They Trust Their Nanny and Treat Her Well but She Has Already Used 10 Sick Days by May and Both Parents Work High-Stress Jobs With No Backup Plan When She Doesn’t Show
A couple with a 13-month-old has a nanny they genuinely like. She’s good with their child, they trust her, and she handles daily cleaning on top of childcare. The problem is her attendance record, which by May has already included 10 sick days, several snow days, paid personal days for doctor appointments, and at least one day where she didn’t show up without clear notice and later described it as a miscommunication.
Their contract allows for 5 paid sick days per year. They’ve already paid her for more than three weeks of time she didn’t work since November, and both parents hold high-stress jobs with no nearby family to fall back on when coverage falls apart.
What the Sick Day Pattern Actually Shows
The 10 sick days break down across four separate illnesses between January and May, which is a higher frequency than most employed adults experience in a full year. Two days in January for a stomach bug, two in February for a respiratory illness, two in April for strep, and four days this week for another stomach bug. Each individual absence has a plausible explanation, but the cumulative pattern across five months is what creates the problem.
The February illness is the detail that complicates the conversation most directly. She came in sick, the family caught it, and she then took two additional days off for the same illness. That sequence is frustrating for any employer to navigate, partly because it represents a cost that originated with a decision she made to come in while unwell. It also makes the hygiene conversation feel more necessary even though it’s the one they’re most uncomfortable having.
The Miscommunication Day Is a Separate Issue
The attendance problem and the no-show day are related but distinct, and it’s worth treating them separately. Ten sick days in five months is a frequency issue that requires a direct conversation about expectations and contract terms. A day where she didn’t show up without clear confirmation she wasn’t coming is a reliability issue, and the miscommunication framing doesn’t fully resolve it regardless of what caused it.
Both issues affect the couple’s ability to plan and manage their work commitments, and both deserve to be addressed clearly. Letting the miscommunication day get absorbed into a general conversation about sick days risks leaving the reliability concern unaddressed, which means it’s more likely to happen again.
What Generous Treatment Does and Doesn’t Cover
They’ve been notably flexible employers. Paid snow days, personal days for medical appointments, additional holidays beyond the contract, early Friday dismissals at full pay, and regular coverage of meals, coffee, and transit costs represent a level of compensation and goodwill that goes well beyond standard nanny arrangements. That context matters, but it doesn’t make the attendance problem easier to absorb, and it doesn’t mean they’ve forfeited the right to hold her to the terms of their contract.
Generous treatment and reasonable expectations aren’t in conflict with each other. They can acknowledge that she’s valued, enumerate the ways they’ve demonstrated that, and still be direct about the fact that 10 sick days by May is beyond what the arrangement can sustain, especially in a household with no backup childcare and two demanding jobs.
How to Have the Conversation
The conversation they need to have isn’t about hygiene habits or how she manages her health. It’s about the practical impact of her absences on their ability to work and the gap between what the contract outlines and what’s actually happening. Framing it that way keeps the discussion professional and focused on outcomes rather than personal behavior, which makes it easier for both sides to engage without defensiveness.
A direct, calm meeting where they walk through the attendance record, acknowledge her value, and explain what they need going forward is more productive than a written warning or an ultimatum. They should be specific about what reasonable attendance looks like for the rest of the year, clarify what the contract covers and what falls outside it, and give her the opportunity to respond. If the frequency continues after that conversation, they’ll have documented that the issue was raised and addressed, which matters if the situation eventually requires a harder decision.
What Reasonable Looks Like in Nanny Arrangements
The comparison their peers are drawing, where most nannies take one to two sick days per year, may reflect a self-selection bias among people who share their experiences casually. Nannies, like any workers in close contact with young children, tend to get sick more often than adults in office environments because toddlers are reliably germy and the work doesn’t allow for much physical distance. Five paid sick days per year is a reasonable contract allowance that accounts for that reality.
Ten days by May, on top of additional paid absences for snow, appointments, and other reasons, is above what most contracts are designed to absorb. It doesn’t make her a bad nanny, and it doesn’t mean the arrangement can’t continue, but it does mean the current pace isn’t sustainable without a conversation that resets expectations for the second half of the year.
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