Parents don’t have to be looking at academic credentials to hire professional nannies. However, it is important that if you’re looking for someone to regularly babysit your kids, there has to be some standards before you choose and hire one. The most important things you need to look for in a nanny that you can regularly entrust your kids to should have the following:

1. Training – When it comes to babysitting, you have to remember that the lives and safety of your kids are in your nanny’s hands. Although they don’t have to have a degree in child psychology or in pediatric care nursing, they need to have at least a fairly dependable amount of knowledge and training on first aid and emergency. With kids around, a lot can already happen in even just an hour of babysitting.

2. Experience – Experience, they say, is the best teacher and as far as babysitting is concerned, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Experience provides your professional nanny with the confidence and the presence of mind to act accordingly to the different situations, emergency or otherwise.

3. Clean Background – If parents were to let a stranger come in to their homes to watch over their kids, they’d want somebody with a clean background and good mental health. They’d want somebody with a clean past and no criminal records.

4. References – Just as job applicants have references to their resumes, they should also have references to back up the claims stated in their resumes and application. References are like testimonials from people whom a nanny applicant has worked for in the past. References are definitely one thing ever parent should look for in a nanny applicant.

5. Natural Love for Kids – An ideal nanny should have a natural love for kids. Unfortunately, though, not everyone who wants to be a professional nanny have affection for kids. When your nanny have a natural love for kids, they become more patient and sensitive in interacting with your kids and attentive to their different needs.

Remember that your professional nanny should do more than just sit in a home with kids for hours. She is being entrusted with lives of children so she needs to have the necessary character, training and mind set to do so.



By: Rashel Dan

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What is the difference between using an Online Sitter Search Service and using a Professional Full-Service Nanny Agency?

In general, online Sitter Search Services are a ‘venue for communication’, not a referral agency. These websites are similar to the classifieds section of your local paper – but with more features and options. That means they have no control over the communications between parents and sitters. As a parent or care provider using any of these online services you take full responsibility for how you communicate and with whom.

Online Sitter-Search Services cannot provide assistance to you in your search for an appropriate care-provider or job. They are DIY (do-it-yourself) sites. A full service referral agecncy, on the other hand, for a significantly higher cost, may offer a high level of personal assistance to you in screening, background checking and selecting an appropriate match. Parents who make use of the online systems prefer to do all of their own interviewing and screening and assume all of the responsbility for performing background checks of their care provider candidates.

Online Sitter-Search systems are designed to help parents find sitters, nannies and other care providers – primarily students, most often between the ages of 18 and 30 years of age – who are already located locally to the family.

A Professional Nanny Agency works to place professional care providers. A professional or ‘career’ nanny is someone who is at least 18 years old, with years of prior experience, who has chosen to work in the field of in-home child care as their profession. They may be recruited from around the courner – or from across the nation. In the case of Au Pair agencies, the child care provider will be a foreign national student visitng the US as part of our cultural exchange program.

As a “do-it-yourself” environment, the online Sitter Search systems provide parents the ability to quickly locate and contact local sitters who have registered through the website. While often a great value for parents, these websites are not necessarily a substitute for the services of a Professional Nanny Referral Agency.

Nanny Agencies specialize in the placement of permanent or long-term child care providers. Professional Nanny Agencies do all of the hard work for you and can save you an enormous amount of time (and energy) by providing you with qualified candidates from whom you may choose a care provider that is right for your family.

If your needs call for the hiring of a permanent or long-term care provider, we encourage you to seek out the services of a reputable Professional Nanny Agency in your area. We cannot recommend or endorse the use of any Agency or “nanny website” that claims to work “nationally”. More often than not these enterprises do little more than pull names of care providers from other databases. A Professional Nanny Agency conducts all screening interviews IN PERSON and documents the candidate’s interviews and references, making them available for your review.

Visit the International Nanny Association (www.nanny.org) to locate a Professional Nanny Agency near you should your needs call for that type of personal service.

Nanny Agency fees vary widely, but most charge in the range of $800 to $1500 for a part-time permanent placement and $1200 to $2500 for a full-time placement.

A reputable agency will provide fully profiled and background checked candidates who are experienced and have been pre-screened to meet your specific needs. A thorough investigation of a candidates background and references can often be worth several hundred dollars alone. A good agency will not charge you any application fees until they have candidates that meet your requirements that you wish to interview… and they will not charge any placement fees until a candidate has accepted your job offer. A good agency will also stand behind their work with a replacement guarantee ranging anywhere from 60 days to a year.

Site Reviews:

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www.babysitter-jobs.com

Example web sites:

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www.SitterCafe.com

www.sittercity.com

www.enannysource.com

www.4inhomecare.com

Agency Directories/Associations:

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International Nanny Asasociation – http://www.nanny.org

Alliance of Professional Nanny Agencies – http://www.TheAPNA.org

By: Michael Gerard

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