Recommendations for aupair/nannie/housekeeper to help with the baby & house
My husband and I have a 3-month-old baby. He works full-time in a very demanding job, and we’re expats with no family around to help us. Our baby has severe reflux and other issues that make her a bit more challenging than the “average” baby, and we are completely exhausted.
We need help with the house and with the baby for at least a few hours a day, ideally for 1–3 months.
We’re not really sure what the best option is. We know we can hire a cleaning lady through the voucher services, but I’m not sure to what extent they can also help with cooking or with the baby. We’ve also considered hiring a nanny, but that is very expensive (right?) and also I don't know if they can also clean the house. We even looked into getting an au pair, but many agencies seem to require that the household speaks one of the country’s official languages (French or Dutch). We don’t — we speak English, Spanish, and Swedish.
To be more specific about what duties we need that person to fulfill:
- House: vaccum, mop floors, clean surfaces, clean bathrooms, laundry and clean baby room (not everything everyday ofc, spread troughout the week).
- Baby: basically hold her here and there if I am tired of holding her and unable to put her down (cause of the reflux sometimes we have to hold her up to an hour after eating, it's very severe), and assist me with small things like maybe bringing me a glass of water or a diaper haha. Or if it was someone more on the nanny side maybe play with her a bit if I am gonna go shower or something.
- Cooking: make lunch every day, we eat very simple and healthy so this is usually just quickly tossing together some meat/protein, some rice or potatoes and some veggies. nothing fancy.
Do you have any recommendations on what we should do? Whether it’s specific people we might hire, agencies, or other ideas, anything is welcome! Thank you!
Posted Aug 7, 2025, 4:38 PM UTC