Our Super Amazing Nanny Quit
The part-time nanny we hired is a university student, we really liked her. She took the job and said she intended to stay with us through the summer and her last year of university. We thought perfect, by then Baby MPB will be over a year old and we may consider a more structured day-care.
Well, she spontaneously decided to spend her summer overseas. (I don’t believe the spontaneity of this – most university student’s, at least not the ones I know, can just pick up and leave the country for a summer. I suspect she knew this the entire time but didn’t say anything so that she could get the job). So she is leaving for four months.
She offered to set us up with her friend for the summer with her returning once school starts. We met her friend and she just doesn’t feel right. And, I’m not prepared to look for someone for just 4 months, so we’ve told her we cannot guarantee her job when she gets back, but she is welcome to contact us when she returns and we can talk. (Honestly, if we have a new reliable nanny she wont be getting her job back).
So, we placed another ad on line. 20 responses in 24 hours. We were optimistic. 8 looked good enough to contact. 3 responded.
- 1 showed up for an interview but was afraid of our dog, so she wont work. (As an aside, why apply to a job that says must be good with 90lbs dog if you are afraid of dogs?).
- 1 did not show for her interview, so she’s out. (I just don’t get this).
- 1 rescheduled on us multiple times. We decided to still meet with her because we were feeling desperate. But when we finally met her we had her in and out of our house in 15 minutes as she was never going to work for us.
So, we have a problem.
Our current nanny gave us 2 weeks notice. We have one week left to find someone.
I am already getting nervous about the idea of having no help. We only have help 2 days a week and we are both working full time hours. Those 2 days keep us sane. I’m honestly afraid to do all of this without our 2 days of support. I’m not superwomen!
So, I see two options. Hire the friend on a trial basis or keep looking. Honestly, my gut reaction to the friend wasn’t ideal. And I cannot ignore that. So, I think I’d rather our lives turn crazy for a few weeks while we have no help then hire someone that doesn’t feel right. So, for now, we will keep searching and keep hoping this unexpected blip on the radar passes quickly.
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Ugh! Hope you guys figure out something soon!
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Oh man that SUCKS. That’s the downside to hiring university-aged people – they can bail at a moment’s notice. I really hope you find someone in the coming week. I know how hard it is finding quality childcare you can rely on. 😦
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You could try nanny services dot ca (the link might make this spam lol). And also try looking for “mothers helper” in addition to “nanny”. They are often students, but you seem fine with that. They also (usually) expect to take are of baby while the parent(s) is home. Good luck!
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Ughhhhh! I’m sorry, I really hope you find someone else awesome ASAP. I agree that you can’t ignore the bad feeling about the friend.
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I’m sorry you’re having such trouble finding someone new. Obviously you don’t want to hire just anyone, and this is something you need to be picky about. Hopefully you continue to get lots of responses and one of them turns out to be a good fit!! Hang in there!! Just remember…you were doing it without the nanny for a while, and you made it through, so you can do it again for a couple weeks!!
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I’m so sorry you have to go back to the drawing board. I totally think you should trust your gut on this, even if it means a few weeks of misery. I wish I could share our nanny across the miles. She even has 2 days free!
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Oh No!!! Ugh…why oh why can’t we be close to each other?!!!! 😦 I’m sorry you’re not getting a good feeling from the current candidates…that’s definitely a must. Keep sticking with your Mama intuition, it won’t steer you wrong. Praying the perfect person comes along very soon!
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I’m not sure where you live but if you happen to be on the island in bc …..
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Oh no that’s awful news! Good luck finding someone else. I’d also go with my gut and not hire someone I was unsure about. Hopefully you’ll find a rockstar soon!!
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Ugh. That stinks! Hoping someone great comes your way soon.
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Hello. That sucks! One thing I was thinking was… For some reason I’ve always been good with kids. But adults usually have reservations! 😉 I think it dates back to being a pseudo gothic teenager who used to babysit for teachers’ kids. The teachers only let me do it because they knew me, but I would probably never have passed an interview as I was kind of awkward.
If you trust the current nanny then do you trust her judgement, or is she just trying to fob off the friend? If not, maybe the friend is just not so good with adults but might be perfectly fine with kids. For a lot of my life I’ve been a bit weird interpersonally with adults and I always relied on other people to vouch for me (“She seems weird/dark/etc but once you get to know her, you’ll like her”) but then I would be better once warmed up. Now I’m older, the time between meeting and warming up is a bit less. But I still don’t think I always present the best picture on first meeting. Just a thought. (She may be completely terrible and go with your gut instinct!)
