The most stressful time for any mother is when your maternity leave is coming to an end and you need to hire a nanny to look after your baby.
I have done it twice in different circumstances and learnt a lot. If you are like me, a working mom with no family member who can assist with looking after your baby it’s even more stressful.
In this article, I share how I recruited our current nanny.
Firstly I decided to not go with an agency because I did not have the funds for all the costs. Some parents prefer an agency and if that is the route you want to take you still have to research.
Before I looked for a nanny I first created a criteria. This was based on the ideal candidate who would be a perfect fit for our family based on our needs. Once the criteria was done, I created a job description, this is to clarify from the get go what they will be required to do.
Our child was only 3 months old when I had to go back to work, It was important for us that his nanny’s job description started and ended with looking after the baby with no added house chores.
I wanted my child to get the same undivided attention I was giving him while on maternity leave and I understand that looking after a new born is exhausting. I could barely clean, cook and look after a new born myself and I did not expect that from anyone else.
In our criteria we included a day nanny- a person who comes in at a certain time in the morning and knocks off in the afternoon. It was important that our nanny live in the same area, if not close enough (we live in a township). We do not have enough space for a live in nanny.
A nanny who lives in the area is ideal for us because it would cut down travelling hours for her, and also allow us to pick her up before work and drop her off after work-which cuts down on transport costs.
It was also important for us that our nanny speaks Setswana or Sesotho if they cannot communicate in English because that’s the language we speak at home, speaking English was not a requirement but for smooth and easy communication, Setswana or Sesotho is ideal.
I preferred someone who had experience of looking after babies and children but didn’t have any of their own or their kids were adults if possible. But this doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have hired a nanny has a child. I have in the past.
What was more important for me was that the person we hire has similar fundamental believes. Our nanny is a Christian woman and we are not Christians. Despite this, she has qualities we value such as kindness and mutual respect. I particularly love her feminist outlook on life.
My parenting style is characterised as attachment and gentle parenting. I believe a baby should lead you into their own growth and not the other way around, its called baby led parenting. This doesn’t mean my baby calls the shots, it just means I follow their cues when it comes to their needs. I needed someone who won’t rush my baby into sitting down, eating solids or walking.
It would have frustrated me to hire someone who is impatient with baby milestones and doesn’t understand that babies do things at their own time, so I had make sure I discuss this with all potential candidates so I can get their view on this.
I also had to know how they see discipline because I believe many people choose the most toxic ways to discipline children. I needed someone who understands that we don’t spank children to get them to do what we want. We exercise patience and respect them as human beings.
I was nervous about this because spanking has been normalised and many people typically follow the “if you spare the rod you spoil the child” rhetoric. So this was an important conversation to have during the interviews.
I shortlisted several people for the post and conducted interviews. Looking for a nanny is looking for someone to employ, so from the start you must be as professional as possible, this does not mean being cold and rude. It means having a clear criteria, job description, duration of the employment contract and renumeration discussed and clarified during the recruitment process.
I searched for a nanny on many social media platforms because knew finding someone from the area we live in would require word of mouth, this was also because we had just moved in to the area and I didn’t know many people.
For safety reasons, I followed recommendations from people I’ve known for many years and not strangers, I had to ensure that I am not inviting danger into our home. The recommendations that were most important to me were from people who previously employed the candidates.
These are also references, most employers if not all require references and there is no reason you shouldn’t.
It is important to note that if you are not going to go through an agency you will have to do your own vetting. I request certified copies of an Identity document and proof of address and other addresses if available. People don’t know this, but some nanny’s do have CVs as well. I keep these documents in my possession through their duration of employment.
I set up the interviews with the potential nannies at public spaces, some insisted I meet them at their own home. This was a bonus because I got to see where they live. We live in South Africa, so I always had to do the safety checks and balances by sending my partner the addresses of where I was going to meet these people before I went there.
I did extensive research on what to expect from a nanny and what their expectations of their employer can be. Once the interviews were set up I complied my own questions for them and gathered some from the internet. Here are a list of great questions you can ask;
Once the interview process was done, I invited my preferred candidate for a two week induction before I returned to work. In future I would extend this to a month. It was great to ensure her first day at work wasn’t with me away, she needed to see how I was caring for the baby, our routine and both of them needed to bond. This was also important for me because I got time off before returning to work while she was bonding with the new born.
We also had to go over the job description and requirements again to ensure that there is no ambiguity.
I made a lot of mistakes when I looked for a nanny six years ago with my first child. I hired someone who did not have any experience in caring for someone else’s child. My son was taken care of, however there were a lot of things I that were not right.
Both myself and that young woman were unprofessional. She arrived late or didn’t show up at all to work without letting me know. And I took long to raise issues with her. I also wasn’t clear about her job description and my expectations.
She would drink alcohol on the job and take my child out of the apartment and visit her friends. I was myself was unable to create boundaries, didn’t do any research so I was out of depth.
But that experience taught me a valuable lesson, your child’s nanny is your employee and the terms and conditions of employment must be discussed from the beginning and set. There must be mutual respect and communication.
Professionalism also means being able to give your nanny room to discuss things with you in relation to your child.
It is not a competition, your nanny spends more time with your child than you if you are working a 9-5 like me she/they become an expert in the child’s care. If they tell you something is not working, believe them and discuss how to improve it. You and your nanny won’t always agree on everything, so discuss the none negotiable things in the beginning or ensure they are discussed immediately if they are not foreseen.
They coparent with you and treating them with respect and dignity is important.
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