Maddy's 1 Star Reviews

Nanny from Hell- book at your own risk

We had a horrible experience with Maddy Brown. I’m pretty sure now the other reviews are fake, or they just left their kids with her and who knows what she did with them. My baby is 10 months, was ill during our stay in London. All we needed was someone compassionate and competent to look after her for a few days. First Maddy reeked of cigarette smoke every single day, and I should have canceled with her from day one but she had so many good reviews, I thought I had to give her a chance. Maddy did not connect with our baby, and then proceeded to blame us as parents. She even blamed the child calling her spoiled, saying there’s something wrong with her - her pediatrician says our baby is normal. Maddy refused to listen to me about properly cleaning baby’s utensils and how to care for her. She even at one point put my crying 10 month old in a high chair and forbid me from picking her up and asked me to tell her to stop, and that I won’t pick her up. Of course I picked her up, poor baby, what kind of maniac does that? Through all of that she demanded to be paid and was threatening us when we finally came to our senses and asked her to leave.
She’s the nanny from hell and I wouldn’t wish her on my worst enemy.
I’d give 0 stars if I could. She will respond to this claiming she’s a single mother and blaming me, but please proceed with caution, do not believe a word she says.

• Overall
• Setting
• Cleanliness
• Food
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by Fernank on 14/11/2023

Response by Maddy on 14/11/2023:

Well where do I start with this traumatic ordeal the actual worst experience of my 20+ year career.
MUM DRINKING ALCOHOL WHILST BREAST FEEDING.
Baby severely overweight crying unhappy, lethargic, bleary eyed, runny stools no interest in solids. 9 months old. dressed inappropriately, they didn’t bathe her once and only used 2 dirty baby grows the entire time.
Saw no feeding of solids or attempt to also mum took her off to didn’t witness it.
I wasn’t allowed to leave the apartment.

They live in Dubai have a cook nanny & maid.
They have had 3 Nannies in 9 months.
I organised my childcare, logistics, travel & looked up activities.
They approached me to work.
Dad was aggressive and abusive.
Mum asked me about hiring a pram to be delivered along to accommodation with bath so flew without a pram??
I should’ve took this as a warning sign!
I went above and beyond to help this lady.
It is not up to me as a nanny to soothe your unwell crying child that I’ve never met before it’s up to you two as good parents and humans to hand over a happy healthy 9 month old.
I can back up every one of these reviews with photo and video evidence of happy children & parents.
All reviewers can be contacted by phone
I’m sorry you wouldn’t let me do my job and that your baby was unwell, unhappy & uncommunicative and hope you sought medical attention as was my advice.
I sincerely hope that she is a happier & healthier & developing better now.
I pity anyone that works for you and shudder to think of the treatment your staff in Dubai must endure on a daily basis, I suspect anyone dealing with you would need a month at the Betty Ford clinic not just a cheeky fag!
(I did not reek of cigarettes!)
Anyhoo
All the best

Quick on the money!

Alas another so called nanny with zero interest in the details of our son. Sharp enough to quote a much higher hourly rate than given here without asking one detail of what the job duties might entail. Good luck!

• Overall
• Communication

by Ria R on 03/10/2023

Response by Maddy on 03/10/2023:

Excuse me! Special needs care is more challenging and more and hour!
You shouldn’t be able to give reviews for people who HAVE NOT WORKED FOR YOU!
My SEN hourly rate of £20 per hour is fair and the going rate.
Clearly your horrible attitude & reluctance to pay a fair hourly wage is leading you into difficulties finding a nanny .
This is my livelihood I am a single mother and you should not give nasty reviews to nannies WHO HAVE NOT MET YOU OR WORKED YOU YOU!

Experienced nanny with strong views on parenting

Maddy is a very experienced nanny – she is knowledgeable on routines to ensure order in the house, which can be very helpful. With that comes very strong views about what babies/toddlers should do or how they should act. While that can be valuable, we felt our wishes as parents and our parenting style were not followed/respected. Personally, I felt very hurt about the many times I felt I and our child were judged with comments such as ‘He is 18m, he should be used to this’ (referring to our baby not yet being able to put himself to sleep by himself at night).

Maddy helpfully accepted last minute to babysit our baby overnight. She offered to sleep train our baby, knowing that nights was something we had trouble with, but I told her that it didn’t make sense for us to sleep train him for a night only, so it would be only a regular ‘overnight’, he would be put to sleep by rocking and should he wake up at night, he should be given his bottle for comfort. We were particularly tired from a rough week at work and had guests sleeping over so it was particularly important that the night went smoothly. Maddy however insisted in letting our baby cry in the cot to put him to sleep, and later in the middle of the night as well. He got so upset in the middle of the night that I had to nurse him in order to calm him down, at which point Maddy said ‘it was never going to work like this so she was going to sleep’. At that point I had to take our baby to our own room and he slept with us. Maddy nonetheless requested she be paid sleep training price for a full night.

We had very different ideas of how overnight babysitting should run, but Maddy may be a good options for parents who have similar approach to her as to how children should be raised.

• Overall
• Cleanliness
• Communication

by Claire on 18/12/2018

Response by Maddy on 24/01/2019:

So Claire approached me in March and wants a live in nanny and interviewed me for an afternoon position, to take over from her morning nanny (who brings her 1 year old to work with her no offence to Nanny who had not been with Claire long & seemed very capable)
She complained about her son not sleeping through the night, and him not talking yet.
I advised her in my professional capacity as an experienced and successful nanny. She asked my advice during interview I gave it to her.
She checked my references which were excellent but didn’t get back to me about the position.
Claire called me to babysit overnight as her son had kept her up, I put him to bed after his bath let him cry for a few mins, I settled him with some methods that I use he went off to sleep Claire went out with husband & friend for dinner, baby slept soundly.
During the small hours I was asleep next to the cot in the bed when he stirred, naturally I awoke I got up to settle him & to my surprise Claire was at the door within seconds so quick in fact that I thought it impossible that she hadn’t been stood outside the door & not just awoken from her bed and before I’d even had the chance to try & settle him she took him off to her bed.
At no time was her child in any real distress and I had to come to the conclusion that Claire doesn’t really want my help and would just like to continue with the habitual behaviour which keeps them both up 3/4 times a night.
All in all I probably spent all of an hour or 2 with Claire and her knowledge of my childcare approach is limited at best, why she would want to mar my profile with this review I don’t know, maybe she’s tired!

Best of luck Claire