Our lives are filled with immeasurable love, countless blessings and pure joy; all because of our precious baby boy. Yet we are trapped in hell, Nanny hell i.e.
Our kid is awesome. He is healthy, he is happy and his babyness is to die for. If I got paid to play with him, nap with him and feed him I would be in heaven. There is the task of rocking him to sleep and laying down with him for naps (our basic job requirement) that can be daunting and too much to ask. But if it irks you to snuggle with a baby, then why are you working with kids in the first place? And if you love kids, hands down, this is your dream nanny job. My baby coos endlessly. He screams with delight endlessly. He entertains himself endlessly. He is an excellent eater. We ask nothing beyond caring for the baby. No housework.
It’s been four weeks of intense nanny search and still no one.
It all started when Castor was three months old. Due to our son having torticollis, I was graciously given permission to work from home with an in-home nanny to closely monitor our son’s upbringing.
Back in August, I placed an ad on care.com and got several responses. After a series of interviews and three rounds of nannies, we finally had one that stuck. A good friend of ours (an excellent former nanny herself) has been of tremendous help thru this nanny hiring business. I have created a checklist based on her advice–
- Always check references. Keep an ear out background noise while talking to the reference – are their kids?
- Reliability is the no 1 quality.
- Observe her with the baby for a few hours.
- Finding a nanny thru craigslist is okay.
- Use your mommy instinct
- Prefer someone with an established work history
- Interview a ton of people. This is the most important job they will ever do for you
- Find someone who is available long-term, you don’t want your baby passed around. Kids need stability.
- Treat nanny like your family member. She will be your baby’s second mom. Don’t be jealous if the kid is attached to her, count that as a good thing!
Our first nanny met all of the above minus 8. She was hesitant to continue long-term, however told us it was possible. I needed someone to start asap so we brought her on-board.
For several months, I had the best of both worlds. I worked from the comfort of my home, while someone (we trusted) cared for our baby in our chosen environment — our home. Under my close supervision our baby’s torticollis was corrected. Our baby has also been nourished exclusively on breastmilk and is thriving. We had ideal child care for our baby until now.
Baby is almost one years old and it’s time for mom to physically return to work, while a nanny cares for our baby solely on her own.
Almost three weeks ago she informed us she could no longer continue working for us. We almost – almost – parted on good terms. Sadly, the relationship went sour for two reasons. First, thanks very much for leading me on early January on a possibility to stay with us, only to wait until now (when my time at home is up) to break the news that its impossible to continue. Second, in an urgency to hire a brand new person we bought nanny cams for our home. No way in hell am I going to leave a complete stranger with my baby in the house unsupervised. I can picture this person loading my innocent child in her car, driving off to her boyfriend, smoking pot all day and then presenting him at 5pm with a big smile on her face. Right? Of course, mommy will think of the worst.
So, back to the cameras. We snuck one in the basement where they spent most of their time together. What my hubby and I saw wasn’t the end of the world, but a little disappointing. “It’s been 10 minutes and her nose is still buried in her phone.” “What is she doing?” “I think she’s researching something.” “I have never seen someone so deeply immersed in their phone. It’s gotta be a video she’s watching.” “We are 30 minutes now. Castor has been closing and opening dvds by himself for a long time. How is he not bugging her?” “Oh look he’s approaching her. Let’s see what she does. He peed.”
Hubby and I are glued to the cam. He’s watching from his work and i’m in my home office. I think his co-workers were watching with him!
Wow nose remains buried in phone even after the pee. Picks him up. Removes his pants, wipes up the floor with his pants. Nose still buried. Changes him. Sets him down. Nose buried. And Castor is back to eating dvds, opening drawers, shaking the tv violently, putting things in his mouth ALL THE WHILE HIS CARE GIVER WILL NOT TAKE EYES OFF THE CELL PHONE.
“You wanna go downstairs and see if she acts differently?” “Sure, I’m heading down”.
Footsteps.
Greg is watching intently. Nanny hides her phone and moves closer to Castor and starts paying attention.
If this isn’t deception, then what is?
I’m not a slave driver, so I decide to chalk this up to a bad day and see what happens tomorrow. Same story. All week. Castor is a paycheck. Nanny won’t even look up for one second in a span of one hour to even glance at our child! We were more hurt and betrayed than angry. This is someone who became a part of our family after caring for Castor all day, everyday for five months!
Since then we’ve been seeking out a replacement, but with no luck. We have exhausted all avenues humanly possible and left no stone unturned. My hubby is still optimistic but i’m fairly certain we’ve reached end of the road with all nannies. I’m the breadwinner so daddy is coming home.
Here’s Lisa. She has no prior nannying experience, only babysitting friends or families kids and we decide to give her a shot:
I thought we went over the “car trouble” scenario in the interview already. “Lisa, if your car breaks down, do you have an alternative”. “Yes, my brother is home not working and not in school. I have no problem driving his car to work.” Yet, here we are on her first day to work. Can’t make it. Flat tire. Reliability zero.
Next we have Arica. She did an interview with us. I loved her. Her first day – I loved her! But here we are:
This time we were the ones getting dumped.
Oh man. It hurt. But, you were the perfect one. Oh well, time to move on.
The next one didn’t even get to meet us before she turned us down:
Apparently, there’s an epidemic of answering my ad – initiating contact – setting up a day/time to meet – and falling off planet earth. Meet Kirsty. One of many who simply vanishes:
Kind of same situation, Jessica. Will not waste a second to respond if not further interested.
Check out another one in the line of terrible excuses. Katie:
This one is slightly more believable. Ouch.
My ad clearly says I need someone to start ASAP and yet I hear from ambitious applying well ahead of time for jobs.
This one has an impressive profile. So I want to snag her by offering more money, but it doesn’t work. She wants to uphold her word of acceptance to another family prior to interviewing with us. Will work for less just because she gave her their word – that’s cray cray:
There is one lady who responded to my ad who lives five houses down from me. Five. Wow. This was going to be great until.. she can’t start right away. Another one of those.
I know we are desperate, but come-on we have standards:
We are still desperate though. Hope to hear from Laurie on Monday.
Our final disappointment is Crystal. A bubbly, seemingly genuine person with extensive baby and toddler experience – well – turns out she’s a super racist individual! Based on a recently emailed gmail address, google has been making a recommendation on who I should add on my Facebook. Thank you Google for making a recommendation to add Crystal. I thought to myself hmm Crystal … sounds like our soon-to-be nanny. Nope. Well, I clicked on her facebook – only to see “public” posts against muslims, refugees, third world countries. Outright racism. Hello I am a Pakistani. Nope. We no longer feel comfortable with you. Here’s one of them:
Today marks two weeks before my (physical) date of return to work. This is the end of the road.
Sigghhhh. I’m praying for u
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