Anyone enter rematch one week in?

We just welcomed our second au pair one week ago. I’m feeling overwhelmed by the barrage of demands and disappointment I’m fielding. None of the demands in themselves are extreme or unusual but it’s just feeling like nothing is good enough and that we need to be focusing on au pair all the time.

For example, this morning (officially 7 days in and the first day we will give her her stipend) she came to our bedroom door and woke us up to ask if I could drive her to Target to meet her friend (another AP she hasn’t actually met previously but they have been messaging). I have been sick the last couple days (cold with a fever and have been sweating bullets from just standing up) so this actually did seem unreasonable to me. The other AP had offered to pick her up as well so it didn’t make sense to me. Because she hasn’t been able to open up a bank account yet I rushed to the atm to get cash for her so she can have money at the store. She gets to target and keeps sending pictures of things asking if I will buy them (like reimburse her). I bought her all toiletries (including a gift set from bath and body works) before she arrived and so when she snapped a pic of the aisle of shampoo/ conditioner etc I said those are things she can purchase herself. She also sent a picture of a cart full of junk food (like little Debbie snacks etc) and I was I think a little overwhelmed and just said she can buy those things if she wants. I had told her the day prior that I grocery shop on the weekend and can get whatever she wants, but in that moment I’m thinking she went to target for the experience with her friend so idk if I need to fund that. When she got home she was visibly irritated and said she wouldn’t be able to go on a trip this weekend (which I never knew she was going on) because she spent $86 at target. I ended up saying in a message that I would reimburse her for the food items and we can talk more about the process for groceries this evening at dinner. She hasn’t responded and hasn’t said anything to me when I see her. Basically moping. I’ve asked if she’s ok and she just says yes then ignores me.

Another example, I cooked dinner last night. Chicken and rice. Nothing too fancy but our kitchen is being renovated so we have limited utilization there. While eating she looks disappointed and comments on how we must like rice a lot (we do). She eats her plate and then says she’ll finish her leftovers from chipotle that I bought her the night before (mind you, it was also a chipotle bowl of chicken and rice). I said if she’s still hungry there’s more food and she said no thanks she’ll eat her leftovers. To me, this is very rude. I don’t think this is common in her country. She is from a European country and I don’t think this is common there either.

There have just been things like this each day, which I view as demanding. I understand that this is probably very overwhelming for her, as she’s in a new place and doesn’t speak English very well but we’ve had one other au pair and I didn’t feel this way at all - she had a great attitude and seems very appreciative.

UPDATE: adding an update since we did end up talking to her yesterday evening after I posted this. As I mentioned in a comment, we sat down for dinner together and started by asking how things are going from her perspective because she seemed to be really upset that day. She started by telling us that she was upset that one of the guys working on our kitchen pooped in the guest bathroom toilet and didn’t scrub the toilet afterward. We then moved on to the waking us up situation and she said she really wanted to be respectful to the other AP and her host mom by giving them an answer on whether she would join and we asked her what she thought about respecting us and our desire to sleep and it seemed like it had never crossed her mind. We talked for 2 hours about all of the things she didn’t like and I said at some point that if we’re not meeting your expectations then maybe you’re better off with another family. Some of her other complaints were that some of the towels we gave her have makeup stains and she didn’t feel comfortable using dirty towels and ordered new towels from SHEIN. These towels were white so it is easy for stains to show but I think they’re nice and they were expensive towels. Not all of them have stains. Should I have tossed the ones with stains? Maybe, but they’re only 3 years old so I didn’t. But I don’t think her tone of complete indignation and sending pictures to her mom and boyfriend was kind. She kept reiterating that she didn’t understand why I hadn’t taken her to the store and I kept reminding her that I actually had taken her to the grocery store with me her first weekend here. She said she didn’t feel comfortable picking things out then because I seemed like I was in a hurry. I’m honestly not sure what to do about that. I have a 5 month old and 2 year old so I’m always in a hurry when running errands. She brought up that we didn’t offer her breakfast and lunch each day (we told her she could eat anything in the house. We also don’t eat breakfast ourselves, just feed our toddler breakfast so I’m not sure it makes sense for us to offer to make her something.) She complained that one day all she could have for lunch was ham and cheese but we didn’t have bread because we ran out the day before. She couldn’t believe we didn’t have bread. I said sometimes you run out of things. We didn’t know that it was urgent for her to have bread because she didn’t tell us and we hardly eat bread. I reminded her that we have an entire pantry full of different pastas, rice, potatoes, orzo, etc if she wanted to have any of it she could. Then she said for breakfast one day she ended up cooking three eggs after we didn’t offer anything and that she was still hungry after. Again I’m not really sure what to do about that… I feel like at 22 she should be able to cook a 4th egg if 3 are not enough. We never told her to limit her egg consumption or something like that. I’m frankly not sure how getting hungry is our fault.

Anyways, after talking for 2 hours there was no real resolution and we ended up having to put the kids down for bed and then calling it a night. We ended up telling her this morning that a rematch will be better for all of us because we don’t feel like we’ll be able to meet her expectations and having her sulk around the house and not talk to us when she feels disappointed is too stressful for me. She was obviously upset and asked if we could wait to rematch until January. We said no because I go back to work in January so we need to have a plan for childcare before then. She said we don’t understand her and we should help her because waiting until January will allow her to find another family. We explained that we will be on vacation in Mexico for the first two weeks (which she already knows because she was slated to come with us) and as soon as we get back I will have to start work again. She said that I have time because I’m not working for 4 weeks. At this point we had to be a bit firmer and just say we aren’t looking for your analysis of our schedules. She again said she wants us to understand her perspective and I said we absolutely understand your perspective and that this is a hard situation, but just because we understand you doesn’t mean we have to do what you want. Our conversation really solidified for me that it wasn’t going to work out. Wish us luck in finding another au pair.

UPDATE 2: This morning (the day after we told her we want to rematch) we came downstairs to have coffee in the morning and she didn’t say anything to us. I then hear her talking on the phone complaining that we didn’t make her lunch the day before.

My husband started watching tv in the living room and I got ready to go grocery shopping. As I’m leaving he said I think she just took a picture of me sitting on the couch. Weird but we will address later. (She previously took photos of our towels and the dirty toilet). I come back from grocery shopping and enter the kitchen before I’ve brought anything in. She said “do you have lunch for me?” I again told her she can eat anything in the house (we have now told her this every day). She said “show me.” I opened the fridge and said we have vegetables, cheese, tortillas, fruit, a freezer stocked to the brim with various meats. I opened the pantry and said we have pastas, rice, potatoes, snacks including nuts, dried fruit, crackers, cookies, and chips. The idea that we do not have enough food is laughable when I spend ~$350/week on food. She has simply refused to prepare any meals for herself.

Then I asked if she took a photo of my husband sitting on the couch. She said no I took a photo of the tv and showed me the picture and it was a photo of the side of the tv and part of our living room. I asked why she took that photo and she said she wanted to because she was talking to her friend about it. I said do you understand how that can be interpreted as rude, especially after you took pictures of the towels and the toilet. I told her that I also heard her complaining again that we didn’t make lunch and we talked about this on Friday - we are not going to prepare your breakfast and lunch for you and it’s rude to complain and then ask me if I have lunch for you when I come home. She said I am rude and I said, if you don’t like it here, you do not need to stay during the rematch period. She said she would like to stay and then continued arguing and I said you know what I do not think staying here during the rematch is going to work. I called the LCC immediately and explained that I really cannot handle the continued complaints.

The LCC found alternate arrangements for her but it appears that the host mom of the au pair she went to Target with has now offered to house her during the rematch period. Good luck to all of them.