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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Frankly, many “professional” nannies in this area, have no formal credentials beyond having worked with children long periods of time. Many that we interviewed never take children outside, seemed indifferent to or did not seem particularly interested in children. Moreover, despite only looking for citizens, many of the nannies raised in the US whom we interviewed had poor English that we would not want children mimicking. Hence, satisfactorily seeking out energetic au pair extraordinares who only speak to family in target language, and, have minimum three years’ experience with young children. 
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We had a nanny when our kids were little (no way in hell would I used an AP for babies and toddlers). We had the same nanny for 6 years.  We felt consistent childcare, over a revolving door was important. I can say, going from nanny to AuPair was like going from flying first class to the greyhound bus.  Our nanny was  in her mid 30s when she started, had years of experience with 3 different families, was a US citizen, spoke perfect English (originally from Columbia), didn't even have a smartphone, so she was never on it, had a perfect driving record and had been licensed in Virginia since the age of 18, she had spent 2 years at a Montessori school and brought a lot of those concepts with her, and even had a 2 year associates degree from Northern Virginia Community College.  Going to an AUPair (and we absolutely adore our first AuPair) was a complete shock and massive downgrade. luckily we expected it and at the time our kids were 4 & 7, and in school, so we did not need anything spectacular, but wow, you can't even compare.

Maybe we got lucky with the nanny, but we had to be so hands on with the AP, it has been exhausting. I'm very happy our kids are now 8 & 11 and we will no longer need this program after this summer.[/quote]

We never were able to find a quality nanny and had great success with an older au pair with several years experience with infants, she knew much more than we did as parents. To each to his/her own. [/quote]

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