Louise

My Requirements

Our son is energetic, cheeky, sporty, bright, sociable and musical. He has rugby and football training and matches every weekend for local clubs which my husband mostly takes him to - he’s a goalkeeper and loves doing penalty practice (either with us or one of our friends) in our bedroom at home. After school during the week, he has swimming lessons on Tuesdays, piano lessons on Wednesdays and kickboxing on Thursdays.

We will need someone during the week from 9am to 7pm each day - we can do the morning school runs but then our son will finish school at 3:30 and will need to be taken to his after-school activities and then do his homework (mostly reading and spellings but also some maths and English). He usually has his dinner at 5/5:30pm and gets into the bath around 6:45pm. Either my husband or I should be home by 6:45 each day and then can take over.

We tend to do some cooking over the weekend so there are some easy meals like bolognese to heat up for him when there isn’t time to cook a full meal from scratch. I do weekly Ocado shops and it would be helpful if our nanny could help to ensure I include anything that we are low on.

Our dog, Moose, needs to be let out into our back garden for a wee every 4 hours or so and occasionally needs to be walked - Monday and Friday afternoons and Thursday mornings. My husband or I walk her every other morning and a Ukrainian who lives locally (we previously accommodated their family in our home) walks her Tuesdays to Thursdays in the evenings. She needs to be fed (usually 5:30-6:30pm and at least 20 mins after her walks). Twice a year over the course of a month or so, Moose sheds quite a lot of fur which requires sweeping up as otherwise it gets in our food. She stays in our ground floor open plan kitchen and sitting room, though, so it only takes a minute.

Our son sometimes has to practice piano and double bass but it’s just a matter of supervising him rather than needing any musical expertise, usually for 10-15 mins twice a week per instrument)

I usually put our son’s school uniform in the wash when he gets in the bath, and put out his uniform for the next day. We have plenty of sticky name labels in case they’ve come off. Sometimes he comes home very muddy football/rugby boots and gloves which need to rinsed in the sink and put on the radiator.

There is a carer WhatsApp group for our son’s school year so that the carers are kept informed about school trips requiring packed lunches, extra homework and any additional requests to bring something to school (eg for craft or charity donations).

In our son’s holiday time, we would ideally have a nanny from 8:30am to 6:30pm. We tend to spend time in the summer in Ireland and Spain with our son’s grandparents and would not need someone to travel with us, although it could potentially be helpful if my sister and her three sons are travelling with us (aged 10-16, the 14 year old is non-verbal autistic). Otherwise in the holidays, our son does some holiday camps and enjoys lots of play dates with friends, playing football in the park or tearing around the house playing laser tag.

Finally, I usually do light housework during the day - laundry, sweeping up any dog fur and mud brought in by our son or dog, loading & unloading the dishwasher, cooking, brushing the dog, making the beds, replacing toilet rolls etc. During the school holidays, this is harder but I would need our nanny to keep on top of these when I am not around. We have a cleaner for four hours each Monday who hoovers & mops the house and cleans all the bathrooms & kitchen thoroughly.