Taking the au pair to a Mutter-Kind-Kur: support during a rehabilitation stay with a child with a disability
A Mutter-Kind-Kur is really meant to achieve one thing: relief.
Time for your own health. Therapies. Conversations. Treatments. Exercise. Rest.
But especially for a mother with a child with a disability or particular support needs, a question quickly arises:
How am I supposed to recover if my child also needs intensive support during the stay?
Depending on the child and the clinic, one option to consider can therefore be taking your own au pair along to the Mutter-Kind-Kur.
After all, the au pair already knows the child, knows their routines, and can help outside of the mother's treatment sessions.
One thing is essential, though: this absolutely must be discussed and approved with the relevant clinic beforehand.
Can the au pair come along to a Mutter-Kind-Kur?
Whether an additional companion – or the au pair – can come along to a Mutter-Kind-Kur clinic cannot be answered as a blanket rule.
Clinics have different concepts, different physical facilities and different rules.
This is why the family should ask the clinic directly, before booking or before starting the Mutter-Kind-Kur:
Can our au pair travel with us?
Can they be accommodated at the clinic?
What additional costs will arise?
Can the au pair accompany the child outside of care hours?
Are they allowed to bring the child to and collect them from certain activities?
What rules apply within the facility?
Only once the clinic has agreed should planning proceed accordingly.
Why can an au pair be helpful during a Mutter-Kind-Kur?
A clinic can offer childcare – but not every childcare offer automatically suits every child.
A child with a disability in particular may need closer support.
Perhaps they cannot simply stay in a larger group of children.
Perhaps they need support with communication.
Perhaps they need a familiar person during transitions.
Perhaps they cannot adequately judge risks.
Or, because of their disability, they need one-to-one support during leisure activities.
This is exactly where an au pair the child already knows can be an enormous support.
The mother should actually be able to attend her treatment sessions
Let's imagine:
A treatment session for the mother starts at 10 a.m.
At the same time, childcare doesn't work out as planned that day.
Without additional support, the mother is immediately faced with the question again:
Do I go to my treatment session, or do I stay with my child?
With an au pair – provided this has been agreed with the clinic – an additional option can arise.
The au pair keeps the child occupied.
Goes for a walk.
Plays outside.
Reads a book.
Or accompanies them to a suitable activity.
Meanwhile, the mother can attend her treatment session.
And that, after all, is exactly what a Kur is about:
The mother should be allowed to look after her own health.
Familiarity can be especially important for children with a disability
A Mutter-Kind-Kur also means for the child:
a new place, a new room, new people, different routines and unfamiliar care.
For some children, this is no problem at all.
For others, exactly this change can be difficult.
A familiar au pair can then provide security.
Someone the child already knows is there.
Who knows which game is calming.
Who knows how the child communicates.
Who knows their routines.
And who doesn't have to work out how this child functions on day one of the stay.
Au pair as leisure support during the stay
Outside of the mother's actual treatment sessions too, the au pair can help as leisure support for a child with a disability.
While other children may be able to play independently on the grounds, your own child may need accompaniment.
The au pair can then, for example:
go to the playground with them,
go for a walk,
accompany the child to a leisure activity,
do crafts or play with them,
explore the surroundings together
or simply take over childcare for a certain time.
This can genuinely create some free space for the mother.
And what about siblings?
Here too, the au pair can be incredibly valuable.
Perhaps a mother travels to the Mutter-Kind-Kur with several children.
One child has a disability, the sibling doesn't.
Needs can then be very different.
Perhaps the sibling wants to join in a leisure programme that the child with a disability cannot take part in.
Or the child with a disability needs rest right now, while the sibling really wants to go outside.
With an additional familiar person, tasks can be split.
And that means one child doesn't automatically always have to miss out.
The au pair can also take over with one child while Mum does something with the sibling
This can matter especially during a stay lasting several weeks.
Perhaps the mother says:
"This afternoon I'd like to do something with just my daughter." (Translated)
The au pair stays with the other child meanwhile.
Or the other way round.
The au pair does something with the sibling and Mum consciously spends time with the child with a disability.
An additional person creates, once again:
more opportunities for individual time.
The au pair does not replace a medical or care professional
For all the support they provide, the division of tasks must remain clear.
An au pair does not suddenly become a therapist, care worker or medical assistant just because they travel to the Kur.
Medical and nursing tasks that do not fall within the permitted scope of an au pair's duties do not become au pair tasks during a Mutter-Kind-Kur either.
Support remains within the area of childcare, accompaniment and leisure support, insofar as this is permitted in the specific case and agreed with the facility.
Childcare during the stay counts as working time
This point, too, should be clear before travelling.
Just because the family is at a spa resort does not automatically mean the au pair is on holiday.
If the au pair looks after the child, accompanies them, or has to be available at certain times, this counts as working time.
This is why the au pair's agreed or permitted working hours continue to apply during the Mutter-Kind-Kur as well.
Tasks should ideally already be planned together beforehand.
Who pays for the au pair's accommodation and meals?
This, too, absolutely needs to be clarified with the clinic in advance.
If the clinic allows the additional accommodation of an au pair, you should ask what costs this involves and what services are included.
The host family should not assume that the costs of an additional companion will automatically be covered by the health insurance fund or another funding body.
Whether and under what conditions cost coverage is possible must be clarified in the specific case with the responsible funding body beforehand.
Ask the clinic early on
If you're considering taking your au pair along to a Mutter-Kind-Kur, we would therefore not wait until shortly before departure.
Speak to the facility as early as when choosing or planning the stay.
Explain the background too:
Your child has particular support needs.
The au pair already lives with your family.
They know the child and their routines.
They are not meant to take on therapeutic or nursing tasks, but to support you within childcare and accompaniment.
The clinic can then assess individually what options exist.
A Mutter-Kind-Kur can be a real recovery for the mother too
Mothers of children with a disability in particular often function in their everyday lives across an incredible number of fronts at once.
Children.
Therapies.
School.
Appointments.
Siblings.
Household.
Work.
Organisation.
A Mutter-Kind-Kur is not meant to simply mean this entire everyday life is relocated to a different place for three weeks.
If the respective clinic makes it possible, bringing along a familiar au pair can therefore be a valuable additional source of support.
Not as a care worker.
Not as a therapist.
But as a familiar carer and leisure companion who already knows the child.
And perhaps that creates exactly what a mother actually hopes for from her Mutter-Kind-Kur:
Time for her own health – with the reassuring feeling that the children are still being cared for with familiarity and love.
