Why I created The Dubai Nanny Training Programme (and why it's long overdue)

Let me tell you something that comes up, without fail, in almost every conversation I have with Dubai mums.

Not sleep and not feeding (although good guesses, and definitely up there!). Not the relentless mum-guilt spiral of working-while-parenting. All of those come up too pretty much every day, but underneath all of it, causing Dubai Mums a huge chunk of the anxiety? The nanny.

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Specifically: what is actually happening in my home when I'm not there.

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I've been working with families in Dubai for years now — as a paediatric nurse, an IBCLC, a baby sleep consultant, an antenatal educator, baby massage facilitator, first aid awareness session leader. I hear things. A lot of things. And the nanny conversation is one I've had hundreds of times, in a hundred different ways, with mums who love their nannies and mums who are at the end of their rope with theirs. Funnily enough, sometimes both at the same time, in the same breath, about the same person.

So when Hannah Pierce of The Child Unplugged and I started talking about what a genuinely comprehensive nanny training programme in Dubai could look like (not a half-day tick-box exercise, not a single CPR session with a laminated certificate), we both already knew what it needed to address. Because mums have told us over and over without realising that they were asking us to create this.

Here's what Dubai parents are actually worried about.

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The things Dubai Mums actually say about their Nannies

"She just sits on her phone while he plays."

This one comes up constantly and I understand the frustration, I really do. But I also think we need to be honest: if nobody has ever explained to your nanny why play matters, what meaningful play looks like, or how to engage with a child in a way that's genuinely developmentally supportive then she doesn't know what she's missing, does she? She thinks the child is fine. He's not crying so job well done.

What we actually need nannies to understand is child development, and real child development at that. I'm talking about milestones and how to recognise them, as well as encourage your child to reach them. The science behind sensory play and open-ended exploration and what a child is building neurologically when they tip a bowl of rice onto the floor (yes, that). The difference between structured play and free play, and why both of these are equally important. Don't get me started on parallel play, and why their expectations of young children to play together are not realistic. This is Hannah's world entirely, and it's one of the reasons I wanted her involved in this programme specifically. I know my own scope, and I stay within it. I could teach play, but could I teach it as well as and with the depth of understanding and passion that Hannah has? Absolutely not.

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"I don't think she'd know what to do in an emergency."

This one keeps parents up at night, and it should. The mental image of your nanny frozen in a choking situation, or doing the wrong thing, because she's seen something on YouTube and thinks that's the right thing to do is genuinely terrifying. Most nannies in Dubai have received zero formal first aid training. None. And yet they are solely responsible for the most vulnerable people in your household, often spending more time with your baby or child than you do.

CPR for infants and children is different to adult CPR because choking response is different, the reasons for the need for baby CPR are different. In adults, it's usually a cardiac arrest. In babies and children, it's most often a respiratory arrest. Managing a febrile seizure (hands up if you know what that is!), a burn, an allergic reaction, a fall, these are not instinctive nor common sense. They require training, practice, and the kind of muscle memory that only comes from actually doing it, on a manikin, in a room with an instructor. This is not an optional part of any childcare course, it's a non-negotiable foundation of safe childcare, and therefore of our programme.

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"She has no idea about safe sleep."

Blankets in the cot and positioning a newborn on their front because "they sleep better like that" (and this isn't actually their fault, they may have followed a big sleep consultant influencer and been given awful, unsafe information). Not knowing what a safe sleep environment actually looks like means that they don't know how to make one. I've heard versions of this more times than I can count and this is my particular area, so it really upsets me every time I hear it.

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Safe sleep in Dubai is under-discussed in the context of nanny care specifically. Nannies are often doing overnight or nap-time support, and the assumption that "she'll figure it out" or "she raised her own kids" is not a safety strategy. Yes, your Nanny may have 5 kids, but how many of them did she actually raise? Or was she working in the GCC as a Nanny to monetarily support them in another country while family raised them? And which culture did she raise them in and what is that culture's concept of safe sleep (if there is one)?

