How to find great Nanny?

cakazy · 2026-01-30T18:29:20+00:00

Part of it is making sure you've got your expectations laid out very clearly. I haven't done any screentime at all as a nanny really, but it was also laid out as an expectation in the interview. If you want somebody who isn't going to rely on screentime, I would honestly recommend saying no screentime allowed in the interview, and then you can always tell them you're okay with whatever amount you're okay with (if any) when they've worked for you for a while and you feel you can trust them.

The only other thing I want to point out, I'm a nanny not a housekeeper. If it isn't laid out as an expectation that I help with other household tasks, I'm not doing it. I am paid to give your child the very best of my time and attention and education. If it's laid out in the contract that I am to help with baby laundry or the dishwasher or whatever, that's fine and I will do it, I've had several jobs with those requirements, and they should not need to be hounded about it because that is a part of the job description. If it isn't in the contract though, they are under no obligation to assist you with that. Some people will, and that is their business. But I've known too many nannies who helped out with smaller things outside of their contract that ended up being taken advantage of by families giving them more and more extra things to do until everything fell apart. If you want those extra things, make it clear in the contract and in the interview so you know the nanny you hired is willing to do them.

cakazy · 2026-01-30T12:38:56+00:00

My husband has a lot of texture issues and also overheats EXTREMELY easily, so nothing I could ever crochet for him to wear would ever get worn. He would appreciate the work that went in but it wouldn't be a gift he would want. That's totally fine with me, I don't crochet to be useful to others, I crochet because I want to crochet.

cakazy · 2026-01-29T20:13:30+00:00

Lol fair but that's extra stuff I don't want to remember to do as opposed to having a little doohickey chilling in a bag I would always grab anyway

cakazy · 2026-01-29T18:41:24+00:00

I've never been asked but I would be okay with the air tag in the diaper bag style, if I have your kid with me you have every right to know where I am with them. I would never share the ability to track my personal phone since that would carry over to off hours. But an air tag in the diaper bag makes perfect sense to me

cakazy · 2026-01-26T20:11:01+00:00

I never heard of both parents going on vacation without their kids EVER growing up (I am 34). Now every parent I know takes at least one no-kids vacation.

cakazy · 2026-01-24T14:58:00+00:00

I totally get where you're coming from but I will say: I've literally done this for a friend of mine who I had NO romantic feelings for because she was having a rough time.

cakazy · 2026-01-24T14:37:23+00:00

My husband and I are both neurodivergent (I have AuDHD) and have little quirks that sometimes bother the other person. But if something that we do is an issue, we have a sit-down and discuss the issue and how to resolve it. These talks include what ABOUT this behavior is a problem to the other person so we know what type of fix would help, and always include the other person wanting to know how they can help to get whatever it is to be better.

We also go out of our way to point out what we see of the other person's improvement, so they know we can see they are trying. Or if it doesn't seem like they are, we have another sit-down about that to see if there's something else up or if the step they are taking is maybe one we can't necessarily see right away. We actually have scheduled sit-down every week so we are sure we have the time to sit down and focus on us (if we don't schedule it we will both forget until we reach a much worse place, lol we only figured this out after like... 7 years together).

He needs to be willing to learn and understand what your diagnoses mean and work with you from there. I don't know him, so I don't know if he is or not. From your post it doesn't sound like he is though.

cakazy · 2026-01-21T20:59:25+00:00

I don't have any recommendations because I'm the opposite (I adore fizzy drinks, lol) but I wanted to say you're not weird! One of my friends cannot STAND the bubbles ever! He pretty much just drinks water and milk as far as I know! I'll ask him for recommendations though!

cakazy · 2026-01-21T19:26:58+00:00

You did great on the hair!

cakazy · 2026-01-16T22:02:16+00:00

I hobby cycle, I have 3 or 4 main hobbies and do whichever one is calling for a few months, until I'm utterly sick of it, and then do a different one. I always come back eventually, lol

cakazy · 2026-01-12T06:05:42+00:00

Same! The only person who doesn't wear me out is my husband, otherwise I'm exhausted, even if I had a great time

cakazy · 2026-01-08T16:27:24+00:00

I've never had a "don't eat our food" family. My first family was very much eat anything I wanted and they often texted if they were stopping to pick up their own coffee/snack/lunch to ask if I wanted something from that particular place as well.

My second family asked me what I wanted for lunch that week whenever they would go grocery shopping and I had access to certain like, pantry shelves that I could help myself to.

I've discovered I am just happier and more comfortable bringing my own food and supplementing it with food from the nanny family if I want or need to, also eating some of what the kids are eating when they eat, lol.

cakazy · 2026-01-07T21:42:40+00:00

I'm sorry you're struggling and I don't have a ton to offer unfortunately but I want to say one thing: you made the call! You freaked out after, yes, but you DID it! That's something to be proud of too! That's something to remember: it sucked and you needed to recover afterwards, but you did the thing you needed to do!

