There are very few decisions more significant than whom you hire to spend 8 to 12 hours a day with your child. Therefore, when you seek to hire a Portland nanny, it’s important to be very deliberate.
Do you need a live-in or live-out nanny? The advantages of having a nanny living with you in your home are that working hours may be more flexible, and you may absorb the nanny intimately into your family. However, if you value privacy and you don’t want to go to the trouble of feeding and housing an additional person, a live-out nanny can also provide high-quality care for your child. Furthermore, a live-out nanny is more likely to expose your child to new environments and experiences which may broaden your child’s horizons.
Of course, the most important part of the process is interviewing potential nannies. If you hire a Portland nanny through Northwest Nannies, we will have already ascertained certain requirements for you. All of our nannies have:
- Passed a background and reference check
- Have several years of experience working with young children
- Have recent CPR and first aid training
- Are trustworthy and caring
Therefore, if you hire a nanny through us, you need not concern yourself about their basic qualifications. You only need to think about whether a particular nanny is precisely the right match for you and your child.
The way to do this is to simply interview several Portland nanny candidates. We do have a careful process for matching nannies to families, but nothing is a substitute for meeting them yourself. Ask about how they envision spending their hours with your child, what types of activities they may encourage or introduce your child to (all our nannies will provide developmentally age-appropriate activities, but they won’t all be precisely the same), what types of outings they might take your child on, what types of conversations they like to have with children. Ask them how they came to choose this line of work, and about their previous experience.
Talk to them about your child and some of your child’s more difficult behaviors. For example, if your child is resistant to napping, or won’t eat their vegetables, ask how the nanny might handle this. Get a “gut feeling” for each nanny.
In the end, hire the one that gives you an “Ahhhh ….” feeling when you think about your child getting to know them.