How did you find your incredible nanny?

[Anonymous]

I need to hire a part-time nanny within the next 3-4 months. This isn’t our first rodeo - we’ve hired two nannies previously. Our last nanny was with us full-time for several years. She had glowing references, but she was mostly just ok. She was very warm with my kids, which went a long way, but she was lacking in a lot of other ways that ended up making things very difficult. I’ve also spent some time since then as a SAHM and have observed a lot of nannies out in the world, and I have a better appreciation for how rare the really really good ones are.

I’ve done the nanny search a few ways - agency (Coast to Coast Nannies, which I wasn’t super impressed by), word of mouth from neighbors and acquaintances , and neighborhood listservs. It’s always felt super opaque and difficult to vet candidates no matter how you find them. So… if you have a super nanny (however you define that), how did you find them? What was your hiring process like?

[Anonymous]

agency-NannyPoppinz, talk to Susan

[Anonymous]

Seriously, this website and the other ones linked on the main page:
http://www.4nannies.com/

Found 3 of our 4 terrific nannies here across 12 years. Worked great as long as you are comfortable managing hiring yourself, background checks, etc. My kids are in college now and we (and they) are still in touch with all of our former nannies; they were truly instrumental in our kids' lives.

[Anonymous]

what was wrong with the nanny through Coast to Coast? Did you do trial days and did not like the nanny? They are the best agency imo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what was wrong with the nanny through Coast to Coast? Did you do trial days and did not like the nanny? They are the best agency imo

We worked with them during two searches and found that they sent candidates who didn’t match what we had asked for. They also were pushy with us when we explained why we didn’t move forward with certain candidates.

[Anonymous]

Neighborhood listservs is where we had success and got our best nannies. We only responded to postings from previous families, raving about their amazing nanny who needed a new job because the kid was going to PK3 or they were moving.

I would do a very short interview with the nanny (mostly looking for communication skills since English is the second language for so many nannies) and then dove in hard on the references. Call at least 2-3. Let them give you their pitch ("oh, she's great"), give them some softball questions, then dig in on the stuff you care about. "She was lacking in a lot of other ways that ended up making things very difficult" tells me you know what you want. So, ask. I also got a lot of milage out of the question, "if you HAD to say something, what would you say was her worst quality as a nanny." And wait to ask that until you've given the reference a bunch of opportunities to talk about how great the nanny was. That sets them up to feel okay about being at least a little honest. For our best nanny, the answer was, "gosh, gee, there was really nothing... okay, well, this is weird, but she went through SO MUCH dish soap. I actually almost said something because we were going through one of those big things every week!" If that is literally the worst thing someone can come up with after having someone as a full time nanny for two years, you've got yourself a phenomenal nanny. And she was! (And she did use a lot of dish soap, lol).

I know for other jobs (like my day job) the reference call is after you've basically made your choice, but for a nanny, I've doing reference calls for several, because that's what I'm making my decision off of.

Also - make sure you ask a bunch of questions about the reference's situation. How many kids, how they found the nanny, how long they were employed with them, what hours, etc. I definitely had a couple of references that were trying to pass themselves off as having hired her as a full time nanny, but upon digging, they were clearly just friends with children that the nanny had babysat for.

[Anonymous]

Newspaper ad. I did all the reference checks myself. I don't trust an agency. I've had them call about a few past nannies we had before we found our current, amazing nanny, and the questions they ask are shallow, and it seemed like they are just CYA type questions, and they really don't want any negative information because they are incentivized to make a match. I'm pretty cynical, so maybe they're not really bad and that's just my take.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I need to hire a part-time nanny within the next 3-4 months. This isn’t our first rodeo - we’ve hired two nannies previously. Our last nanny was with us full-time for several years. She had glowing references, but she was mostly just ok. She was very warm with my kids, which went a long way, but she was lacking in a lot of other ways that ended up making things very difficult. I’ve also spent some time since then as a SAHM and have observed a lot of nannies out in the world, and I have a better appreciation for how rare the really really good ones are.

I’ve done the nanny search a few ways - agency (Coast to Coast Nannies, which I wasn’t super impressed by), word of mouth from neighbors and acquaintances , and neighborhood listservs. It’s always felt super opaque and difficult to vet candidates no matter how you find them. So… if you have a super nanny (however you define that), how did you find them? What was your hiring process like?

I suspect that you really wanted a maid who would babysit and you would pay $10/hr.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Neighborhood listservs is where we had success and got our best nannies. We only responded to postings from previous families, raving about their amazing nanny who needed a new job because the kid was going to PK3 or they were moving.

I would do a very short interview with the nanny (mostly looking for communication skills since English is the second language for so many nannies) and then dove in hard on the references. Call at least 2-3. Let them give you their pitch ("oh, she's great"), give them some softball questions, then dig in on the stuff you care about. "She was lacking in a lot of other ways that ended up making things very difficult" tells me you know what you want. So, ask. I also got a lot of milage out of the question, "if you HAD to say something, what would you say was her worst quality as a nanny." And wait to ask that until you've given the reference a bunch of opportunities to talk about how great the nanny was. That sets them up to feel okay about being at least a little honest. For our best nanny, the answer was, "gosh, gee, there was really nothing... okay, well, this is weird, but she went through SO MUCH dish soap. I actually almost said something because we were going through one of those big things every week!" If that is literally the worst thing someone can come up with after having someone as a full time nanny for two years, you've got yourself a phenomenal nanny. And she was! (And she did use a lot of dish soap, lol).

I know for other jobs (like my day job) the reference call is after you've basically made your choice, but for a nanny, I've doing reference calls for several, because that's what I'm making my decision off of.

