Nanny Hunting

So, about three weeks ago we put in for our first child placement. At the time, the little boy would have needed to be placed by that weekend. Needless to say, we were initially in a rush to provide everything we could from a care standpoint, including pre-schools, baby-sitters and nannies. Since both Alania and I work full time, we decided to pursue finding a full-time nanny. At the end of the day, as many of you already know, we did not end up getting the little boy, but we decided it would be a good thing to go ahead and interview and find a nanny/nannies that we would be comfortable using once we do actually get our child. 

We began our search by creating a care.com account. For those who haven’t acquainted themselves with this tool, I highly recommend it. It works very much like a dating site for finding babysitters and nannies, complete with detailed profiles, references and a mailbox for you to communicate with potential candidates.   Another great thing about care.com is that you can find tips on interview questions (super helpful when you’ve never had kids), contracts, and managing payroll/taxes for your caregiver.  We posted a job, and within the first week we had more than 10 responses, and by the second we had over twenty and decided to close it to additional candidates.  Alania and I would screen their profiles and I was responding to many of them while trying to work in-person interviews and phone interviews into Alania’s schedule (she’s always a bit more booked from a time perspective than I am :) ). 

Now the range of expertise we got from our candidates was pretty wide-ranging. Some of the applicants were barely out of high school and had only babysitting experience, while some had Bachelors degrees in Education; a few even were either studying for a Masters or already had one, and already had several years not only nannying but years of experience teaching in Montessori schools. Some were certified in Holistic Health or as Yoga instructors as well. 

It was definitely a learning experience and interesting to see and consider all of the different possibilities that we could expose our children to. All of the people we spoke to were caring individuals and I am sure would have been good nannies, but we wanted to find the one that we felt would be most likely to uphold our values and parenting styles. We also learned a lot in not only their answers to our questions, but the questions they asked us. It was very thought provoking to think about whether we wanted our children to be exposed to yoga, or vegetarian eating, or even holistic health. It’s also a little bit of a weird experience interviewing someone for a position to take care of a child who is yet unknown.  Some of the questions we got were a learning experience in what to ask other nannies, like will they get paid OVER the table and have formal contracts. Before we started this process I wouldn’t have fathomed to think that. 

An additional thing that is specific to children in foster care is that any nanny would have to be certified by the state.  This includes a fingerprint background check, filling out a lot of paperwork that includes providing references, being first aid/CPR certified, and attending TBRI training.  Some of these things are common sense and most parents would probably ask for before leaving their child with a stranger even if they weren’t required, but the additional training is asking a lot of someone you may not even be hiring (it’s only given a couple of times a year, with one coming up in April).  These additional requirements led some potential nannies to self-select out of the running.  

In all we met with seven or 8 either over the phone or in person and have  since narrowed it down to three. They are all women - we only got one male candidate and screened him out due to experience - and only one does not have a degree yet (she is working on it). Our favorite spent several years in Africa on mission trips and teaching children there, in addition to having been a nanny to 5 children!  Another of the three is certified as a Holistic Health Coach and all three have their own transportation and experience in nannying to multiple children. 

While we haven’t had to hire them just yet, we believe that any of the three will be great. They all three seem super compassionate and are all on board with the way that we want to raise our kids and the values that we want to instill. All three seem like the type of people we definitely want around our family.  And as far as all we have learned in this process, It will certainly set us up for finding babysitters or our nanny when the time is right if these awesome women have already found other families by the time we get our child/children.