Nanny Q&A

I recently shard that we hired a nanny for our toddler and got a ton of questions, so I wanted to round them all up in an easy to reference place! Let’s just jump right in:

A little about our nanny: she started mid-Jan and works 3 days a week 830-430. She comes to our house.

1. Where do you even start? Where do you find good candidates?

There are tons of places to look! Care.com and sittercity are websites that help connect caregivers to families. I used a local facebook group, so worth searching if that exists. Ask other moms you know. Also, agencies are an option, although I believe that can be pricier.

I posted in my local group with what I was looking for and then candidates commented/messaged me. From there I had a phone call with two girls, and then had one of them come over to meet us/have a casual interview, and now she’s our nanny!

2. Why not a daycare?

I personally just felt that a nanny would be a much better fit for my son. Just comes down to knowing your kid! We also have the privilege of choosing between nanny or daycare – I know sometimes pricing doesn’t allow that kind of choice. I liked the idea of more 1 on 1 care for him, especially just starting out with consistent childcare.

3. How much does a nanny charge?

It’s going to vary for nannies and where you’re located. I would say starting rates are $20/hour, and can go up from there depending on how many kids, responsibilities, etc.

We also are offering our nanny 5 days of PTO, holidays off that fall on the days she works, as well as still paying her when we go on vacation (just week long ones, we have some weekend trips and so we’re moving her workdays for those).

For full time nannies, it’s often expected to offer more benefits along those lines.

We’re doing using Poppins Payroll to calculate taxes and pay her.

4. How did I get to the point of deciding I needed one?

I think I could write an entire post on this, but generally I got to the point where I needed a break. My toddler went through a rough phase with toddlering + teething and it burned me out mom wise. I also wasn’t able to work basically at all during it because he needed me so much. It made me realize that I wanted to be able to work more, it financially made sense for us to pay for a nanny so I could work more, and I wanted a break.

5. Do you ask them about watching a 2nd child down the line?

I didn’t straight up ask, but I did mention in our initial phone call that we plan to try for a 2nd this year, so I figure if she had a problem with that she would have mentioned it. TBH I have no idea what that would look like for our family, so for now, I curated our childcare around our one son.

But yes, ask!

6. What does the nanny do when the baby sleeps?

It’s super important to communicate expectations. In terms of additional responsibilities, I asked her to tidy up toys during nap, and clean up post meal time. Other than that, nap time is her break time 🙂 I gave her our wifi and told her what streaming services we have. I’m okay with that, but if you have other tasks you want them to do, let them know in your early conversations to make sure expectations align!

7. Do you use cameras?

Nope. Not for me! If you do, you should let them know.

8. How do you keep professional boundaries? (showing up on time, doing good work, etc.)

I think this comes down to discussing expectations and responsibilities in early conversations (before hiring!) I let her know what a normal day looks like, what he likes, what additional tasks I expect, etc. I also let her know that both me and my husband WFH but will do our best to stay out of her way.

Think about what’s most important to you and discuss it.

You can’t know everything ahead of time, so as things come up once nanny is hired, you just let them know! For example, she had cut something for my son in a way I wouldn’t have (not unsafe or anything), so next time I just told her how I’d prefer it be cut. Ensuring you vibe well together ahead of time helps with this!

8. How do they handle kids that are screaming/keep on crying?

This wasn’t something I specifically asked, but definitely ask in the interview if it’s something you’re concerned about!

9. What kind of experience was I looking for?

I was looking for someone with specific nanny experience. There were lots of candidates with daycare experience, which is wonderful, but being a nanny and being totally in charge is different and doesn’t 100% transfer imo. Our nanny had daycare, preschool, and nanny experience. Her particular experience was with toddlers, so that was perfect! She’s in her early 20s, so not years and years of experience, but felt like she had what I was looking for.

10. How does it work with WFH/SAHM?

This is going to be dependent on your/your partner’s jobs, as well as just your house layout and such. For us, me and my husband both WFH. He has more traditional hours, I work for myself. We have a shed out in our backyard that’s mostly finished, so that’s his office. He works out there and brings as much as he can out there to limit going inside, but will go inside when he needs to for bathroom breaks, coffee, etc. He will try to coordinate it with nap time if possible.

I go out of the house and go the the gym in the morning (and work a lil there), and then go to a coffeeshop.

We try to stay out of the way as much as possible because I find it’s best for littles and nannies to find their groove. My son cries when the nanny arrives , but the second I’m gone he’s fine, so I don’t think me going in and out or hanging around would help anything. (he didn’t cry today for the first time!)

11. How did I decide how many hours?

My husband and I had a conversation around cost/what I needed and went from there! I let her pick what days per week because we didn’t really care, although I did mention to her that once preschool starts in the fall I want her to not work those days.

12. Do you have a contract?

No, but some do! I did send an email outlining everything: days/hours working, days off, PTO being offered, payment, our contact info, etc.

13. Interview questions:

I had a few questions, but really this is going to depend family to family. When we were first doing interviews, I searched on google/reddit/chatGPT for what questions to ask for inspiration. You’ll see what makes sense to ask for your family!

I did these over the phone and let it be a conversation cause I was looking to pick up on vibes. I started with outlining an average day for my son, what responsibilities she’d be in charge of, and me and my husband’s set up since we WFH. I asked experience, specifically with my sons age range. I asked how they handled discipline. I asked what they charge. Anything else I asked just flowed from our conversation.

From there I had her come in person to meet us, ask any additional questions that came up, and specifically meet our son. I also wanted to see if she arrived on time, which she did. We really liked her, and my son seemed to as well, so I asked her about her references and if she’d be okay with a background check.

She had already completed one on care.com, so I was fine with that. I talked to the 2 references she provided and just had a quick chat about their experience with her – both had great things to say. Next, we hired her 🙂

We’re a few weeks in and it’s been great so far! My son is getting more used to the routine as well, and really seems to have a great time.

Any other questions? Let them below, send me a dm, or shoot me an email!