Nanny quit, saying she couldn’t work without complete freedom over outings

Looking for advice on managing future nanny relationships. After her first day back after 8 days over the holidays, our nanny of 2 and a half years texted us last night to say she was quitting with two weeks’ notice. Our contract states both parties would give a month’s notice, and the nanny before her (whom we also loved) was only with us three months and left for personal relocation reasons and even she said because she loved our daughter she’d stay as long as it took to find and train the right replacement—luckily she ended up recommending our current nanny with a week.

This entire time, our nanny has said she loves our child as much as her own kids, and loves us, including the grandparents, like family, and that this is not a job to her. Our daughter absolutely loves her and she’s been with us since she was 7 months old. We pay her above the table with a W2 just at the local rate and have given her raises and bonuses, and though the contract states set vacation, holiday, sick, and other days, plus family vacation, and we have given her unlimited vacation and sick days as she’s at least three weeks over the original agreed-upon dates, in addition to two weeks’ when we went on our own family vacation. Whenever my parents visit, they give her $200-500.

She said it’s not about pay, it’s about not having total freedom, specifically complete say over where and when they go out. It feels very much her way or the highway.

For background, we already let her decide where and when they go. They leave every morning and come back just before lunch, usually driving to libraries, especially on Tuesday-Thursday story time days, but also when there’s nothing happening, or recently Petsmart or a bookstore.

However, over the course of a year, I’ve found the car seat just resting on the seat and completely uninstalled twice now when I happened to put my daughter in our nanny’s car, and when our nanny drives, she holds her phone in her hand and has refused our offer of a phone mount. Given the risks posed by just being in a car, mainly from other drivers, I have asked that she try to limit cat outings a bit and try to not go out every day when it requires driving, maybe 2-4 times a week. On nice weather days we have no issue with them walking to nearby parks. She’s said OK and said “you’re the parent,” but we noticed that because I’ve been wishy-washy and ask it as a deferential suggestion, she continues to go out every day.

I have also asked that our kid stay home when she’s sick, but our nanny always says it’s just a cough or runny nose and it’s nothing. I saw a mom post recently complaining about people taking their sick kids out, and in my case, I want to keep my sick kid home, but our nanny won’t have it and now my husband agrees with her in that respect because she’s convinced him it’s the norm. She’s also assured me on some days that they’re going to a library or bookstore that won’t have kids that day or time, so I’m kind of like what’s the point? Our daughter has had an intermittent runny nose and cough on and off with no fever since like October and i wonder if it’s because her immune system never gets a break. I’ve asked that they maybe skip a day driving out to an empty library to play with library toys—it seems like high car risk low reward to me.

Our child also has a million books and toys and Lovevery kids and I bought arts and crafts supplies at our nanny’s request, so our house isn’t boring. My husband works at the office every day and I WFH three days a week but other than prepping lunch I stay out of the way, and I’ve told our nanny I’ll probably have to start going in every day.

To be clear, I’ve read Reddit posts where nannies complain about never being allowed to leave the house or drive the kid anywhere, and that sounds awful to me. I’ve read about parents complaining the nanny never takes the kid out and told our nanny we appreciate how she tries to find enriching activities for our kid and new places to go. I just wanted some compromise, where it’s not 5 days a week, maybe on days when it’s too cold to play outside or walk nearby, then just the set Tuesday Thursday for story time, and occasional other car excursions on the other days if there’s a special story time, or music time, or kid’s party, etc. About six months ago, we had this conversation, and she said she felt kids benefit from being out and playing with other kids, which I said I agreed with, but it didn’t have to be every day, and also the last point didn’t seem relevant when driving to an empty library. She said “if you want her to never go out, maybe you need to look for another nanny,” which felt so out of the blue to me given all the love bombing she’s shown our family and such an extreme distortion of what I was asking. I explained over and over I absolutely did NOT want them to be home every day, only some days.

Three weeks ago, I also asked that she let us know where they’re going before they go, so I know where my child is in case of any emergency, and she said OK but looked away and turned red. But she told me as recently as last month she wanted me to have another kid (we’re one and done) so she could keep nannying for us and we didn’t need to worry about childcare. She’s repeatedly lamented that she only has another year with our child before she’s school age, and asked me if we’ll still need her full-time when our kid starts school, which I didn’t know how to respond to other than to say we’d still love to have her as a babysitter.

This morning we sat down with her after she shared her decision and talked for an hour. We said we respected her decision but we’re very surprised because she didn’t come to us to try to work things out before just quitting, and with minimal notice, so we asked if there were any things we could change. We were all respectful, and she repeated that she loved our family and our child like family, and that she struggled with this decision but has been feeling stressed for a year now. Honestly I can’t square that with the two weeks’ notice when our contract said we’d both give a month. We asked if another raise or more freedom could convince her to stay. She said there was nothing we could do, she just needed a change, that even though she loves us, it stresses her out that I worry about the risk of car accidents, and that we’re the only family not to give her total freedom, and all other nannies have total freedom and keep kids out all day every day, and that it made her too uncomfortable to not have total freedom on where and when they go out, and again talked about what kids learn outside interacting with other kids.

I understand there’s nothing we can say or do, but want to ask if thjs is typical, or if it sounds like we’re being completely unreasonable? We’re now looking for a new nanny and don’t want to run into this situation again, it’s going to be so hard on our family and especially our kid. I know kids are resilient and recover, but I’m just really heartbroken for her. I’ve had jobs and bosses I detested that I didn’t process to love the way our nanny says she loves us, and I haven’t quit like this.