Is Hiring a Nanny to Take Care of Your Baby Worth the Hassle

by AKC

I have never given much thought to hiring a nanny or how to run a nanny background check until recently. For one thing, I doubt I'll ever have the money for my very own "in the house" childcare professional much less the funds to pay for a detective to dig up the dirt (if there's any to be found) on one.


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The hubs and I rarely hire a babysitter and generally depend on family members to generously donate an hour or three here or there so that we can enjoy the occasional date night or a slice of pizza without the kids. We usually wait till the baby is asleep, turn the baby monitor on and leave a sister or a granny to knit until we return; very little fuss or muss.

Friends of ours, both doctors, decided to start searching and take the plunge after their second baby was born. An extended leave from a busy practice was not an option for mom or dad and their home had accommodations for live-in help so it seemed like the smart thing to do. I have to say that seeing everything they went through to find the inevitable "perfect fit" was both exhausting and fascinating.


Hiring and Firing


Make no mistake that when it comes to how my girls are raised; I'm the boss! Yes, Ma'am..I had these little ladies and I'm responsible for them but it just seems kind of other-worldly (and powerful?) to think that I could actually hire and/or fire anyone who didn't share my opinions on the upbringing of my fragile little flowers.

Applications and Resumes


A mom would need to be ready to scan lots of paperwork to determine which applicants have acceptable qualifications, check the nanny's background, references and basically determine if they were hiding something criminal in their past. That's the part that would worry me. After all, who would be dumb enough to put in the comments section that they were fired from their last job for hocking the family silver or abusing a child?

Become a Super Spy

Even if the nanny want-to-be that you like (you know the one with a sweet smile and an overload of charm?) checks out there are still precautions that you may want to take. That's right; spying. And I'm not talking about your basic baby monitor in the nursery; I'm talking about hidden cameras.

I have friends that love the lady they hired to take care of their little ones to pieces but the nanny cam business booms because we want to know that our children are being cared for in our absence and not being abused when our backs are turned. And yes..there are real concerns in this regard.

It makes most of us feel sneaky and slimy to think about installing cameras and recording equipment to watch people in our lives but there is a video of a nanny that beat an 11 month old baby boy that will snap you right out of that line of thinking and make you shout, "Bring on the monitoring equipment, Baby!".

Money, Honey


Do you hear the cash register ka-chinging away here? Not only is there the nanny's salary to consider but money must be allocated to hire a detective to delve into her past, run a nanny background check AND buy the recommended state of the art surveillance equipment!

I don't know about you but I would have to make a LOT of money to justify those expenses PLUS; I'd miss my girls. I'm certainly not judging other moms who have huge college loans to pay and careers that would suffer but I can see that the hassle of hiring a nanny would far outweigh the positives for me.

How do you feel about live-in nannies? If you have any tips for hiring a nanny I hope that you will use the comments form provided by Unique Baby Gear Ideas to share them with other moms and dads.

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