Nannies

JPW2006

DH and I want to really explore the nanny option before making our child care decisions.  For those of you who have a nanny, how did you find them?  Word of mouth, agencies, on-line, etc?  Does your nanny have any household duties as well (laundry, cleaning...)?  Any suggestions for me while searching for a nanny?  TIA!

beefsbride

We used enannysource.com to find our first nanny -- it is basically a site like monster.com only for nannies & families.  We were able to run a background check through that site and they have all kinds of resources (i.e. interivew questions, application, etc.) that you can download -- I think it was around $150.   That nanny ended up not working out for us, though, and we found our current wicked awesome nanny through a free ad I placed on Craigslist.  I will admit that I had to weed through A LOT of crap resumes before I found her, but it was totally worth it in the end.

Good luck with your search!

mskah

I found our nanny on sittercity.com, which I believe is 100 bucks or something like that to join.  They have a basic background check, but I also ran a more extensive background check for $150...didn't want to take any chances.  We have had our nanny for the past year, which was a necessity...I never would have been able to get them dressed and out of the house, and then get to work on time.  Now that they are a year old, I am looking to move them to daycare.  But if I were to look again, I would likely do the same thing...Craigslist and sittercity.com.  Good luck!

beefsbride

Sorry -- I just realized I didn't answer your other questions -- oops!  In addition to caring for B&K (and our dog, Tabasco), our nanny will do the babies' laundry and she would make up / clean their bottles when they were little.  She keeps our house pretty neat, but we have someone else come in to do the cleaning every 2 weeks.   We allow her to take B & K out (either to run her own errands, or now that they are a little older she takes them to the library, park, zoo, etc.) -- so we've always had extra car seat bases & an extra stroller for her (now she has 2 convert. seats in her car).

Are you part of a MoMs group?  If so you may want to reach out to them for local agency or suggestions . . . I know moms-to-be are always sending notes out to our local group for recommendations, too.

cands

We found our nanny through an agency.   Her main duty is taking care of the girls, but she also does their laundry and cleans up after them, she doesn't do any general household cleaning.

I highly recommend watching the perspective nanny interact with the babies before hiring her.  We interviewed one nanny who looked terrific on paper: twin experience degree in early childhood education, etc.  She gave great answers to our questions.  But then when we handed Madeline to her to hold, she didn't even look at Madeline.  Madeline started to cry and she made absolutely no attempt to sooth her. We didn't hire her.