who is trained to work specifically in newborn and infant care. This child care provider is also commonly called a newborn specialist and is not necessarily a registered nurse but deals with all aspects of newborn care. A baby nurse will typically attend to all needs related to the infant including bathing, feeding, laundry, setting up the nursery and making sure that mom gets the much needed rest after giving birth.
This person can be extremely valuable in helping your baby and you to get on a regular feeding and sleeping schedule. Often the support that mom receives from this helping hand is invaluable and well worth the higher end cost of this type of childcare.
Babysitter:
A babysitter is hired on a part time or on call basis and is usually paid an hourly rate. Typically babysitters would be high school students or young adults looking to make some extra cash while they attend school. Babysitters often do not have any specific training but certainly a CPR and first aid class would not be an inappropriate request, especially if the parents offered to pay for the cost.
Common duties of a babysitter include basic childcare which may be after school care, evening and weekend babysitting or summer positions. The babysitter may also be asked to do light picking up around the house as it relates to the children.
Daycare Provider:
Many people choose to place their children in daycare and we will cover this here as a definition but this site really focuses on child care options within the home of the parent. In home daycare providers run a service from their home and legally would hold a valid license to do so.
Some benefits of this option may be the social aspects for your child as he or she would be around other children in this environment. Some may choose to not opt for this option though for the very same reason because they want an in home nanny or an au pair to be able to focus on their child alone.
Doula:
Doula is a Greek word that means “a woman who serves”. A birth doula helps a mother to carry out her birthing plan and assists throughout the labor. For our purposes here, we will focus on the postpartum doula who supports mom, newborn and the family immediately following the birth of the infant.
The postpartum doula is there to help educate the parents and provide support which can include meal preparation, light housekeeping, errands and emotional support during a very tiring time for mom. The doula often assists in helping the entire family to adjust to the new family dynamic.
Governess:
A governess is not as common as the nanny position. Where a nanny does not necessarily hold a higher education degree, a governess will normally hold at least a bachelor’s degree and her primary role is that of an educator to the children she looks after.
Housekeeper:
Although, a housekeeper does not totally fit into the arena of child care, we are including it here as a domestic helper position because sometimes if babysitting needs are minimal, you may be able to find once person who is willing to do both housekeeping and childcare.
Mother’s Helper:
A mother’s helper would perform similar duties as a babysitter or nanny, but most often they do so with some amount of supervision, meaning that a parent is usually at home or nearby and simply needs another set of hands for help with the kids. Most often this is a younger girl who is interested in gaining some childcare experience so that they can then transition into babysitting or a professional nanny career.
Nanny:
The professional nanny is the real focus of this website. A nanny typically provides full time in home care for your child or children and performs all duties related to the child including cooking, errands, maintaining schedules and other tasks to support parents with their child rearing. Nanny positions could be live-in or live-out and in some cases they may fulfill only a part-time or summer nanny child care need.
A nanny could work 10-12 hours per day and the salary would reflect this as nannies also tend to have 2-5 years of full-charge work experience and in some cases educational and other additional qualifications that make them the ideal candidate for your child care needs.