“I’ll take the kids to the library this afternoon.” “I’ll make sure homework is done before you get home.” “I’ll schedule that dentist appointment.” “I’ll organize the playroom this week.” Your nanny makes these commitments cheerfully and confidently, and then somehow they just don’t happen. The library visit gets forgotten, homework sits undone, the dentist appointment never gets scheduled, and the playroom is still chaos a month later. You’re constantly discovering that things your nanny said they would do simply haven’t been done.
This pattern is exhausting because it means you can’t trust what your nanny tells you. When they say they’ll handle something, you have to mentally note that you’ll probably need to follow up and make sure it actually happens. You end up double-checking everything, which defeats the entire purpose of having help. The reliability you thought you were paying for turns out to be unreliable, and you’re left managing around someone who talks a good game but doesn’t follow through.
The challenge is distinguishing between occasional forgetfulness and a consistent pattern of unreliability. Everyone drops the ball sometimes. Life gets hectic, priorities shift, unexpected things come up. But when you’re regularly discovering that commitments weren’t kept and tasks weren’t completed, you’ve moved past normal human imperfection into a pattern that needs to be addressed directly.
At Seaside Staffing Company, we work with San Diego families who initially excuse the pattern – their nanny is so warm and enthusiastic, surely they mean well even if they don’t always follow through. But after months of discovering that tasks are incomplete and promises are broken, the frustration builds to the point where trust is damaged and the relationship might not be salvageable.
Start by tracking whether this is actually a pattern or if you’re noticing occasional failures more because they’re frustrating. Keep a log for two weeks of what your nanny commits to doing and what actually gets done. If you discover that 80-90% of commitments are being met, the problem might be your expectations or communication rather than their reliability. If you discover that only half of what they promise actually happens, you’ve got a real problem.
When you address it, be specific. Don’t say “you don’t follow through on things” – that’s too vague and they’ll get defensive. Say “In the past two weeks, you committed to taking the kids to the library twice and it didn’t happen either time, homework wasn’t completed on three days despite you saying it would be, and the playroom organization we discussed hasn’t been started. This pattern of commitments not being met is a problem I need to discuss with you.”
Listen to their explanation without necessarily accepting excuses. Sometimes you’ll discover there are legitimate reasons tasks didn’t happen – kids got sick, emergencies came up, something else became more urgent. Other times you’ll get vague responses about being busy or losing track of time. The quality of their explanation tells you whether they’re taking responsibility or just making excuses.
At Seaside Staffing Company, we tell families to probe whether the issue is forgetfulness, time management problems, or something more concerning like not actually intending to do the things they’re agreeing to. If your nanny genuinely forgets commitments, systems and reminders might help. If they’re overcommitting because they want to please you but don’t realistically have time for everything, that’s a different conversation about priorities. If they’re just saying yes to things they have no intention of doing, that’s a much bigger problem about dishonesty.
Create systems that support follow-through if the issue seems to be organization or memory. Shared to-do lists, calendar reminders, daily check-ins where you review what’s planned. Some nannies need more structure than others, and providing that structure isn’t micromanaging – it’s setting them up for success.
But also recognize that professional adults shouldn’t need extensive management systems to remember what they committed to doing. If you’re creating elaborate tracking and reminder systems just to get basic follow-through, you’re doing more work than the nanny is, which defeats the purpose of having help.
Pay attention to whether your nanny takes the feedback seriously. Do they immediately implement changes and show visible improvement in completing tasks? Or do they apologize and promise to do better but then nothing changes? Willingness to change versus defensive resistance tells you a lot about whether this is fixable.
Watch for whether they’re overpromising during conversations and then reality-checking later. Some people are naturally optimistic about what they can accomplish and say yes to everything in the moment without thinking through whether it’s actually doable. That’s frustrating but potentially manageable. Other people deliberately promise things they know they won’t do just to end conversations or avoid conflict. That’s dishonesty and it’s not acceptable.
Think about whether you’re part of the problem by asking for too many things at once. If every morning you’re rattling off ten tasks you’d like completed and your nanny is nodding along but realistically can only accomplish three of them while also caring for children, the follow-through problem might partly be an expectation management problem.
Create a priority system if there’s genuinely too much being asked. “These three things are essential and need to happen today. These two things would be great if you have time. These other items are nice-to-haves that can wait if the day gets busy.” This helps your nanny know what to focus on and reduces the likelihood of commitments being broken because they ran out of time.
At Seaside Staffing Company, we encourage families to make follow-through an explicit part of performance evaluation. “One of the key competencies for this role is reliably completing tasks you commit to. I need to see consistent improvement in this area within the next month, or we’ll need to reassess whether this position is working out.”
Check whether the pattern is affecting other areas beyond task completion. Does your nanny follow through on commitments to the kids? If they promise to play a game or read a story or do an activity, does it actually happen? Kids learn that adult promises don’t mean anything when they’re regularly disappointed by commitments that don’t get kept.
Consider whether your nanny is burning out or overwhelmed. Sometimes follow-through problems are a symptom of someone who’s exhausted, stressed, or dealing with personal issues that are affecting their work capacity. That might warrant compassion and support rather than just consequences, but it still needs to be addressed because the impact on your family is real regardless of the reason.
Watch for whether your nanny makes new promises even while old ones remain incomplete. If they’re enthusiastically agreeing to new tasks while three previous commitments still haven’t been done, they either don’t realize the pattern or don’t care about it. Either way, it needs to stop.
If you’ve been clear about the problem, given them tools and support to improve, and nothing changes after a reasonable period, you’re dealing with either inability or unwillingness to be reliable. Both are grounds for termination. You need someone you can trust to follow through on commitments, and if your nanny can’t provide that after being given a clear chance to improve, they’re not right for this role.
The goal is a nanny who commits to tasks thoughtfully, completes what they commit to reliably, and communicates proactively if something can’t be done rather than just letting it silently not happen. That’s basic professional reliability, and you deserve it from someone you’re trusting with your children and your household.