My understanding is that you work from home and so you are around in case of any problems… Unless I’ve understood wrong. Maybe you could do a trial? I really don’t want to push the friend if you feel strongly against… I’m just saying that I always give more weight to personal recommendations so might be worth double checking if it’s an actual recommendation rather than a sticking plaster solution!
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Oh that sucks. That would send me into a panic! I hope that the universe connects you with the perfect person for the job soon!
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Wow! I am really sorry about this! I hope you can find someone suitable soon. You won’t regret being choosy!
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Finding childcare scares me. You need to trust those gut feelings. Sorry this one didn’t work out. I hope you find your Mary Poppins soon!
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Oh boo. I say go with your gut and steer clear of the friend. Crossing fingers the perfect person pops up for you guys.
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Best of luck finding someone new! That sucks that your awesome nanny did this without any heads up I think that is ridiculous!
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Ya it sure makes meesevond guess her super awesome status!
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Even if it was spontaneous, she’d made a commitment – she had no business backing out. Ugh! How about hiring the friend more as a home help until you find someone who’s right for the job? Even if you have to spend more time with Baby MPB (yeah, I know you’ll hate that!) I would think just having someone taking care of the laundry, vacuuming, etc, and being there if you need a sitter while you’re in a meeting, would help better than nothing.
Also, wasn’t there a second person you liked among the first batch? I forget why you chose the university student over her, but I’m sure you said there was someone you thought seriously about hiring. Maybe she’s still available.
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There are many students who decide to go abroad spontaneously, even on a hitch hiking trip to many countries. I hope you found a good new nanny nonetheless
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This was my thought too. I have seen this happen A LOT. If it’s not a competitive internship that they have to apply for, then it is rather common for this type of opportunity to pop up. I disagree with a previous commenter who says that even if it was spontaneous, that she should honor her commitment. No way! She’s not going to have opportunities like this after graduation and her life experiences come first for her. I’d be put out, but I’d be excited that she is not only presented with the opportunity, but that she’s taking it. Good for her for grabbing onto the chance to travel abroad!
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What a nightmare! You’re right – she must have known she was going away. So annoying and so frustrating for you. I hope you get something sorted out – I would go with my gut feeling and not use her friend. Always trust your instinct when it comes to childcare – it’s one of it’s best uses 🙂
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This is tough. I’ve found, from watching friends go through this, that this happens a lot with nannies of all ages. I thought getting a nanny would reduce the change-ups in childcare, but that’s not the case here. People seem to have a nanny for 6 months to a year before they’re interviewing again. So strange.
I think there’s a high probability that this opportunity did just pop up. My cousin is 21 and is always mentioning new overseas opportunities. It blows my mind. It’s definitely not like it was when I was in college. She’s actually just decided to do one for 6 weeks before starting her real job. If she had had a babysitting commitment when this came up, I would have told her to travel. She won’t have opportunities to do this again. Her life and university experiences come first at this age.
Had your nanny said, “I’m going to Europe this summer,” would you have selected someone else? The nanny search is so rigorous that I’m wondering if you would have chosen her anyway because you liked her the best? It doesn’t really matter, I was just curious. 😊
I don’t envy you the nanny search. We had a sitter for the boys that Brian was not totally comfortable with, but I was. Turns out, he was right. Matthew did not like her and he wouldn’t tell us what was wrong. Turns out she was putting him to bed an hour or more before we told her to and she was chatting with friends. Finding a good replacement, just for babysitting, took a long time. Maybe have the friend come over again to see how you feel a second time now that you’ve met? If you still feel uncomfortable, then move on? I think I’d do that.
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First, rationally i completely agree, staying home to nanny vs the opportunity to travel, travel has to win!! Thats a once in a lifetime opportunity that she cannot pass up, which is exactly what i told her.
And if we were able to find someone else we would not have hired her if we knew. Or maybe we would have but started looking for someone else much sooner because we would have had more time. I think i would have respected that more.
As for the friend, we actually did a trial and she just doesn’t feel right. And i cannot push my anxiety about her away yet i cannot pinpoint the issue which i find very odd.
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Your gut tells you no, so then it’s no. We had a sitter, just a sitter, cancel on us and offered up a friend we hadn’t met and we said no way. We were shocked that she was surprised we said no. My neighbor who has 3 kids said we should have taken the friend. Um….. No.
Good luck, I can only imagine the stress this is causing.
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Oh, no. It’s so scary not knowing who will care for your child. Good luck! Sending you wished for a miracle.
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HOW RUDE
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good luck, I hope you find someone great!
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