Where do you find these exceptional nannies?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used an agency.

Which one?

[Anonymous]

I hired a nanny who had tons of experience with twins and infants and preemies (mine were all three). She was a career nanny in her 50's with glowing references. She was just okay. She fought me a lot for control over little things (refused to start my kids on finger foods, even after they had turned 1, really fought me on sleep trainig even after I hired a professional sleep consultant to come train myself and DH on how toget a good bedtime going, etc.). She took no initiative to do anything beyond her specific duties and never went out of her way to bond with myself or DH.

After their 1st birthday, I hired a 20-something nanny with limited experience. I liked her and my mysanthropic DH even liked her. She was also overweight, which is often listed as a huge dealbreaker on these boards. She was funny, kind and empathetic. She had no formal training but a lot of curiosity about child development and spent a lot of time reading and researching each stage. She challenged my kids every day and they had been to every museum, zoo, park and aquarium within the DC area by age 4. She gave them tons of outdoor active time and physical challenges. She prepared them healthy whole foods from scratch and offered to make dinner during naptime so that we could start havig family dinners when they were about 18 months. She regularly offered to run errands like the grocery store and they would come home telling me about all the foods they bought starting with the letter "R"--she seriously made everything educational. I get stopped by neighbors and grocery store clerks and librarians all the time to tell me how awesome my nanny is.

I found both nannies through different agencies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hired a nanny who had tons of experience with twins and infants and preemies (mine were all three). She was a career nanny in her 50's with glowing references. She was just okay. She fought me a lot for control over little things (refused to start my kids on finger foods, even after they had turned 1, really fought me on sleep trainig even after I hired a professional sleep consultant to come train myself and DH on how toget a good bedtime going, etc.). She took no initiative to do anything beyond her specific duties and never went out of her way to bond with myself or DH.

After their 1st birthday, I hired a 20-something nanny with limited experience. I liked her and my mysanthropic DH even liked her. She was also overweight, which is often listed as a huge dealbreaker on these boards. She was funny, kind and empathetic. She had no formal training but a lot of curiosity about child development and spent a lot of time reading and researching each stage. She challenged my kids every day and they had been to every museum, zoo, park and aquarium within the DC area by age 4. She gave them tons of outdoor active time and physical challenges. She prepared them healthy whole foods from scratch and offered to make dinner during naptime so that we could start havig family dinners when they were about 18 months. She regularly offered to run errands like the grocery store and they would come home telling me about all the foods they bought starting with the letter "R"--she seriously made everything educational. I get stopped by neighbors and grocery store clerks and librarians all the time to tell me how awesome my nanny is.

I found both nannies through different agencies.

Which agency found her for you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hired a nanny who had tons of experience with twins and infants and preemies (mine were all three). She was a career nanny in her 50's with glowing references. She was just okay. She fought me a lot for control over little things (refused to start my kids on finger foods, even after they had turned 1, really fought me on sleep trainig even after I hired a professional sleep consultant to come train myself and DH on how toget a good bedtime going, etc.). She took no initiative to do anything beyond her specific duties and never went out of her way to bond with myself or DH.

After their 1st birthday, I hired a 20-something nanny with limited experience. I liked her and my mysanthropic DH even liked her. She was also overweight, which is often listed as a huge dealbreaker on these boards. She was funny, kind and empathetic. She had no formal training but a lot of curiosity about child development and spent a lot of time reading and researching each stage. She challenged my kids every day and they had been to every museum, zoo, park and aquarium within the DC area by age 4. She gave them tons of outdoor active time and physical challenges. She prepared them healthy whole foods from scratch and offered to make dinner during naptime so that we could start havig family dinners when they were about 18 months. She regularly offered to run errands like the grocery store and they would come home telling me about all the foods they bought starting with the letter "R"--she seriously made everything educational. I get stopped by neighbors and grocery store clerks and librarians all the time to tell me how awesome my nanny is.

I found both nannies through different agencies.

Which agency found her for you?

And is she currently available?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hired a nanny who had tons of experience with twins and infants and preemies (mine were all three). She was a career nanny in her 50's with glowing references. She was just okay. She fought me a lot for control over little things (refused to start my kids on finger foods, even after they had turned 1, really fought me on sleep trainig even after I hired a professional sleep consultant to come train myself and DH on how toget a good bedtime going, etc.). She took no initiative to do anything beyond her specific duties and never went out of her way to bond with myself or DH.

