Growing your family and bringing a baby into the world is one of the most amazing things you can experience. Those first weeks at home where you’re just figuring out how to survive as a parent and give your little one everything they could ever need are both precious and terrifying. When I was on maternity leave in the fall of 2021 I don’t think I ever left my new baby for more than 20 minutes at a time so the thought of going back to work and what that would mean for me and my baby had me in tears every time the subject came up. Of course I knew I had to go back to work, but I somehow thought that after 2-3 months I would be “ready”. Let me assure you, I was not. The thought of dropping off my 3 month old son at a daycare for someone else to care for and nurture him was just out of question in my mind. Then, in the last few weeks leading up to my return to work, I had a call with my manager and learned that my department was, for now, able to work from home 5 days per week. I thanked her, hung up the phone and cried; I could not have been more grateful.
My 3 month old was not going to daycare! But that did leave the question of how was I going to care for him and work my 9-5 job? After doing a little research I decided that I would hire a nanny! Someone would come to my house and help out with my son while I was working a room away. What a perfect solution! I could be reassured no-one was mistreating my baby, I didn’t have to worry about pumping as I could just feed him whenever he needed, and I didn’t have to worry about him getting sick by being exposed to dozens of other babies and people. Suddenly I had that super mom feeling. I was going to be a working mom handling business and caring for her infant.
I quickly went about trying to hire someone to fill the role. I’d heard of a website where you could hire caregivers so I created a job post, paid the monthly fee to be able to use their upgraded service and correspond with applicants, and sat back to wait while the perfect nanny appeared before me.
As you could probably already tell from the title of this piece, locking in the perfect applicant did not exactly go smoothly.
I did my initial post weeks before I was due back at work thinking that was more than enough time to find someone as I had applicants within the first 12 hours of my post. However, what I failed to realize at first was that just because someone initially responded to your job or post, did not mean they would follow through. I was responding back to people as quickly as their applications were coming in, and then nothing. No replies for days from some people. I truly didn’t think that what I was asking for was too much. As my son was less than 6 months old I didn’t need any help with feeding times or any type of cooking. I wasn’t asking them to do any laundry or cleaning, and as I was in the home working, I was never more than a few steps away if there were any questions or concerns. After a couple weeks of countless back and forth I did finally line up a phone interview with a woman who would be my son’s first nanny, let’s call her Penelope.
(All names have been changed to protect the individuals’ privacy)
Initially Penelope seemed like the perfect fit. She was working on her early childhood education degree, she’d worked in daycares, and nannied before for premies so was experienced with infants. The beginning was a little rocky as Penelope had to give her 2 weeks notice with her current position before she could, start so I did end up going back to work and having to figure out the first few weeks on my own, but hey, I knew it was only temporary. Also I knew I wouldn’t have Penelope forever. She’d been very upfront with the fact that in fall (she started in January of 2022) she was going back to school to finish her degree. Again, I told myself that I would be “ready” for daycare by the time my son was 1. Surely a whole year at home was more than enough time to prepare for daycare right? Nope. I was wrong again. Penelope was great for the 8 or so months she was with us. She had a very strict I don’t use or answer my cell phone while I’m working rule and she had a professional demeanor since she’d worked in daycares meaning she asked me about my worries as a first time Mom, gave her 2 cents on his development, and gave me a run down on how he did each day when she left even though I’d seen/heard them most of the day. Of course there were some things about Penelope I didn’t love but overall she was a professional and took care of my son.
Now we’re right around my son’s 1st birthday in the fall of 2022 and I’ve already told my husband that I am not ready for daycare. The thought still brings me to tears and I keep telling him we’ve made it work this long financially so we should just keep going. As I was the one home with the baby all day, he agreed to let me make that decision.
Back to the website I go to find another nanny. I created a new job post with updates as I was now looking for help with a 1 year old who was eating foods and did require more interaction. This time around I was more forward with initial screening type questions when applicants applied and more up front about what I wanted since I’d been working in this routine for 8-9 months. I’d thought I’d found the right person a couple times but each time there was some small detail that meant they couldn’t take the job. I was feeling very discouraged again until one night I was reading a brand new application about a woman who’d worked as an au pair for 3 young boys. She was even less expensive than Penelope! I replied right away and we set up a time for her to come meet the family in person. This second nanny who I’ll call Jamie, was a blessing. She was from another country so her accent was a little hard to understand at times but she took a liking to my son right away. She always kept herself busy and was an expert at watching my kid while cleaning up his dishes or chasing his toys around. She even taught him some sign language that he still knows to this day. Since Jamie was an au pair her professionalism was very different than Penelope’s. Jamie would kiss my son and was more adventurous in finding ways to keep him entertained. I have a distinct memory of coming into the kitchen one day for water and looking outside and seeing Jamie and my son playing with flower petals in a bowl of water on the back patio. I thought it was super cute and probably harmless, but funny because it was not something Penelope would ever have done. My son did also have a very hard time adjusting to Jamie at nap time. He would scream his head off when she tried to put him down and I had to come intervene more often than not for the first few weeks. Eventually Jamie was able to put my son down for naps but the biggest downside to Jamie was that she was moving out of the state soon. I knew this from the beginning but I thoroughly believed she was the right choice at the time so I took the gamble knowing she’d only be working for us for 2-3 months.
When it was getting close to when Jamie would be leaving I again started looking for a replacement. I found Crystal fairly quickly and felt confident this would be a good fit. Because my son had had such a hard time adjusting to Jamie at nap time, I even scheduled a week overlap where Crystal would shadow Jamie and get to know his routine and ease my son into his new caregiver.
I should have fired Crystal on day 1.
