Adding a Helping Hand to Your Home

When you have a family member come into your home, you often pull out all the stops to ensure that they feel welcome and comfortable.  You might make their favorite dish, stop your daily tasks to visit and entertain and line up activities that they might enjoy.  What about when you add a hired helper to your home?  Often mothers feel a bit confounded about how to make the nanny or mother’s helper they hire feel comfortable and welcome, while still expecting the helper to perform paid tasks.

I will let you in on a little secret, it isn’t as hard as it might seem.  Think about it this way, if that family member from out of town were to stay for a very lengthy time, you wouldn’t feel so compelled to find ways to make them feel welcome. Instead, you would allow them to fall into the groove of the home and just become a part of it while still treating them like a valued asset, a nanny; housekeeper or mother’s helper is no different.  Here are 25 ways your helping hand can fall into the family routine but still be an invaluable asset to mom during the day.

1. She can start loads of laundry
2. She can do dinner prep work
3. She can read to your little ones
4. She can make your homemade baby food
5. She can see your children off to school and give them a snack when they return
6. She can help your children with homework
7. She can lay out the children’s clothing for the next day
8. She can pack lunches
9. She can pick up the toys
10. She can prepare snacks
11. She can take the children for a walk
12. She can attend play dates with your children’s friends
13. She can take your children to gymnastics, swim, ballet, etc
14. She can prepare goodie bags for class parties
15. She can teach your child how to do age appropriate chores
16. She can run the children to sports practices
17. She can take the children to the pool
18. She can accept packages while you are out
19. She can run to the grocery
20. She can take care of small errands
21. She can do light housework
22. She can baby wear while going about doing things in the home
23. She can keep tabs on a sick little one
24. She can help teach basic preschool skills
25. She can bathe the little ones before bed

Whether you are in your home office working or away at work, having any number of these tasks completed when you finish your day just may make you feel like hugging your nanny.  It is not hard to see then how you would welcome her to sit down to dinner (one she may well have prepared for you) and enjoy letting the children tell you about their day with her.  Giving her a small thank you card for the kind way she treats your children or remembering her birthday are also ways to include her in the family.

The best way for a hired helping hand to work with you is to allow her to be included, feel needed, and be appreciated.  It is not hard to do any of these things when you can either come out of your home office or return after a long day’s work to find that the house is in better shape than when you left it and the children are happy and well cared for.