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Definitely check a few references! I found our nanny through a local moms Facebook group, not an agency. But I liked that because then I could find mutual friends with the other mom and check her out. I agree with the above poster- make sure you feel like you can trust her! The best thing for me was watching candidates interact with my baby, but during covid that might be impossible. Interview questions aren’t always that helpful but asking them to describe their favorite things to do with a former child or if they are still in touch can give a sense of whether they really like nannying. Good luck! Having a nanny you love and trust is an amazing thing.

Hi there! I've gone both routes, finding a nanny through local word-of-mouth and through an agency. I think it really just depends on the area - when we were in Chicago, so many people employ nannies and the network is so big that I didn't need an agency. However, here in Lexington, KY, not many people use nannies and an agency was critical. We also didn't know the area so I felt I needed someone to navigate the waters a bit more on my behalf.

The biggest mistake I ever made with the nanny process was not checking references directly. I did that when we moved as I assumed the agency would have vetted her well. I was 100% wrong and we ultimately had to part ways. If I had called her last couple of families, I'm fairly certain I would have uncovered the issues that later plagued the relationship.

I wrote a blog post about lessons learned from a bad nanny placement: https://www.hellobee.com/2019/03/04/when-a-nanny-and-a-family-are-a-poor-match/ Hopefully it's helpful!

Also, a previous poster mentioned to have a detailed contract and I couldn't agree more. It becomes really critical at times to have things in black-and-white.

Both of the nannies that have been successful for our family have been in the age range of 25-30. I wouldn't go much lower than 25 for maturity reasons.

One last tip - track their PTO! It's harder than you might think because so much of the communication is through text, some through email, and the days blur together. Just get in a habit of tracking her PTO in a spreadsheet and sharing it with her so that there is never any misunderstanding about that aspect.

Good luck!!!

Hello! We've had a few nannies. Our first was one of my kids daycare teachers, the school was closing, and we lucked out and asked her if she'd like to nanny for us and she did! It was wonderful and we had her for 2.5 years before she moved across the country

We tried the word-of-mouth route, but it's hard when nannies are in high demand. We ended up using Care dot com. I've found that going through that site you really need to dedicate a lot of time to vet people, make calls, second calls, trial visits, etc.... but really you should do that with anyone you don't know well. The other thing about Care is that it's hit or miss, sometimes there are a ton of great people on there, and sometimes there's not. Our first Care nanny was in one of those lulls, we weren't thrilled with the selection but were happy with the one we found. She ended up being too young (18), and just not mature enough for us to handle our kids, among a few other issues. 18 year olds can be great babysitters and play-friends, but depending on the person they're just not used to being responsible, cleaning, etc.

BUT, the second time we went to Care we found a TON of great applicants, and this one girl popped up, we called her that day, and she's been with us for a year and a half already! She's the best, kids love her.

For our first full time nanny we ended up buying a software program for around $100 and that was where we tracked her time, her overtime (time and a half for anything over 40 hrs), and vacation, taxes, etc.... She was paid over the table. The payroll services were very expensive (we thought) so buying this program was easy to use and we just printed checks bi-weekly on our home printer. We also paid into a tax account every time we paid her so that we had all the money saved up to pay taxes on her when April came around. I would definitely advise doing this as it adds up fast.

Our contract also had in it a MINIMUM amount of hours for her sake. We guaranteed 42 hours or something like that... If we ended up using her less that week, we still had to pay her the minimum, which was really set up to make her feel comfortable.

Other nannies we've had prefer Venmo, paid under the table, they end up making more, and aren't worried about having a documented pay history, like it they want to buy a house at some point.

Definitely have a contract in place if you do it yourself, an agency would probably facilitate that. And be very clear on vacation time expectations and pay... Will your time off and the nannies coincide, and will they be paid while YOU are on vacation? Questions like that are good to know ahead of time....

Also driving and expenses. Will you have carseats to provide? Will they drive your car? Etc...If you're paying on the books you might need to look into insurance.

Sorry I feel like I was all over the place, but hopefully there are some good tidbits of advice in there