Combining work and a child with a disability: how can an au pair help?

Working and being there for your family at the same time is sometimes a daily organisational project even with children who don't need any particular extra support.

With a child with a disability, there are often further appointments, care times and organisational challenges on top.

School finishes at 1pm.

The HPT (special-needs day centre) may only run on certain days.

Occupational therapy is at 3pm.

The sibling needs to get to sport.

And at 4pm there's actually still a work video call in the diary.

So many parents eventually ask themselves the question:

How can I combine work and a child with a disability without constantly feeling as though I need to be in two places at once?

One possible form of support that many families don't initially think of is an au pair for a child with a disability.

Why is combining work and a child with a disability often particularly challenging?

Not every disability automatically means a heavy care load.

But for many children, the necessary support continues for much longer.

A ten-year-old might normally already be able to stay home alone for an hour.

Your own child possibly can't.

Other children eventually cycle to sport on their own.

Your own child still needs someone with them.

Other parents say:

"Go on home, I'll come later." (Translated)

For your own family, that might not be an option at all.

This creates a problem that doesn't automatically resolve itself as the child gets older:

An adult is still needed for many hours of the day.

And very often, Mum and Dad are exactly those people.

When your working day is dictated by care times

Many parents spend years organising their working hours around their child's care.

Who can start later in the morning?

Who can pick the child up?

Who drives to therapy?

Who stays home if care falls through?

Who takes the sibling to sport?

Who takes on the holidays?

Who can leave the meeting early today?

And it's often one parent who keeps stepping back professionally.

Working hours are reduced.

Appointments are moved.

Working from home is squeezed in between childcare and therapy runs.

Or a return to work keeps getting pushed further back.

This is exactly why, for families with a child with a disability, relief doesn't just mean free time.

It can also mean:

being able to work reliably again.

An au pair can close care gaps in everyday family life

School, nursery, HPT (special-needs day centre), Schulbegleitung (one-to-one school support), Familienentlastender Dienst (family relief service) or other provisions can be important parts of a family's support network.

But gaps often remain.

And these gaps often fall at times that are particularly difficult for working parents:

in the morning before school or nursery,

after school finishes,

between school and therapy,

in the late afternoon,

on individual care days

or during the school holidays.

An au pair lives in the household as a temporary family member and, within the permitted au pair working hours, can support exactly at these points.

Being able to work in the morning even though the children haven't left the house yet

Perhaps your first work appointment starts at 8am.

But the school bus doesn't come until 8:15am.

Or a child needs particularly a lot of support in the morning.

Then the adults can split the tasks.

Mum makes breakfast.

The au pair helps one child get ready.

Dad takes the sibling to nursery.

Or one parent already starts work while the au pair takes over a familiar morning routine.

These small windows of time in particular can determine whether work and family life with a child with a disability fit together organisationally.

The big care gap: the afternoon

For many working parents, the real problem starts after school.

The child comes home at 2pm.

But the working day doesn't end until 5pm.

If the child can't be left alone because of their disability, those three hours have to be organised every single day.

A well-trained au pair can, for example:

collect the child from school or after-school care,

travel home together,

prepare a snack or a simple meal,

play and keep them occupied,

go to the playground,

structure the afternoon

or accompany them to a leisure activity.

Meanwhile, Mum or Dad can finish their working day.

Fitting therapy appointments and work together

Another major point is regular therapy appointments.

Occupational therapy.

Speech and language therapy.

Physiotherapy.

Early intervention (Frühförderung).

Equine-assisted therapy.

Perhaps also SPZ (Sozialpädiatrisches Zentrum, a social paediatric centre), specialist, or other appointments.

Not every appointment can or should be handled by an au pair. Medical decisions and tasks naturally remain with the people responsible for them.

But for ordinary journeys to and from therapy, a well-trained au pair can be a real support.

Perhaps the au pair collects the child and accompanies them to occupational therapy.

Or Mum wants to be at the therapy session herself, and the au pair looks after the siblings in the meantime.

Either way can free up working time.

Driving also costs working time

Particularly in families with several children, a surprisingly large part of the afternoon consists of:

driving.

School.

Nursery.

Therapy.

Football.

Riding.

Music school.

Children's gymnastics.

Friends.

One parent sometimes sits in the car for several hours a week.

If the au pair has a suitable driving licence, sufficient driving experience, and insurance, vehicle use and the necessary requirements have been clarified, journeys can also be taken over after careful training.

And if driving isn't an option for the au pair?

Then the tasks can simply be swapped round.

Mum drives one child to therapy while the au pair stays home, looks after the siblings, or takes on other agreed tasks.

Relief doesn't always mean the au pair takes over exactly the task Mum used to do.

