Nanny Burnout: Understanding, Overcoming, and Preventing

Burnout season as a nanny. In my nanny group, me, we’ve kind of been talking about being burnt out, and I’ve had several people message me about how burnt out they feel. As school starts and you’re coming off of the summer, burnout is just inevitable. First of all, I wanted to say that’s completely normal. It doesn’t make you a bad nanny or someone that doesn’t belong in the industry. Just because you’re feeling burnt out just means that there are some factors that are overwhelming right now, and the good news is that those can be fixed. Yes. Factor that’s contributed to my burnout in the past is not being appreciated. This could be as simple as someone not telling you thank you for the work you do, or it could lean towards you not being compensated correctly, something that leads to burnout so quickly. Another thing that leads to burnout is just not being able to balance your work and life as a nanny. This is so hard because we pour so much of ourselves into our work. The emotional toll and load that our work has on us is huge. Not like any other job. It’s not like a corporate job, like a desk job. You can go home and you can kind of leave work at work. It’s really hard to leave your work at work as a nanny. You’re so invested in the lives of the families that we work for, and it’s just So hard to find that balance, and that is just the nature of the industry. It’s part for the course. Figuring that out will really help you avoid burnout in the future. Something that really helps me is not responding to texts or calls outside of work hours unless it’s an emergency. Really helps me create a better work life balance so I can focus on things that I need to focus on when I’m not at work. Other thing that really helps me is making sure I’m spending my weekends doing things that can help me reset. This is something I’ve not been good at. I’m all always babysitting every weekend. I have a travel family, and I have a local overnight family that I constantly work for, but I also recognize that. So anytime I have outside of work, I’m making sure I’m pouring back into myself and resetting my own life so that I’m able to pour into the lives of the kids in the family I work for. Hope that’s helpful. I just want everybody to know that burnout is normal. It does happen, but there are things you can do to prevent it and also get back into the flow of things.