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by gravida » Sat, 22 Jan 2011 9:25 am
We have a 3 months old baby, I am coming back to work in April and we need somebody to help us with the care of the little one while I will be working. I've contacted agencies that advertise (or have information on their website, I've googled out couple of them) that they are able to provide us with nanny who will come to our place.
I was quite optimistic and emailed around 6 agencies that from the website looked reliable and professional. Well, I didn't have to wait too long for a cold shower. The "nannies" are simply aunties with no courses or training whatsoever, they rely purely on their own experience (nothing wrong with that, but I thought that they go through some sort of training, I don't know CPR for babies, basic safety etc.). The agencies do not guarantee any replacements in case of emergency (i.e. nanny gets sick and cannot come to work). Overall, it seems that they charge their one time fee (figures I was informed about: $200-400) just to provide us with telephone number to a lady, who is eager to be a babysitter. Fine, nothing wrong with that, but that's not what I was looking for. I was hoping to have someone prepared, through agency which will be able to guarantee some sort of protection (as mentioned - emergency replacement, guaranteed exchange of nanny in case we would not be happy with the first one etc.). Nothing like that seems available. Oh, I do not want to simply advertise and hire someone "from the street". It is very important to me to have that peace of mind that I have a "regulated" and "controlled" institution behind, so I am not leaving my baby with someone completely random.
I know very well that most of the people here have maids. Leaving apart the fact that we do not like the concepts at all of someone living with us and having a "servant"... In our current apartment we do not have proper maid's room, it is actually bomb shelter without windows and we simply cannot place there a human being. We also do not have spare regular room to hire a maid and place her there.
Now, we have our current rental agreement till September, so after that we could find a more suitable apartment, with either proper maid's room or additional regular room. In the meantime I have to go back to work and we need to sort out the babysitting problem.
We start to think about infant care, even though we do understand its disadvantages (like: source of various easily spread illnesses, divided attention to our child etc.). However, I do not know anyone who used the infant care services.
Going now to the point:
1. Does anyone hire a nanny here? If yes, through which agency? Are you happy with the service?
2. Is there anyone with experience with infant care? Any recommendations?
Maybe you have any other suggestions? Thanks in advance for your help.