Working with a nanny: one log, one handoff, nothing of yours they should not see

Invite the nanny as a guest from the Guests screen on your household page. A guest has their own login, sees only the apps you tick, and their access ends on a date you set, up to a year at a time. On the day the job ends you press End now and they are out, with everything they logged still in your apps. There is no seat to pay for, and nothing to clean up.

The Guests screen can start you from a Nanny profile: a six-month default and the apps a nanny usually works in, which you can adjust before you send the invite. Send it when you hire, not on the first morning. The clock starts when they accept.

A guest is deliberately not an adult inside the apps. They see what the children see, plus whatever they log themselves. That one rule is why you can grant the Medications app or the Routines app without reading each one's settings first: the parents' own prescriptions, the adults-only templates and the caregiver packets stay closed. The two exceptions below are the places where the nanny genuinely needs more than a child would, and each is a decision you make on purpose.

Baby Log is the daily record. The nanny logs feeds, diapers, naps and the sleep timer under their own name, next to yours and the other parent's, so the question at pickup is never "when did she last eat". They can correct an entry too: if you started the nap before you left, they end it.

The same app holds the shift. The nanny taps Start shift when they arrive and End shift when they go, with two boxes: what was done, and the handoff note for whoever is next. The latest handoff sits at the top of the log for everyone. The Shifts tab lists each shift with its length and totals the hours per person for the week, which is the timesheet. Pay itself lives in Expense Splitter as a repeating expense, so the nanny's pay and the pharmacy run sit in the same ledger as the rest of the childcare costs.

Add the nanny to the Calendar app and mark the children's events as visible to everyone, and they see the day the way you do. Add Photo Album and the pictures from the park arrive in the family's album rather than a text thread you will never find again.

Medicine needs a deliberate step, because a child's medication is kept from the children by default and the nanny is a guest. Make a member group called Care team under your household's Groups settings, put the nanny in it, and choose that group in the Medications app's settings. Then mark each medication the nanny gives as visible to the care team. They see those, and only those, and they tick each dose as given so you can see it from work. Your own prescriptions, marked family, stay yours.

Allergies use the same group. In Health Cards, choose the care team in the app's settings once, then tick Share with the care team on each child's card. A nanny with the app opens the card there, read-only, with the EpiPen instructions and the doctor's number, and never has to find a link you sent six months ago. Your own card stays with the adults. For a sitter without a login, the card still shares as a read-only page that expires when you choose.

Bedtime written down is the difference between a nanny doing it your way and doing it the way they were raised. Write the routine once in Routines. The nanny can start a run from any routine you have made visible to everyone and tick the steps as they go, so you can see from the train that teeth were brushed. Routines marked for adults only stay out of view, and the caregiver packet, the share-safe version with the fields you choose, still travels by link for a sitter who has no login.

- The household conversation and the family's digests. A nanny admitted on a Tuesday should not read the last thirty days of family chat. Start a direct thread or a small group with the nanny for the day-to-day messages. - A PIN on the family tablet. A guest signs in on their own phone with their own login. - Email reminders from the household. Reminders about the children's appointments go to the parents, who tell the nanny. - The location map, the records, and anything an app keeps for adults.

None of this is a workaround. It is the shape of a login for someone you employ: enough to do the job well, and nothing that outlives the job.

Press End now on the guest's card and they are out that minute. For a week you can bring them back if the end was a mistake. After that they become a past guest with no login, and every feed, nap and shift they logged stays in your apps with their name on it. If they come back for the summer, Invite back puts them in as the same person, and their history picks up where it left off.

Before the first day, send three things: the guest invite, the care-team tick on each child's medications and card, and the Routines packet for bedtime. On the first evening, read the handoff note together. After that it reads itself.

• Baby Log
• Medications
• Routines
• Health Cards
• Calendar
• Family Photos
• Expense Splitter

Every app in the library is included with the household plan. Install the ones this guide uses and skip the rest.

• How guest access works
• Leaving the kids with a sitter: what they actually need to know
• The first year with a baby, when nobody in the house is sleeping
• Morning and bedtime routines for kids that run without a parent narrating them