https://boards.hellobee.com/ Pregnancy, Baby and Parenting blog, by Hellobee en Sun, 03 May 2026 04:01:50 +0000 https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/picking-a-nanny-advice-needed#post-1141292 Wed, 09 Oct 2013 18:23:27 +0000 SleepyMonkey 1141292@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Modern Daisy: i think @californiadreams: has great tips. i just went through this process too. during the interview, i would watch how she interacts with your baby. what does she say to your baby? does she interact from afar? does she get down on the floor with them? or is she only talking to you and ignoring your baby? when you ask her questions, ask specifically about the children she cared for...names, examples of what they used to do, stories. write it all down. </p> <p>i think reference calls are even more important than the interview. i'd call at LEAST three recent references. and then ask the same questions that you asked the nanny and see if the answers match with what you wrote down. this will help you spot a fake reference (this happened to me and that is what helped me spot it). ask for specific questions and stories/examples - did you take them to classes? where were the classes? also ask them easy questions, like, where do you live now? what do you do for a living? fake references won't have that kind of stuff prepared. i'd want to see references for her most recent jobs (not old ones)...ask for dates that she worked for her previous employers to make sure there aren't any holes. </p> <p>ask if their child liked the nanny. i'd want to hear that they loved the nanny and the nanny loved them too, and they'd run to her when she came into the house. one reference of a nanny i didn't hire said "yeah, they liked her.." but wasn't terribly enthusiastic. the nanny i did hire, all three of her references said their kids LOVED the nanny, and that the nanny still comes to visit. ask about how they handled disagreements with the nanny and also what one (or two) thing they wished the nanny could have improved upon...also ask about pay, vacation policy, and any other perks so you know if what you are offering is going to satisfy the nanny. </p> <p>i also did a trial period and had the nanny come in several days when i was working from home. i watched to see if she was prepared and seemed to know what she was doing and comfortable. basically just look to see if the nanny and your baby click, and if you like her style of nannying. </p> <p>i could write a whole page on this, but i'll stop now. good luck! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/picking-a-nanny-advice-needed#post-1139697 Wed, 09 Oct 2013 09:01:32 +0000 californiadreams 1139697@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I just hired a nanny recently and a babysitter last summer through a similar website to care.com. I realized in all my interviews that our instinct and gut feeling was most important. Not just good qualifications and a good personality. AND since I had 2 babysitters help me out over the summer and had a strong preference for one of them, I HIGHLY recommend doing a couple of trial days. The reason I preferred one over the other was simply because she was better with my baby. She (B1) was better at getting him to nap, take a bottle, etc. I also felt I could communicate with her better. The second (B2) was good with my baby when he was awake, like she could play with him and take him out, but he cried so much when she would put him down for a nap and usually refused to take a bottle from her! B2 was a good person and I trusted her. She had great references, etc....but I and my baby just didn't click with her. And I would not have known that without spending a few days with her. </p> <p>After that experience, when looking for a nanny, it became most important to watch carefully how they interacted with my baby. The nanny we chose was just AMAZING with him from the moment she walked in the door. I had a couple of candidates who I ruled out immediately because during the interview they refrained from holding or interacting with LO!! One candidate told me later on the interview that she didn't touch LO because she needed to wash her hands, which is great that she was conscious of that, but then I had to tell her "ok go wash your hands then so you can hold him". It was so awkward, lol.</p> <p>anyway, to sum, I recommend doing trial days - for you to see the nanny in action and of course to help transition your LO.</p> <p>ETA: lol, i wrote all that and then read your post again and saw that you already plan to do a trial day! </p> <p>Another thing I thought of was the references. I was calling references for 2 people and one of them had good references, but they weren't outstanding! And I got a bit of a weird vibe from the person on the phone. So it just made me wonder "who are these people that hired this candidate in the past and do I want to trust their judgement". Basically, a good reference is not just someone on the phone saying the nanny is good, but the referring person themselves has to have similar standards to yourself.</p> <p>I also questioned why that candidate (that I didn't take in the end) was always going from job to job, she had good reasons for each job ending (previous employer got pregnant, etc). And she gave me a whole spiel about why she couldn't give references from her most recent employer because she couldn't get a hold of them and didn't want to give out their number without their permission....okay fine, but then i thought that i could have waited until she did reach them, but she never offered that as an option...so she was another one who looked good on paper, seemed normal in person, was good with LO....but her references sketched me out a bit even though no one actually said anything bad about her. comes down to gut feeling again I guess. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/picking-a-nanny-advice-needed#post-1139650 Wed, 09 Oct 2013 08:51:49 +0000 Modern Daisy 1139650@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>DH and I are in the process of interviewing nannies to watch DS full time once I go back to work. We are using Care.com which has been awesome so far, I would recommend it to anyone looking for a babysitter or nanny. Our job posting has gotten over 150 applications(!!) and we had three interviews last night and 8 more scheduled between now and Saturday. We really liked one of the nannies from last night!</p> <p>We are obviously going to do a full background check and call all references once we narrow the list down to just a couple of finalists. And we haven't ironed out all the details yet as far as salary and benefits, but so far we seem to be hearing the same thing from everyone about what is 'standard' in NYC so we won't deviate too much from that.</p> <p>Does anyone have any advice? The Nanny series on the blog was very helpful as far as writing my job posting (I pretty much copied Mrs. Bee's!) and DH came up with a bunch of great interview questions. I guess I'm looking for tips from people who have been through this before - what to look out for and what would you do differently if you had to do it again?</p> <p>I'll also mention that we are probably going to do a trial day before making the official job offer and we will definitely have a contract with all job duties, salary and other important topics addressed in detail. </p>