Sometimes it makes much more sense to redistribute everything around it instead.

Working from home is not automatically childcare

Especially since working from home has become normal, the thought quickly arises:

"I'm at home anyway. So it'll work out somehow." (Translated)

But a video call and looking after a child who needs continuous support at the same time simply doesn't always work.

Just because a parent is physically in the house doesn't mean they're available at the same time.

Here too, an au pair can make a difference.

Mum works in the study.

The au pair is with the child in the garden, playing in the children's room, or at the playground.

Mum is reachable in an emergency, but is no longer permanently responsible for every little thing.

Especially during the settling-in period, this can even be a good intermediate step before larger blocks of care time are later handed over to the au pair alone.

Thinking about working life and siblings too

Combining work and family also never affects only the child with a disability.

Perhaps Mum has to take the child to therapy at 3pm.

The sibling gets home from school at 3:30pm.

And a work appointment actually starts again at 4pm.

With another trusted person, the family can split things up.

The au pair collects the sibling.

Or accompanies the child with a disability.

Or stays home with both children while a parent finishes an important appointment.

Suddenly, there isn't just one possible person for every task any more.

30 hours can change a great deal for a family

An au pair can support a host family for up to 30 hours a week and a maximum of six hours a day, including babysitting.

Within the applicable framework, and taking the au pair's language course and free time into account, these hours can be planned to match the family's actual needs.

And 30 hours doesn't have to mean:

Monday to Friday, 9am to 3pm.

For a working family, a completely different split can make more sense.

For example, support in the morning, then free time or the language course, and then another block of care time in the afternoon.

What matters is a clear weekly schedule, so that both sides know when it's working time and when it's free time.

An au pair doesn't replace a Schulbegleitung, an HPT or a care worker

Especially in families with a child with a disability, the roles must stay clear.

An au pair doesn't replace a necessary care worker.

It doesn't take on medical tasks.

And it isn't automatically a substitute for professional Schulbegleitung (one-to-one school support) or other approved specialist services.

But exactly in between these services, an incredible amount of perfectly ordinary family life happens every day.

And that doesn't always require a specialist.

Sometimes what's needed is simply one more trusted adult.

An au pair isn't a nursery teacher who takes over everything on day one

Understandably, working parents want relief as quickly as possible.

But here too, realistic expectations matter.

An au pair doesn't arrive on Sunday and independently take over the whole family routine on Monday morning.

They need to be trained.

The children need to build trust.

The au pair needs to get to know the routines.

With a child with a disability, they also need to learn where the child needs support and how the family handles certain situations.

That's why a settling-in and training period of one to three months should be factored into your work planning.

Invest first, benefit later

Especially in the first few weeks, an au pair can even cost extra time to begin with.

That sounds contradictory at first.

But:

You have to show them.

Explain.

Travel together.

Demonstrate the routines.

Accompany the au pair.

Then hand over the first tasks.

And then let go, step by step.

A task works independently?

Perfect.

Then the next one is added.

This gradually creates a routine in which parents no longer have to take on every single task themselves.

An au pair can also give back professional opportunities

Perhaps this is exactly one of the aspects of having an au pair that isn't talked about enough.

Relief doesn't just mean:

Mum can go to the hairdresser's for once.

Dad can do some sport.

The parents can go out for a meal.

Relief can also mean:

I can accept a work appointment without first drawing up three care plans.

I can increase my working hours again.

I can become self-employed.

I can attend a training course.

I can actually finish my working day, instead of catching up on it at night.

Or simply:

I can work while knowing that my child is being cared for by someone they trust.

A support network instead of the one perfect solution

For many families with a child with a disability, combining work and family life probably won't be solved by a single measure.

Perhaps the right model is made up of several building blocks:

School and Schulbegleitung (one-to-one school support).

HPT (special-needs day centre) on some afternoons.

Therapists.

Grandparents.

Familienentlastender Dienst (family relief service).

And, in addition, an au pair in your own home.

That's exactly where the strength can lie.

Because the au pair doesn't have to replace everything.

It can close the gaps in between.

Combining work and a child with a disability also means being allowed to share responsibility

Parents of a child with a disability naturally remain parents.

But parents don't have to personally take on every journey, every afternoon, every school run and every leisure activity.

A well-trained au pair for a child with a disability can become another trusted person within the family system.

Someone who says:

"I'll do the pick-up today." (Translated)

"I'll go to the playground with them." (Translated)

"I'll stay with the siblings." (Translated)

"I'll take them to children's gymnastics today." (Translated)

"I'll take care of the afternoon." (Translated)

And in the end, these many small tasks can make something very big possible:

that parents no longer have to constantly choose between their work and their child's needs, but that both are allowed to have their proper place again, side by side.