Care.com

lyndsihutson

Has anyone had success finding a sitter on there? I'm thinking of trying it but don't want to waste the money if its not going to pay off.

sschwege

Check out Sittercity.  I have found there's a lot more action over there.

brachysira

We live in a mid-sized city.  My friend found her nanny there and she really likes her.  I went on and there were many sitters and nannies of all ages.  There are lots of criteria--you can, for instance, look for students at certain universities or choose someone with experience with specific ages (although most everyone claims to have experience with everyone).  For me, it's been difficult to pull the trigger because there's no personal connection at all.  It feels like online dating--and even though the people seem great, I know that upon meeting them they may not be.  A few people have references with quotes about how great the caregiver is, but these doing hold much weight. I'd rather have at least one person I know tell me this person is good, even if I know that doesn't guarantee anything.  The people there seem very qualified.  In my area you get 22 year-olds who say things like, I've been baby-sitting for 13 years and have spent the last 4 years as a full-time nanny.  It seems a little harder to find people who have less expertise, which makes me wonder if everyone is being honest about their experiences.  It also doesn't quite suit me because I want someone who can come over for 2 hours while I work upstairs and I really don't want to feel responsible for someone's career and would rather have a neighborhood high school student, but I don't know any, so perhaps I will end up doing care.com after all.  One thing I don't know about is how often posters actually accept positions, but the site provides info on how often people log in and reply, so this should help.  It's probably good if you want to generate a list of full time nannies, call references, and do interviews, but I'm not sure it will work for more short term.

stacrb98

I used care.com to find 1 day a week childcare. You can post an ad and not pay to use the site until you want to contact those who responded. I live in a suburb and had about 20 responses to my job I interviewed 4 and one really stood out. She started yesterday!

kb&mb

We found our nanny on care.com. :-)

TheEditor

We found our DCP via care.com and also found a few babysitters we'd like to interview when we move next week.  I paid just for one month and then cancelled once we found what we needed.  For me, it was well worth the $35.

kescalera

I used it to find our full-time nanny. I posted a job and then waited until I found a couple people I liked "on paper" then paid for one month subscription to be able to contact them. We interviewed 3 people in person and spoke with a few more via email & over the phone. Our nanny has been with a month and is amazing. We all love her.

beccalee721

I love the site! I just started using it to find a babysitter for when my husband and I go out for the first time in a few weeks (we're military, so family isn't in the area) I posted the job and had about 10 people respond within the first day. We picked one woman based on her experience etc and met with her last night at our house. Our daughter instantly fell in love with her! Such an amazing web site!

ambmama

bmerr:

We live in a suburban area (an hour west of Philly) and whenever I've posted a job, I easily will get 20+ applicants within the first day or two. Our parents live about an hour away, but can't always babysit last minute (24 hour notice), so Care.com has really helped us out that way. Well worth the money for us.

Best advice I can give: sign up, give it a try, if you don't like it, cancel it! 

 

We must practically be neighbors! That's how I describe where we live too. I found my nanny on Care.com!