We are a fun, loving family, with our nearly 2 year old baby girl. We have have had 2 au-pairs before and have had a great experiences with them. I am a Director in a tech business here in the UK and my wife is Paediatric Physiotherapist (working in complex Neuro). My wife is looking for help with the baby and general around the house help. We live in Manchester, UK, in a large modern house with our little dog (cavapoo). We are looking for a kind, conscientious, caring person who is a pleasure to have in the house to come and join our family. We will provide a newly furnished bedroom with bathroom, all meals covered with the family, a gym membership and payment for the childcare support. We are excited to hear back! Working hours are negotiable as you would only be required to help in the mornings and evenings babysitting. Separately, Manchester is a super cool place to live, so get in touch! We live in the green suburbs of Manchester and it’s a 15 minute taxi ride or 20 minute tram ride into the City.

Our expectations of an Au Pair:

• Must be proactive and be used to household tasks (we have a cleaner who comes twice a week but expect some household tasks like washing up and tidying the playroom after playing with our child and this must be something you are used to doing).

• Ideally we'd like to find someone who is able to stay for a year or more as it's very hard for our child to keep changing to new people.

Now that I've told you about us, I want to tell you about our last, amazing au pair experience, to give an understanding of what makes a successful au pair / host family pairing.

Having had au pairs since I was a child I like to think I know what a good Au Pair looks like :) In the past we've had some good experiences, some not so good. Our last Au Pair who was with us for a year was the BEST experience we've had; she became part of our family.

Here's why it worked:

• We are a lovely family, very warm and friendly and helpful, but we found many Au Pairs took advantage of that, and wanted a "free ride" - IE somewhere to live and eat while they lived in Manchester, but they weren't interested in doing the tasks and being part of the unit. If someone takes on an au pair, it's because they're a busy family who need the help, not because they just want someone to live in their house.

• This Au Pair came with a great work ethic, was warm and caring to our child; nothing was too much trouble for her, she got her tasks done each day and was proactive with her help, she was just delighted to be here, and be part of our family and in return, that's how she helped out. She was raised to help around the house and it showed.

• She genuinely liked children and the dog, some Au Pairs say they love children but actually they really don't! And they take ANY opportunity to be away from them.

• She communicated with us effectively if she needed something.

• She became truly part of the family, in a way where we all still had our space, but we still felt we wanted her to join us for family dinners, socialising, family outings etc, if she wanted to.

I hope this helps any Au Pairs here who maybe aren't sure what it involves, or what makes the experience positive, but in my experience, it's all the above.