Homesickness usually arrives after the first few weeks, not on day one, and what helps is unglamorous: fewer calls home but at fixed times, one thing of your own in the week, telling your host family in plain words, and getting out of the house on your free evenings. It is not a sign you chose the wrong country, and waiting for it to pass on its own is the one approach that reliably does not work.
Your hours, tasks and host family chat, in one app.
Why it hits in week four and not week one
The first two weeks run on novelty. Everything is new, you are busy learning where the bins go, and there is no space to miss anything.
Then the week becomes a week. You know the route to school, the children stop being strangers, and the novelty that was carrying you runs out. Underneath it is the thing that was true the whole time: your friends are having a life you are not in, your family's evening happens while you are working, and the language that makes you funny at home does not work here yet.
Sunday afternoons are the worst of it for most people. So are the evenings after the children are in bed, which is exactly when your phone is full of everyone at home being together.
What helps
Call home less often, at fixed times. This is the advice that feels wrong and works anyway. Being half in a video call all day keeps you from building anything where you are, and it gives the people at home a version of you that is always sad. Two or three set calls a week give you something to tell them, and give the rest of your day back to the place you are actually in.
Then put one thing of your own into the week. A class, a run on the same day, a cafe you go to on Saturday morning. It does not have to be social to begin with. The point is a part of the week that belongs to you rather than to the family or the children.
Use your free evenings as evenings. You have at least four of them a week and 1.5 full rest days. Staying in your room is the default when you are low, and it is what makes the following week heavier. Going out once and having a mediocre time beats not going out at all.
Tell your host family, in one sentence at a normal moment: "I'm fine, I'm just missing home this week." Most parents read a quiet au pair as unhappy with them, so they start worrying about the job while you are worrying about your mother. Naming it stops two people guessing at once.
Your German course can do a second job here. Everyone in that room arrived recently and knows nobody, which makes it the easiest social start you will get, and it doubles as the thing you are supposed to be doing anyway. Who pays for it and how much is in what your pocket money covers.
And eat with the family, even on the evenings you would rather take a plate upstairs. Meals are where the small talk happens that turns a household into people you know.
What makes it worse
Scrolling through everyone at home. Measuring the year by how many months are left. Waiting to feel better before you make a plan, because the plan is what makes you feel better rather than the other way round. And deciding in week five whether the whole year was a mistake, which is the single worst week to decide anything.
Homesickness, or the wrong family?
They feel identical from the inside, and telling them apart matters, because the fix is different.
Homesickness follows a curve. It is worse in the evenings and on Sundays, better when something of your own is happening, and it eases over weeks as your life here fills up.
A bad placement does not ease, it sharpens. It attaches to specific things and the same things keep coming back: the week that goes over six hours a day and 30 hours a week, the free evening that keeps getting taken, the pocket money that arrives late, the room that everyone walks through. Check the week rather than your mood: the schedule checker adds your real hours up and tells you which days break the rules. If the answer is that the week is the problem, talking to your host family is the next step, not a plane ticket.
If it does not lift
Homesickness that goes on for months, or that stops you eating, sleeping or getting up, is worth more than a pep talk. Tell someone: your agency if you came through one, a friend at home who will take it seriously, or a doctor. Your host family pays your health insurance, so seeing a doctor is not an extra cost you have to carry.
Going home early is a real option and not a failure. It is also a decision to make in month three with information, not in week five at eleven at night.
Planning a visit home
You get four weeks of paid holiday for a full year with the family; for a shorter stay, two working days for each full month. Something to look forward to is a good remedy on its own, and a date on the calendar changes how the weeks before it feel.
Work out what you have already earned with the vacation calculator, then ask early. A specific week is easy to agree in October and hard to agree in December.
Frequently asked questions
Is it normal to be homesick as an au pair?
Yes. It often shows up once the first excitement wears off and the days turn into routine, and it says nothing about whether you picked the right family or the right country.
Does calling home more often help?
Usually the opposite. Calls at set times give you something to tell and leave the rest of your day here. Being half at home all day makes it harder to build anything where you actually are.
Should I tell my host family I am homesick?
Yes, in one plain sentence. They cannot help with something they do not know about, and most parents read a quiet au pair as unhappy with them rather than as missing home.
How do I know if it is homesickness or the wrong host family?
Homesickness eases as your own life here gets going and is worst in the evenings and on Sundays. A bad placement gets more specific rather than easier: the same hours, the same task, the same argument every week.
Can I go home for a visit during my au pair year?
You get four weeks of paid holiday for a full year with the family, or two working days for each full month of a shorter stay. Ask early, because a specific week is much easier to get before the family's own plans are fixed.
The part of this you can do something about this week is the social one: making friends as an au pair in a new city. Your rights, with the official source next to each figure, are on the au pair guide for Germany.
AuPairSync keeps your plan and your free days visible to both sides, so the evenings you were promised stay yours.