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Baby Nurse

A Family's Story of Distress

Q: We hired a live-in baby nurse to take care of our newborn for three weeks. Teresa, the baby nurse we selected through our agency, seemed to be the perfect fit. The agency explained to us that her role would be to handle everything concerning the baby. Teresa would have her downtime whenever the baby was sleeping, and the agency explained to us that this works well for the baby nurses, since infants spend a lot of time sleeping.

However, in order not to burn out the baby nurse, we arranged to give her two days off during the three-week period. She would be replaced by a temporary baby nurse for those days.

Teresa had a complete suite to herself next to the nursery and full access to the kitchen. If she fancied anything to eat, our kitchen staff was assigned to handle it.

On day three, Teresa informed us that she needed to go out for a couple of hours to take care of some personal business that she had not anticipated. We thought that she had an emergency and arranged for our chauffeur to accompany her where she needed to go. She was gone for four hours.

A few days later, she announced that she needed to go out every day for at least three hours. She promised that she would do it whilst the baby was sleeping, so that she would not be missed. This was preposterous and unacceptable. We called the agency, and they offered to find us a replacement. However, most of their baby nurses were on assignment, and we were told that the process could take up to three weeks. We felt trapped. After all, we were paying Teresa an extremely high rate to help us through the early weeks of babydom, and now she was practically blackmailing us. Where did we go wrong, and what should we do next time to avoid such a situation?
Feeling Taken Advantage Of