I won’t go into the details but my son had a very avoidable accident where he got hurt because of Crystal on her very first shift. My son was okay, he probably got scared more than anything and Crystal was incredibility apologetic, so I let her stay on with us but before she took over solo I had an expectations talk about how this type of thing could never happen again. Crystal started with us in November before Thanksgiving. In January of 2023 my family had a house fire that displaced us from our home from January until May of 2023. During the first couple months, Crystal worked with us at a hotel, then an Airbnb, and then the apartment we were staying in while our house was repaired. Crystal was very young and I would often have to bring my son back to the room she was in and would find her on her cell phone. While I of course loved visiting with my son throughout the day there were times I had meetings and had to go find her to ask her to watch him so I could join my call. Sometime in early February Crystal told me she was quitting. I’d be lying if I told you I was disappointed to see her go.
By this time, my family and I still were not back home and I was over the process of having to find someone new. I did remember however that our very first nanny, Penelope, did tell me that if she didn’t find a job right after graduation she might be available to help out a little. I texted her before Crystal’s last day and sure enough Penelope hadn’t gotten a full time teaching job yet so we agreed to hours and rates for her to start the Monday after Crystal’s last day.
I was thrilled. While there had been things about Penelope I didn’t love when she was working with my son as a less than 1 year old, compared to Crystal, she was flawless. Of course we always want each other to succeed and I was excited for every job Penelope was applying for, but I also secretly let out a sigh of relief each time a job didn’t work out. We were heading into spring, then summer and I was thinking if she hadn’t started a new job by the beginning of summer my odds of having her through the summer and up until when school started in the fall were pretty good. I was right. Penelope stayed with us while we moved back into our home and through the end of summer, ironically leaving about the same between this year as she had last year: just before my son’s birthday.
My family and I had a 2 week vacation planned in July of 2023. Penelope’s last day was right before we went on vacation and I didn’t want the stress of worrying about finding someone when we got back because I was going to already need someone when we got home. So being the organized person I am, I interviewed and had a new nanny all hired and lined up before we went on vacation. I texted this person halfway through our vacation to make sure we were still good to do a meet and greet a couple days after we got home and then to start the following week when I went back to work, to which she assured me, yes, we still had an agreement. I texted this person once we were home from vacation, the day before she was supposed to come over, to confirm a time the following day and got no response all day. The next morning I still had nothing so I texted her again. She replied back several hours later that she was sorry but had accepted another position and would not be able to work with my son.
So now I was in exactly the position I did NOT want to be in. I was supposed to go back to work in a matter of days and was starting from scratch in finding someone.
So here I am. A year and a half into my many chronicles and I’m looking for the fourth new person to come over while I work at home with my now 2 year old. I did hire Melissa, our current nanny, pretty quickly and she was able to start without there being too much of a delay from when the original person was supposed to start, but she is also young and there are things I’ve had to talk to her about multiple times. My son is now over 2 years old and is very adventurous and energetic. He gets bored and just needs more than someone to just make sure he doesn’t hurt himself. He’s not quite talking but is just about to, and my husband and I along with our parents are doing everything we can to get him to expand his vocabulary. I’ve asked Melissa to help with this and have given her a very basic schedule on how to block out his day with certain times in certain play areas to help him build and anticipate his daily routine and also get 1 hour each day of interactive learning time where she helps him practice with shapes, colors, numbers, letters etc. Melissa seemed very agreeable to the schedule and understanding that he needs to be interacted with.
Quick side note here, my husband and I have had Ring cameras around our exterior for years but when the fire happened and we had contractors in and out of our house for months without us being here we invested in additional inside units for security. One of those units is now in my son’s bedroom for his safety so when he’s sleeping up there alone we have angles we can see in addition to the baby monitors.
So Melissa has agreed to help “teach” my son for about an hour each day and this usually takes place in his bedroom. One day a couple weeks ago I was curious how it was going so I click to the Ring camera on my phone and what do I see? Melissa sitting on the rocking chair scrolling through her phone and my son playing by himself. At first I was like, okay, it’s not that big of a deal, while Penelope never used her phone at work, I’ve never made that a rule with anyone. But over the next 20 or so minutes I continue to watch and Melissa never puts her phone down or seems to acknowledge my son. I go upstairs and the door is slightly open but the baby gate closed so I quickly push the door open, lean over the gate and ask “how’s it going?!” A startled Melissa quickly drops her phone and tries to grab the nearest toy on the floor to make it seem like they were just playing together. Now Melissa wasn’t hurting my son or anything but this wasn’t what we agreed to. We pay her very well and I only want what’s best for my kid’s development. So I go in my kid’s room and start to play with his toys and ask him about his shapes in the way I want her to. She seems to pick up on what I’m doing and joins me on the floor. After about 10 minutes I leave the room and watch a little more on the camera and things seem to be going well.
Over the next couple of weeks I’ve noticed Melissa on her phone a lot while in my son’s room during what’s supposed to be his learning time and I have talked to her a couple more times about my expectations. I’m not sure how this will pan out but one things’s for sure: nobody will care for your kids the same way you will.
I do believe that having a nanny is still the right choice for my family but having Ring cameras and baby gates at certain key areas in my home does help me to feel more secure about what they’re doing, where they are, and that my baby is safe.
Below is a link to the ring cameras we have throughout our house. They’re not hidden so anyone will know it’s there, which is personally fine by me; I don’t mind someone thinking I might be able to see them with my child.
We also have 2 different kinds of baby gates.
This one is at the bottom of my stairs and to our bonus room because it doesn’t have a door at all. I love this gate because it’s a tension gate so it will fit a range of openings and it shows either red or green so you can visually see whether the gate is locked or not.
This gate is the one I have on my son’s bedroom. We chose this for his room because it’s taller than the others so I don’t have to worry about him climbing out and over it. Especially since his room is at the top of the stairs.