Also - make sure you ask a bunch of questions about the reference's situation. How many kids, how they found the nanny, how long they were employed with them, what hours, etc. I definitely had a couple of references that were trying to pass themselves off as having hired her as a full time nanny, but upon digging, they were clearly just friends with children that the nanny had babysat for.

OP here. This was how we found our last nanny. She had been with her last few families 10 years, 8 years, 2 years, with the 2 year family expressing how sad they were to let her go because they put their kid in daycare. I conducted our reference check in a way similar to what you describe and when asked for critiques, the families basically said things like “oh she doesn’t always put toys away exactly the way I would, but she does clean up” - essentially something trivial and it seemed like they were really trying hard to come up with something negative. But we still ran into issues with safety (car sear ignorance, letting my kid open the front door and walk outside unattended more than once while she was watching the baby, feeding snacks like whole peanuts to my rear-facing 2 year old in the car when I had told her not to), inability to follow our instructions about handling tantrums/discipline (she just gave in every time to avoid the conflict), and poor English comprehension (I truly don’t know how the other families didn’t mention this because it was a huge problem for us). So I feel quite burned by this whole process, honestly.

[Anonymous]

DCUM, believe it or not!

[Anonymous]

PP whose nanny used a lot of dish soap, why did she? Don't you have a dishwasher?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Neighborhood listservs is where we had success and got our best nannies. We only responded to postings from previous families, raving about their amazing nanny who needed a new job because the kid was going to PK3 or they were moving.

I would do a very short interview with the nanny (mostly looking for communication skills since English is the second language for so many nannies) and then dove in hard on the references. Call at least 2-3. Let them give you their pitch ("oh, she's great"), give them some softball questions, then dig in on the stuff you care about. "She was lacking in a lot of other ways that ended up making things very difficult" tells me you know what you want. So, ask. I also got a lot of milage out of the question, "if you HAD to say something, what would you say was her worst quality as a nanny." And wait to ask that until you've given the reference a bunch of opportunities to talk about how great the nanny was. That sets them up to feel okay about being at least a little honest. For our best nanny, the answer was, "gosh, gee, there was really nothing... okay, well, this is weird, but she went through SO MUCH dish soap. I actually almost said something because we were going through one of those big things every week!" If that is literally the worst thing someone can come up with after having someone as a full time nanny for two years, you've got yourself a phenomenal nanny. And she was! (And she did use a lot of dish soap, lol).

I know for other jobs (like my day job) the reference call is after you've basically made your choice, but for a nanny, I've doing reference calls for several, because that's what I'm making my decision off of.

Also - make sure you ask a bunch of questions about the reference's situation. How many kids, how they found the nanny, how long they were employed with them, what hours, etc. I definitely had a couple of references that were trying to pass themselves off as having hired her as a full time nanny, but upon digging, they were clearly just friends with children that the nanny had babysat for.

I'm very surprised that great nannies handed you a reference list prior to an offer. Most families burn out on calls very quickly (ie. no more than 5 reference calls every few years), so most of us can't afford to hand it out until the position is down to top three candidates. Most of my references don't get called until I have a verbal offer and we're looking at negotiating terms, pending references checking out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neighborhood listservs is where we had success and got our best nannies. We only responded to postings from previous families, raving about their amazing nanny who needed a new job because the kid was going to PK3 or they were moving.

I would do a very short interview with the nanny (mostly looking for communication skills since English is the second language for so many nannies) and then dove in hard on the references. Call at least 2-3. Let them give you their pitch ("oh, she's great"), give them some softball questions, then dig in on the stuff you care about. "She was lacking in a lot of other ways that ended up making things very difficult" tells me you know what you want. So, ask. I also got a lot of milage out of the question, "if you HAD to say something, what would you say was her worst quality as a nanny." And wait to ask that until you've given the reference a bunch of opportunities to talk about how great the nanny was. That sets them up to feel okay about being at least a little honest. For our best nanny, the answer was, "gosh, gee, there was really nothing... okay, well, this is weird, but she went through SO MUCH dish soap. I actually almost said something because we were going through one of those big things every week!" If that is literally the worst thing someone can come up with after having someone as a full time nanny for two years, you've got yourself a phenomenal nanny. And she was! (And she did use a lot of dish soap, lol).

I know for other jobs (like my day job) the reference call is after you've basically made your choice, but for a nanny, I've doing reference calls for several, because that's what I'm making my decision off of.

Also - make sure you ask a bunch of questions about the reference's situation. How many kids, how they found the nanny, how long they were employed with them, what hours, etc. I definitely had a couple of references that were trying to pass themselves off as having hired her as a full time nanny, but upon digging, they were clearly just friends with children that the nanny had babysat for.

OP here. This was how we found our last nanny. She had been with her last few families 10 years, 8 years, 2 years, with the 2 year family expressing how sad they were to let her go because they put their kid in daycare. I conducted our reference check in a way similar to what you describe and when asked for critiques, the families basically said things like “oh she doesn’t always put toys away exactly the way I would, but she does clean up” - essentially something trivial and it seemed like they were really trying hard to come up with something negative. But we still ran into issues with safety (car sear ignorance, letting my kid open the front door and walk outside unattended more than once while she was watching the baby, feeding snacks like whole peanuts to my rear-facing 2 year old in the car when I had told her not to), inability to follow our instructions about handling tantrums/discipline (she just gave in every time to avoid the conflict), and poor English comprehension (I truly don’t know how the other families didn’t mention this because it was a huge problem for us). So I feel quite burned by this whole process, honestly.

OP, that sounds like a nightmare.

I would highly suggest giving Susan at Nannypoppinz a call. Let her know what you do and don't want, and let her know about the bad experience you had. She'll definitely help you find a nanny who can follow instructions and understands basic safety!

[Anonymous]

I usually advise parents the best way to find an excellent nanny is either through a reputable nanny agency or by a referral from someone you are close with.