Parenting after 35

Thoughts needed

So today was a sucky day.  Granted it was Monday, which makes it sucky enough but this morning my babysitter completely flaked on me.  She is my sister's best friend and like a sister to me but I could have killed her today.  To spare the details and me getting carpel tunnel trying to type it all out the basic issue is I may need to find new child care in my home sooner than I had anticipated.  My question is...has anyone used sitter city or care.com or know anyone who has?  If so how was your/their experience?  I am looking to have someone watch the kids in my home like I have now.  I have nothing against daycare, I used to work in a daycare when I was just out of HS and working my way through college. I would like at home because 1.  It makes my life easier not having to wake them up and schlep them all over creation and 2.  I just would feel better having someone in my home because I work in the town in which I live so I get to go home for lunch every day and eat with the kiddos and put them down for naps before having to go back to work.  

Just thought I would see if anyone used either site and how it was.  Thanks in advance :)

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Re: Thoughts needed

  • I haven't, but a ton of moms on the Working Moms board have used both sites very successfully. Good luck. Care decisions are so hard! And I'm sorry your sitter flaked. That sucks.
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  • I have friends that have used care dot com and had great success finding sitters.  Good luck.  Hope you can find someone great quickly.

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  • edited January 2015
    We've used both and sittercity is SUPER slow. In a matter of 2 weeks we got only 1 response there, where in care.com in the same time frame we found over 10 candidates, interiewed them, called references etc. Highly recommend care.com over sittercity.


    ETA: forgot to comment on how it works. You buy a membership - just get 1 month. Then you can review profiles and get people's contact info
    Or Post your job - we did it twice. When K was younger I wanted a sitter to watch her 1 afternoon per week while I ran errands and got some time off. Found several contacts through that. Chose one, but kept contact infor for several others.

    And recently, we needed a nanny to help with K after my csection when MH was traveling and I couldn't lift anything yet. Needed someone to do school dropoff/pickup, then who would entertain her in the PM while I took a nap with the newborn.
    We got several applications, picked about 10 people we liked, then narrowed it down to about 4, MH interviewed them over the phone, then we called their references. And the final 2 we had come to the house to meet in person. And we made thw offer to one of them. We had REALLY good candidates. It was a quick process and I'm really happy with results. Oh, we cancelled the paid membership right after.

    For me this is just a temporary arrangement until C is a bit bigger and it's easier to manage (bc I don't think MH's travel situation will improve...I will always be alone for weeks on end when he's gone). But my neighbors used care.com to find a full time nanny that has been watching their DD (same age as K) in their home since birth basically bc they both work. They had the same person for almost 3 years. Now they're in the process of replacing her bc she decided to start a home day care and they didn't want to send their DD there. I know they also do trial days, where they will have the candidate come watch their DD for a day and then evaluate. Not sure if that's paid, but I would think so.
    So yeah, I would say care.com is a really good resource.
  • Oh also forgot - we uses care.com to look for a sitter in Ocean Isle when we were going on vacay there. We wanted to have someone watch K one night after she went to bed one night to pop out to dinner. Again, talked with several people and was going to use one of them, but then it never panned out and we didn't need anyone. But, a good option.
  • We used care.com in the past for full-time nannies when I was working. It's a good resource but very hit or miss. ANYONE can be on that site, so screen carefully. We did phone interview, short in-home meeting, and a "test day" or test afternoon. I would recommend all three. Also ask for and check references for sure. We had one super awesome nanny from Care.com who we loved until she went to grad school, and some okay ones. I thought I got better candidates looking for part-time than full-time--more student types working around class schedules and that sort of thing. But, I needed full-time at the time.

    IT's a great way to find someone but don't assume you're necessarily going to get a huge pool of awesome people. I had some real weirdos in addition to good candidates. You can post multiple times to bump your listing back up to the top if you have stopped getting responses.

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  • We've used care . com to find two nannies so far.   The service is good.  You have to do due diligence to find a candidate that is a good fit.   To echo @harmonicbabe26, don't forget to cancel the membership!  For our latest ad, I selected just a one month membership.    I learned the hard way that it auto-renews if you don't proactively cancel before the end of the month.
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  • Thanks ladies I knew I could count on you all.  I may have found someone through someone I work with.  I couldn't talk about it at work yesterday because I would have started crying and I did not want to do that.  I was telling a co-worker today about the situation and one of our PTs was there and heard me and gave me a name of someone she knows who comes highly reccomended.  I am going to call her tonight to see whats what.

    Thanks again I appreciate your responses.

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  • Geeps2 said:
    Thanks ladies I knew I could count on you all.  I may have found someone through someone I work with.  I couldn't talk about it at work yesterday because I would have started crying and I did not want to do that.  I was telling a co-worker today about the situation and one of our PTs was there and heard me and gave me a name of someone she knows who comes highly reccomended.  I am going to call her tonight to see whats what.

    Thanks again I appreciate your responses.
    Hope this person is awesome and works out.

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