Consider These 8 Things Before You Hire a Nanny

If you need help in the childcare department, you aren’t alone. However, you probably have many concerns about how to select the right support. How can you find the perfect nanny?

You need to consider multiple factors, including your child’s special needs, their developmental stage and your comfort as a parent. Unlike babysitters, nannies do everything from tutor your child to assist with family meal planning. Here are eight things to consider before hiring yours.

1. Your Child’s Readiness

It’s such a balancing act you want to encourage your child’s burgeoning independence but not force them into new experiences in a way that traumatizes them. Fortunately, hiring a nanny isn’t on par with moving to a foreign city, but any change can challenge highly sensitive children.

If your child doesn’t take well to sudden shifts, introduce the idea of a nanny gradually. You might try having them spend time with you both. At first, leave the room only to run brief errands, like grabbing a cup of coffee. Gradually increase the time spent minus your presence.

2. Professional Experience

If you’re short on cash and your parents are long on time, you might think a granny-nanny combo makes the most sense. In some cases, this scenario works, but you need to watch out for resentment. After all, your parents look forward to retirement to get away from constant daily obligations.

You can sign a written work agreement with a hired nanny covering their expected hours and contingencies for overtime. Additionally, you can select an individual who has the professional experience you speak. If you want your 3-year-old to speak both English and Spanish fluently, it pays to find someone who can converse in both tongues.

3. Your Budget

Quality nannies don’t come cheap. The going rate for services is nearly $20 an hour, but it’s only fair your childcare provider may have kids to feed, too.

Prices vary based upon needs. You’ll pay more for a professional with specialized training in working with autistic children or those with developmental disabilities. Make a chart of your wants and needs before beginning your search so that you know where you won’t compromise to save cash.

4. Your Alternative Options

Depending on your family situation, a nanny may be your most realistic alternative. If you travel frequently or work late hours, you may need someone to be there when you can’t. You want to provide consistency for your little one, not an endless parade of different babysitters they can test.

However, if you only need help because you can’t make heads nor tails of common core math, an online tutor may work better than a nanny while saving you cash. If you need a few hours of peace and quiet to work from home, but your spouse has flexible hours, they might be able to rearrange their schedule to accommodate your Zoom meetings.

5. Recommendations from Friends and Family

When it comes to trust, people tend to rely on those they know versus testimonials from strangers. If your friends and family find a service they love, the peace of mind you get can make it worth shelling out extra.

Ask your network who they used and recommend. Even though you might not get the same individual nannies, after all, can only be in one place at one time you know the agency used similar vetting processes on all applicants.

6. Male, Female or Indifferent?

When you picture a nanny, you probably imagine someone female. However, there’s no rule saying that your provider needs two X chromosomes, and some children might benefit more from a male authority figure.

As a parent, you need to consider whether gender plays a role in your decision-making. Concerns about abuse are valid but you must examine your preconceptions. While men are more likely to sexually abuse children, women also do, at rates from 5% of cases to over 20%.

Mothers physically abuse their children more often than fathers. When it comes to stranger-danger, this statistic doesn’t necessarily indicate that you should stay away from female nannies. However, it does mean that you shouldn’t assume your child is safe based solely on the gender of their guardian.

7. Special Needs and Circumstances

Another factor to consider before you hire a nanny is whether your child has special needs. Not everyone has the patience and education necessary to provide learning modifications and interventions for those with physical and mental challenges.

One resource to look to is your support group for parents of special-needs children. Other parents may be able to refer you to agencies who specialize in helping kids like yours.

8. Your Gut Instinct

You meet a prospective nanny who came highly recommended, but something seems amiss. Your gut instinct screams, Don’t hire this person, but your mind argues back, Well, so-and-so used them without complaint, plus their resume qualifies them to teach at Harvard.

Please remember, qualifications and recommendations are just that they are not fail-safes. Your rational mind can cause you to overanalyze a situation that you could manage best by listening to that still, small voice inside.

While it sounds like drama out of a bad Lifetime movie, people can have ulterior motives for recommending inferior help. Maybe the most hassle-free way for them to get the troublesome individual out of their home is to find them a placement elsewhere. Recent church scandals demonstrate that passing the poison buck is an all-too-human phenomenon.

Plus, if an individual’s credentials declare, I should be CEO of something, consider that a red flag. Why, then, are they working a relatively low-prestige job with commensurate wages? Ask and if their explanation sounds alarm bells, think twice.

The bottom line: your child is your priority not protecting a recommending friend’s feelings or those of a relative stranger. If something seems awry, trust your gut.