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"She won't touch the food I've prepared. She just gives him whatever's easiest."

Feeding support such as weaning, allergen introduction, managing picky eating, understanding what a nutritionally balanced toddler meal actually looks like is something most nannies have had no formal education in. They're working from instinct, or from what they fed their own children, in a different country, a different decade and with different guidance and resources. Bottle prep. Formula preparation hygiene. Breastmilk storage. These things have guidance for a reason, and guidance saves babies from harm. It's not common sense when food standards and storage is very different in her country.

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"I worry about... I don't know how to say it. Whether she'd speak up if something wasn't right."

Safeguarding. The word parents often don't quite realise, but it's what they mean.

This is the big one. The one that matters most and gets talked about least. Not because parents don't care (they care enormously, or you wouldn't be reading this) but because it's uncomfortable, and because there's a widespread assumption that safeguarding is just common sense. It is not just common sense. Recognising signs of concern in a child, understanding age-appropriate body autonomy, knowing what appropriate touch looks like and how to handle disclosures are trained skills.

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"She ignores the routine entirely the moment I leave."

Routines aren't arbitrary. They're the scaffolding children use to regulate their nervous systems, predict their world, and feel safe, because routine means they know what's coming next. When a nanny doesn't understand why the routine matters — not just what it is — she's always going to throw it out it the moment something more convenient comes along, or if it's too hard to implement in a toddler meltdown moment. Teaching the why is just as important as teaching the what.

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So what did we build?

Hannah and I spent a long time planning and getting this right. The result is a 25-hour hybrid training programme which consists of two full days of hands-on, in-person training (held at the Montessori award-winning LittleLand Nursery), plus four focused online sessions spaced out to allow genuine reflection, retention and avoid overwhelm. Not information overload dumped into a single day and forgotten by Tuesday, because your Nanny also has a workbook/resource book and they answer quizzes on each session, as well as write a reflective (we teach them how to reflect as well as why it's important) paragraph on what they learned.

The in-person training covers everything that needs to be practised and not just read. CPR and choking response on manikins and practical demonstrations with role play and real-world scenarios. Because there is a meaningful difference between a nanny who has heard about first aid and a nanny who has felt it. That's also why we don't outsource this to an external instructor. Why be taught first aid by someone who has been taught it, when you can be taught by someone with over a decade of experience at performing it?

The full curriculum covers:

‍Safety & First Aid Awareness — CPR, choking, burns, fevers, allergy management, emergency response and everything you would expect from a focused, pinpointed baby first aid & CPR session. Practical, hands-on and assessed.

‍Sleep — Safe sleep environments, routines, responsive settling techniques, nap management, and how to handle the common challenges that ruin a household's nights.

‍Feeding — Bottle prep, weaning and allergen introduction, supporting breastfeeding, managing picky eaters, and understanding family nutrition in a way that's realistic and evidence-based.

‍Child Development & Play — Milestones, developmental theories, structured and sensory play, open-ended learning, and what it actually means to be a positive role model for a child. This is Hannah's section and it is exceptional.

Child Safeguarding — Recognising concerns, knowing when and how to act, body autonomy, age-appropriate personal care, dignity and consent. One of the most critical modules in the entire programme, and one that gets treated as an afterthought in almost every other training I've seen in this region. Because it's awkward, and a bit embarassing for people to teach. I've seen too much, and I value the importance of teaching it over any slight embarassment any day. It's meant to feel uncomfortable, because that's how it stays in people's minds.

‍Behaviour & Guidance — Positive reinforcement, age-appropriate expectations, conflict resolution, and the kind of consistent, calm approach that works with small children (spoiler: it's not shouting).

‍Hygiene & Personal Care — Bathing, nappy changes, skincare, hand hygiene, infection prevention. The basics done properly, because if the basics aren't right, then nothing else is. Twenty years of nursing has taught me that.

‍Technology — Screen time guidance, safe apps, photography & filming rules and how to use technology as a communication tool with parents rather than a childcare substitute. Because we all know what's actually happening on that phone. Except we don't, because there's no safeguards on a Nanny's phone, and once something is seen, it cannot be taken back.