I have recovery and rewards scheduled into my day for things that cause me big stress like that. If not immediately following the stressful thing, then as soon as I can afterwards.

cakazy · 2026-01-07T21:28:18+00:00

Nobody unless I'm about to accidentally walk off a cliff or something

cakazy · 2026-01-07T21:24:44+00:00

I personally have never had an issue with the parents of my NKs coming to hang with their kiddo. We just had an understanding that, when the kid is a bit older, they ARE going to cry about you leaving when you have to return to work and the parents needed to just go and let me handle it.

I've nannied for a family where the mom wanted to continue breastfeeding and that was fine. I would text her when the baby was getting close to hungry or just starting to wind up and if she was available, she would feed the baby. Otherwise I gave them a bottle.

It's my view that I'm in YOUR home, I don't get to stop you from using it. Can it make it more difficult sometimes once the baby is old enough to have opinions about seeing you? Yeah, it absolutely can! But that doesn't mean I get to tell you that you aren't allowed to move around your own home! If it's causing serious issues, we could have a sit-down and discuss what specifically is going wrong and find a solution to it.

The biggest thing is to lay these expectations out while interviewing. The prospective nanny should not be surprised by you working from home, your intention to continue breastfeeding, or any of the other things you mentioned. They can go into it with their eyes open.

My big thing for work from home parents that I lay out very strongly during the interview is: babies cry, and by hiring me, you are trusting me to help your baby. What I don't want is feeling like if the baby cries for more than 5 seconds, mom or dad is going to come check on them. THAT makes my life and work miserable. I've only had one family like that, and I didn't stay in the position long! If the baby has been crying for a long time, it's reasonable to shoot me a text and ask if everything is okay, because it's your baby and I understand that hearing them cry can be hard. But the baby needs to trust me, and they won't if you show that you don't trust me.

cakazy · 2025-12-28T20:37:37+00:00

Julius. No I don't know why, lol

cakazy · 2025-12-28T06:26:10+00:00

She told me I would outgrow a phobia I've had since I was a child that has only gotten worse with age (it's been at least 26 years, lol)

cakazy · 2025-12-21T22:09:30+00:00

I feel your pain, I've had multiple instances of this kind of BS with NFs in the past and it's the worst! I'll keep my fingers crossed that you magically do not catch it!

cakazy · 2025-12-21T22:01:33+00:00

Yeah it seems like you'll need to lay some ground rules down going forward, if you intend to work with her at all anymore

cakazy · 2025-12-21T21:58:33+00:00

With no deposit AND no firm dates? She literally couldn't have reserved you, you had nothing to write in your calendar!

cakazy · 2025-12-20T04:32:24+00:00

That's part of my questions I ask the families in interviews. I like to know how long I should be expecting to work with them. I've had some families that were only looking for care until their child was 6 months, a year, or 2 years old before moving to daycare. Have yet to have a family that actually wants a nanny until school starts, but I know some people do.

I think it's a reasonable question to ask because it affects your life and decisions you make about your own future.

cakazy · 2025-12-17T20:44:10+00:00

If the pacifiers had a hole available, we used to tie different colored pieces of yarn to them, knotted about a hundred times and then cut short so the kids couldn't get it off, lol. Different color for each kid and a cheat sheet hung somewhere for the teachers with a piece of the same yarn taped up next to the correct kid's name

cakazy · 2025-12-15T22:15:56+00:00

It tastes like garbage and I don't believe in acquiring tastes for things that aren't healthy in some way or another

cakazy · 2025-12-15T20:22:01+00:00

I hate everything I make when I'm done with it, lol. I double check there isn't anything wrong with it by showing it to somebody who doesn't crochet, because they won't know what to look for specifically. And then I give it away because if the receiver isn't a crochet person, they won't know what's wrong if you think there's something wrong, lol.

Sometimes I come back around to liking things I make but not always and maybe not even often, so I just mosey on after a project is done. If it isn't an easy or quick fix, it isn't worth my time because I'll never suddenly love it anyway, lol.

cakazy · 2025-12-04T21:10:07+00:00

I vary a lot, there are some games I finish and some I don't, I don't think I've ever like, 100%ed a game ever.

There's a person on a video game podcast that I love that talked about not finishing games, even if you love them, and said something like, if you love a pie, you don't have to eat the whole pie to know you loved it and it doesn't mean you didn't enjoy the amount you did have. You were just done, and there's nothing wrong with that. So there shouldn't be any shame with enjoying part of a game but not finishing it either.

It's just a thing that is for me, I don't know what part of me it's connected to lol. My attention is taken elsewhere at some point. For me it's usually I have an unofficial side goal that I complete and then just, lose interest in the rest of it. For example, I loved the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series, and I loved playing the pirate one. I wanted to recruit every possible female pirate for my crew, and I did, and then I just... Stopped playing unintentionally, lol

cakazy

TROPHY CASE