Mornings with the au pair: what support before school and nursery can look like
The alarm goes off. One child doesn't want to get up. The other can't find their sports kit. The lunchboxes are still empty, someone needs the bathroom, and really everyone should already have their shoes on.
For many families, the morning is one of the most exhausting times of the day.
Especially when several children need to be got ready for school, kindergarten or nursery at the same time, an enormous amount of organisation has to happen within an hour or two.
And this is exactly where an au pair can be a valuable source of support.
Because suddenly there is another person in the morning who can pitch in.
How can an au pair help in the mornings?
Which tasks the au pair takes on depends on the children's age and support needs, and of course on your family's individual daily routine.
For example, an au pair can help in the morning with:
- waking the children and supporting them as they get up,
- preparing breakfast,
- having breakfast together with the children,
- helping with getting dressed,
- accompanying the morning routine in the bathroom,
- reminding about or helping with brushing teeth,
- preparing lunchboxes and water bottles,
- getting school bags and nursery bags ready,
- remembering sports kit or other things that are needed,
- putting on jackets and shoes,
- walking a child to school, nursery or kindergarten, or
- taking a child to the bus stop.
That sounds like a lot of small tasks.
And that is exactly what it is.
But it is precisely these many small tasks that all need to be done at the same time in the morning.
One extra pair of hands changes the whole morning
Often a family doesn't need extra childcare for many hours in the morning at all.
Sometimes just 60 or 90 minutes of support makes a huge difference.
While Mum is in the bathroom with one child, the au pair might be preparing breakfast.
While Dad helps the youngest child get dressed, the au pair packs the last things for the school-aged child.
And while one parent is already on their way to work, the au pair takes a child to nursery.
A parent who is trying to be in five places at once suddenly becomes part of a small team.
Several children? Simply split the morning up
An au pair can be particularly practical for families with more than one child.
Perhaps school starts at 8am, but nursery doesn't open until later. Or two children need to be taken in different directions at the same time.
Then the family can split the journeys.
Mum might take the school-aged child to school, while the au pair walks the younger sibling to nursery.
Or Dad is already driving to work, and the au pair walks the school-aged child to the bus stop.
Every family decides for themselves which arrangement makes the most sense.
The au pair doesn't need to “take over everything” in the morning.
They should support wherever an extra pair of hands makes the biggest difference.
Morning support for a child with a disability
Particularly for a child with a disability or additional support needs, mornings can take considerably more time.
Perhaps a child needs longer to get dressed.
Perhaps individual steps always have to happen in the same order.
Perhaps they need support with communication or have to be reminded of the next step several times.
Perhaps time pressure and changes quickly lead to feeling overwhelmed.
In that case, it can be an enormous relief if one parent doesn't have to support this child, make breakfast, chase up siblings and check three bags all at the same time.
Instead, Mum, Dad and the au pair – depending on who is around in the morning – can share the tasks between them.
Sometimes it's the siblings the au pair looks after
This kind of relief doesn't always have to mean that the au pair takes over caring for the child with a disability.
Sometimes it works much better for the family the other way round.
Mum calmly accompanies the child with a disability through their morning routine.
Meanwhile, the au pair has breakfast with the siblings, helps them get dressed and then takes a sibling to nursery.
That can be more relaxed for everyone involved.
Morning routines need to be shown first
For parents, your own morning routine is completely second nature.
For a new au pair, it isn't.
“Please get the children ready for school” is therefore far too vague, especially at the start.
First, show your au pair step by step how your morning works.
When do the children get up? What do they have for breakfast? What goes in the lunchbox? Which child needs help with what? Where are the school bags kept? When does who need to leave the house? What extra things are needed on Tuesdays?
Accompany the first few mornings together, and then hand over individual tasks step by step.
“Just watch for today” eventually becomes, quite naturally:
“The lunchboxes and the walk to nursery are your area in the mornings.”
The same goes for the lunchbox: no one can guess your family's routine
It is precisely the supposedly obvious little things that otherwise quickly lead to misunderstandings.
A host family thinks:
“She knows how to pack a lunchbox, surely.”
But does the au pair actually know what your child takes with them?
Which bread they eat? Whether fruit needs to be cut up? What isn't allowed at school? Which water bottle belongs to which child?
No – not until you have shown them.
Do it together at first.
After a few days, the au pair can take on the task independently.
Practise the walk to school and nursery together
If the au pair is later to take the children to school, nursery or the bus stop independently, this journey should also be practised together first.
This applies especially if buses and trains are involved, or if the au pair has only lived in Germany for a short time.
Drive or walk the route together.
Show them stops, entrances and pick-up points, and explain what needs to be watched out for.
The same principle applies here too:
Show first – then do it together – then hand over responsibility.
When children don't want to cooperate in the morning
Not every child jumps out of bed in the morning full of enthusiasm, shouting: “Finally, nursery!”
Children get tired, dawdle, argue, or suddenly want to be dressed only by Mum.
Especially in the early days, parents shouldn't expect the new au pair to resolve all morning resistance on their own.
Children also need to learn:
Our au pair is now part of our mornings.
Parents can support this role by clearly telling their children which tasks the au pair takes on, and that the family's agreed rules also apply with the au pair.
Enter morning hours deliberately into the weekly schedule
Morning support is of course part of the au pair's working time.
If the au pair works, for example, from 7am to 8.30am in the morning, that already accounts for 1.5 hours of the day.
After that they can have time off, or perhaps attend their language course, and provide support again only in the afternoon.
An au pair's working hours may be spread across the day to suit the family's needs, as long as the applicable limits of a maximum of six hours a day and 30 hours a week are respected.
At Besondere Sterne, our host families therefore receive templates for daily and weekly schedules (Tages- und Wochenpläne), which also make it easy to keep a clear overview of split working hours like these.
A more relaxed start to the day
An au pair cannot magically make the family's morning routine entirely stress-free.
Children will still be children. The sports bag will still go missing once in a while, and someone will inevitably refuse to put their shoes on on exactly that morning.
But there is one crucial difference:
You no longer have to do everything at once, all by yourself.
One person makes breakfast. Another helps with getting dressed. Another takes a child to school. Someone remembers the lunchbox.
And especially for families with several children, or a child with additional support needs, this extra pair of hands in the morning can be incredibly valuable.
Sometimes it isn't six hours of childcare that make the biggest difference.
Sometimes it's the right 90 minutes.
