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Au Pair Work abroad

Work as an Au Pair

I worked as an au pair

"You'll come out at the other end as a different person. There’s no other experience like this..."

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Female travel

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Work as an Au Pair

Au pair work: what you should know

MsBailey writes...

"My dictionary definition for the month: 'young foreigner who receives free board and lodging in return for housework etc'. My title for the month: au pair.

As my hand-scrawled, green-pencilled, A4 name-sign flashed at me from behind grinning Pisa Airport barriers, my throat went a little dry and I had to reassure myself that this would be a positive experience. But as I shook the hands of my host family all doubt fled my mind and a little grin spread over my face, as I knew from day one I'd have a good month.

I had read many articles and diaries of other intrepid youngsters who'd taken up the challenge, I'd spoken to families with au pair experience, and I also had cousins who'd been brought up with au pairs, who had helped look after me during my stays when I was a kid. My mother had been childminding for 14 years and my extended, winding, dusty history of baby-sitting stood me in good stead for knowing what goes on in the mind of a child. Or at least what they may turn around and do next, be it careering head-first down a death-slide or gobbling the whole 24-variety-pack of Walkers. I thought this would be my ideal job: learn the lingo, experience the culture and change a few nappies...

I was to spend the month in Tuscany, Northern Italy, and if all went well I’d come back in September to continue my placement for 10 months. I had originally used totalnannies.com as my base (because they were the company gapyear.com recommended) and they were brilliant. Very thorough, very efficient and very experienced.
Zoe Bailey

I had to fill out many forms, use referees and have a phone interview with my allocated personal correspondent. But in the final leg I hadn't received any word from them, and was panicked that I wouldn't be going anywhere, so logged on to the aupairworld website. On this site you type in your details, then search matching families. This is also one of the many sites (along with the other 100 or so you get when searching on Google) that can charge you.

Perhaps I wasn’t specific enough in my requirements, but I ended up getting bombarded by 80 families trying to get me to stay with them! I would get phone-calls from Germany, Madrid and Switzerland and emails every few minutes (hotmail staff threatened to close my address down!) all asking me to become a new family member. My top tip: be very specific when searching for a family; even request a particular salary bracket if you can. Whittling down my options was not easy, but I did it. I spoke to the family personally, got photos of them and had a contract written up, all before I went out.

Totalnannies did get in touch in the end, and it turned out there was a computer glitch because my correspondent was awaiting my reply on several families. I would say stick with these guys, they really know what they're doing, and made me feel confident.

You have a choice of three "titles" when going abroad to look after kids. Either: an au pair (free board and lodging, minimum of one day off a week, maximum two nights’ baby-sitting and pocket money paid weekly); a mother's help (more hours, three nights’ baby-sitting, can have more time off, cleaning etc.) or a nanny (qualified with a diploma, so gets a proper salary and allotted weeks off and days off). Think carefully when you’re choosing between the au pair and mother's help; if you have had a lot of experience, then mother's help is often better and you get paid more, but au pairs get more free time during the day for the chance to learn the language at a local school and do other stuff. I went with au pair, as on aupairworld.com it was the only choice I had! The view from my balcony

I had my own section of the house: study, balcony terrace, bathroom and large bedroom. Most families will offer this kind of package to you, but where they don't, they'll often have an en-suite room for a nanny. I found this to be the most important part of my stay; when you've spent many hours with the child and have four hours off, you really need some ‘me’ time. I was to be paid 100 euros a week (£68-ish) and had the use of the car if I wanted. Again, most families offer this, some even give you your own car, which is needed when you're three miles up a dirt track high above the town overlooking the rooftops of Florence and Pistoia!

My day would consist of an 8am start when the baby had been fed breakfast. I would walk with him for half an hour to get him to sleep for his morning nap, then sit by the pool until he woke. Then we played before giving him lunch, then bedding him for the afternoon. I then had free time until 5pm. Then he was mine again until he was in bed between 8pm and 8:30pm. I took some flash cards with me to teach the baby words, and a tip for anyone going: they work really well. The ones I took had eight languages on the back so you could even teach the baby other languages! The only problem I found was that the baby (Ottone) was a little spoilt: not doted on, just picked up a lot. If you put him in the pen, he would scream blue murder unless you got him out or he'd pull on your leg when he was crawling around. This can often happen as these children have been brought up with nannies from birth then au pairs ever since. Choosing to work with a new-born is the only way I can think of to avoid this!

I had a good month, but decided it was too static for me. As I'm going into the army next year I need to keep fit, but the heat and nature of the job meant I could only get a few lengths of the pool in. So I am not returning in September, but definitely wouldn't say it was a negative experience in any way. I have picked up quite a bit of Italian, I experienced a different way of life and have understood why you should wait a few years to experience life before having children!"

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