After their 1st birthday, I hired a 20-something nanny with limited experience. I liked her and my mysanthropic DH even liked her. She was also overweight, which is often listed as a huge dealbreaker on these boards. She was funny, kind and empathetic. She had no formal training but a lot of curiosity about child development and spent a lot of time reading and researching each stage. She challenged my kids every day and they had been to every museum, zoo, park and aquarium within the DC area by age 4. She gave them tons of outdoor active time and physical challenges. She prepared them healthy whole foods from scratch and offered to make dinner during naptime so that we could start havig family dinners when they were about 18 months. She regularly offered to run errands like the grocery store and they would come home telling me about all the foods they bought starting with the letter "R"--she seriously made everything educational. I get stopped by neighbors and grocery store clerks and librarians all the time to tell me how awesome my nanny is.

I found both nannies through different agencies.

Which agency found her for you?

And is she currently available?!

Agency for second nanny was called Your Child's Nanny. And she is mine as long as I can hang onto her!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hired a nanny who had tons of experience with twins and infants and preemies (mine were all three). She was a career nanny in her 50's with glowing references. She was just okay. She fought me a lot for control over little things (refused to start my kids on finger foods, even after they had turned 1, really fought me on sleep trainig even after I hired a professional sleep consultant to come train myself and DH on how toget a good bedtime going, etc.). She took no initiative to do anything beyond her specific duties and never went out of her way to bond with myself or DH.

After their 1st birthday, I hired a 20-something nanny with limited experience. I liked her and my mysanthropic DH even liked her. She was also overweight, which is often listed as a huge dealbreaker on these boards. She was funny, kind and empathetic. She had no formal training but a lot of curiosity about child development and spent a lot of time reading and researching each stage. She challenged my kids every day and they had been to every museum, zoo, park and aquarium within the DC area by age 4. She gave them tons of outdoor active time and physical challenges. She prepared them healthy whole foods from scratch and offered to make dinner during naptime so that we could start havig family dinners when they were about 18 months. She regularly offered to run errands like the grocery store and they would come home telling me about all the foods they bought starting with the letter "R"--she seriously made everything educational. I get stopped by neighbors and grocery store clerks and librarians all the time to tell me how awesome my nanny is.

I found both nannies through different agencies.

Which agency found her for you?

And is she currently available?!

Agency for second nanny was called Your Child's Nanny. And she is mine as long as I can hang onto her!

Hope she's well-compensated.
What did the agency charge you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can we please PLEASE stop with the older nanny trope? I'm surprised none of you have also said the key is hiring a white nanny. Stereotypes are stupid, and the QUALITIES that make an excellent nanny can be found in a nanny of any age, any race, and any background. There are amazing 50 year old nannies with many years of experience and degrees. There are also mature and professional talented 20-something nannies who take direction well and want nothing more than to do a good job. Try not to be an ignorant bigot.

People, like me, were just giving their experiences with exceptional nannies. And name calling doesn't really help your case that young nannies are mature enough to care for my children.

Please tell me where I called you a name? Saying something you don't like =/= name calling. Using an adjective =/= name calling. You are an idiot. That is name calling.

Not PP but your "try not to be an ignorant bigot" is name calling (and terrible name calling at that). I felt you were immature when I read your initial post as well. I'm soory, PP, but that is how I felt when I got to the end of your post.

I concur. The young, white dcum "nannies" have painted themselves light years behind how caring and professional the Caribbean, Hispanic and Filipino DC nanny community is. Live in au pairs are more respectful as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can we please PLEASE stop with the older nanny trope? I'm surprised none of you have also said the key is hiring a white nanny. Stereotypes are stupid, and the QUALITIES that make an excellent nanny can be found in a nanny of any age, any race, and any background. There are amazing 50 year old nannies with many years of experience and degrees. There are also mature and professional talented 20-something nannies who take direction well and want nothing more than to do a good job. Try not to be an ignorant bigot.

People, like me, were just giving their experiences with exceptional nannies. And name calling doesn't really help your case that young nannies are mature enough to care for my children.

Please tell me where I called you a name? Saying something you don't like =/= name calling. Using an adjective =/= name calling. You are an idiot. That is name calling.

Not PP but your "try not to be an ignorant bigot" is name calling (and terrible name calling at that). I felt you were immature when I read your initial post as well. I'm soory, PP, but that is how I felt when I got to the end of your post.

Would love to observe them. Which park do they go to?

I concur. The young, white dcum "nannies" have painted themselves light years behind how caring and professional the Caribbean, Hispanic and Filipino DC nanny community is. Live in au pairs are more respectful as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can we please PLEASE stop with the older nanny trope? I'm surprised none of you have also said the key is hiring a white nanny. Stereotypes are stupid, and the QUALITIES that make an excellent nanny can be found in a nanny of any age, any race, and any background. There are amazing 50 year old nannies with many years of experience and degrees. There are also mature and professional talented 20-something nannies who take direction well and want nothing more than to do a good job. Try not to be an ignorant bigot.

Everybody knows that. Why are you repeating it? They are just describing their own experiences.