‍Professionalism & Communication — Building trust with the family, setting appropriate professional boundaries, resilience, emotional intelligence, and daily reporting. The soft skills that are almost never taught and make an enormous practical difference.

‍Ongoing Learning — Every nanny who completes the programme gets access to our private, moderated virtual community for continued guidance, plus complimentary access to Lullabies' sleep resources and The Child Unplugged's highly rated Print & Play online course.

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Who's behind The Dubai Nanny Training Programme?

Between Hannah and me, we bring over 40 years of experience across paediatric nursing and early years education. Hannah is a qualified teacher and founder of The Child Unplugged, with over a decade in education and early years, and the lived reality of raising three children, including twins, which gives her a perspective no textbook can. Her work on play-led development, emotional responsiveness, and screen-free childhood is genuinely some of the most important work being done for Dubai families, and has been for a while. Don't mistake it for just an aesthetic play session for your instagram posts.

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I'm Lisa — founder of Lullabies, paediatric nurse, IBCLC lactation consultant, certified sleep coach, antenatal educator, baby massage teacher, and first aid awareness instructor. I've been supporting families from pregnancy through early childhood across the UK and GCC for over 20 years. Lullabies exists because I kept seeing the same gaps, the same anxieties, the same preventable problems, and I decided to do something about it. The only problem is is that I don't have the capacity to fill them all!

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We're also supported by an amazing group of experts:

Ashley Green (Mindful Miss Green) — Teacher and Positive Psychology Coach, founder of Green Heart Wellbeing, who brings emotional wellbeing, resilience, and self-regulation into the training in a way that's practical and grounded.

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Julia Dacey — NICU nurse and IBCLC with over 20 years of NHS experience, founder of Milk & Beyond, who supports the wider programme with a very similiar clinical skillset to me.

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And the training is held at LittleLand Nursery & Montessori — a real, thriving nursery environment, because learning best-practice childcare in an actual childcare setting is categorically different to learning it in a hotel conference room.

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A reminder on what this isn't

This isn't about your nanny not being good enough because most nannies in Dubai are doing their absolute best with the knowledge and tools they have. The problem isn't usually attitude or care, it's the absence of any formal training in a system that employs hundreds of thousands of childcare workers who are usually minimally educated, and provides almost no further ongoing training. Which is also why our course does offer continuing learning opportunities.

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Being honest, we are also not going to deliver you the 'perfect' Nanny in a 25 hour course. What we are going to do is take your Nanny, and teach her the basics of safety, hygiene and everything else already mentioned. We also aim to just make everyone 'think out of the box' a little, and improve your working relationship with each other. Nobody wants a scared employee, and sadly, for many of these women who are supporting families at home (wherever that may be), they're constantly scared about losing their jobs, so will sometimes just tell you what you want to hear.

You wouldn't expect a nurse to practice without clinical training and you wouldn't send a driver onto a motorway without lessons, would you? The expectation that nannies should intuitively know CPR, safe sleep, safeguarding protocols, allergen management, and developmentally appropriate play, without ever having been taught any of it, is a structural, systemic problem, and this programme is our attempt to address it properly.

Cohort numbers are deliberately kept small. This is not a mass nanny training factory, it's designed to give each learner the attention they deserve, and to be able to talk about and discuss experiences in the classroom without feeling like it's a lecture in an auditorium. Engagement is how we teach, not by nannies tuning out, bored.

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If you're a Dubai parent who's ever lain awake wondering whether your nanny would know what to do, whether your baby is actually safe, whether the screen babysitting is doing harm, whether the routine is being followed, then this programme was created just for you. And for your nanny.

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Places are limited. You can secure your nanny's place at lullabies.ae or through The Child Unplugged.

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Lisa Adair is a paediatric nurse, IBCLC, certified sleep coach, and founder of Lullabies — an evidence-based, nurse-led space supporting families across Dubai from pregnancy through early childhood.

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