Setting Up Your Household
After signing up as a host family, you'll go through onboarding to set up your household.
Creating your household
During onboarding, you'll provide:
- Your name: how you'd like to be addressed
- Household name: e.g., "The Johnson Family"
Your household is created with the standard Dutch hour limits: 30 hours/week and 8 hours/day. Country and timezone are fixed to the Netherlands and Europe/Amsterdam; there's currently no way to change this yourself.
Start with a conversation
After creating your household, Getting started opens. Describe a typical day by voice or text. Opairly asks one focused follow-up and builds an editable overview. Review the English suggestions for recurring tasks and house rules before adding them.
You can do a little now and return later through Getting started in the family menu. Progress is saved along the way. Prefer to fill things in myself keeps the manual forms available. Read more about starting with a conversation.
Still looking for an au pair? Use the interview questions and prepare an introduction package for a candidate. A candidate link opens only the selected information; it does not add someone to your household.
Configuring hour limits
Go to Dashboard > Settings > Household and switch on Hour limits in the "Hour tracking" section. The fields for adjusting the default limits then appear:
- Weekly hour limit: maximum hours per week (Netherlands default: 30)
- Daily hour limit: maximum hours per day (Netherlands default: 8)
Only with this toggle on do we show a warning when your au pair is approaching the maximum. It's off by default.
For the Netherlands, the hour limits (maximum 8 hours per day and 30 hours per week) are set in law under the Foreign Nationals (Employment) Act (Wav). Other standards, such as the number of vacation days, vary by situation. Verify the correct arrangements for your situation.
Inviting your au pair
Each household has a unique invite code. To invite your au pair:
- Go to Dashboard > Settings > Members & invites
- Under "Invite your au pair", click Copy link
- Share it with your au pair (WhatsApp, email, etc.)
When your au pair opens the link, they'll be prompted to create an account. Their profile is automatically linked to your household with the au pair role.
What's next?
You can already prepare tasks and agreements, even before you have an au pair. Invite your au pair when you decide to continue together. You can also add children and set up house rules from the settings.