After my 4 week postpartum checkup my doctor referred me to physical therapy to help me with my urinary incontinence. At my initial consult with the therapist it was decided I needed weekly therapy sessions. So the big question was – how would I be able to do this if I’m supposed to be looking after Aviana?! Chris and I decided we probably needed help with this.

We figured we needed the help of a part time nanny.  So we settled on 8 hrs once a week. This would also allow Chris and I to get some uninterrupted time to study and keep up with our executive development programs.

We turned to care.com as some of our friends have used it successfully to hire nanny or babysitter. We posted our ad stating our requirements for the position and the applications came flooding in within minutes. Isn’t the internet great?!

We quickly realised that half of the applicants hadn’t even bothered reading what the job was, for example some were seeking full time positions.  It’s quite a simple thing to do when applying for a job.  That pisses me off. Then there were the applicants who made BAD spelling  mistakes, for example…”Hi, my mame is…”. Seriously? I’m not looking for America’s top spelling Bee, but please, take the time to just read over your message before hitting send. Then there were applicants whose photos simply terrified me. Like scary crazy selfies.  Maybe I am officially old and too traditional, but I really don’t think ‘sexy posed selfies’ are not appropriate! Finally, there were then those applicants who just didn’t bother replying back. That’s just rude and a waste of my precious free time I have spent reading your application rather than doing the ever growing list of things I have to do-but can’t do -because I’m trying to keep a newborn baby alive!!!! GRRRRRRR.

After all that, we narrowed it down to a couple of candidates. I spoke to one of our favourites on the phone, and then invited her to meet in a coffee shop the next day to get to know her a bit better.

I was worried that she wouldn’t turn up, but she did! It is oddmeeting a stranger who I was going to effectively trust with my daughter’s life in my own home. She was not a professional nanny but appeared to be knowledgeable, caring, gentle with Aviana, and had a clear mind to being organised and efficient.  Her charge out rate was $13 per hour which we considered to be very good.  Her ‘parenting’ approach she prefers was one of ‘routine’. Although I don’t want my future life to be dictated by a schedule determined by a Military-esque series of timings, having some routine I believe is good for baby.  It may not be a routine in terms of timing, but routine in good habit forming is something I believe to be important.  Equally I’d like to encourage Aviana to be adaptable and independent as well, so hopefully we will teach her those skills as well.  Anyway I digress a little….although it is important that a nanny matches your beliefs and style, we are so new to this parenting game that it is difficult to really know what we are looking for.  We have ideas, but practically may be they won’t match reality.

We didn’t preclude candidates based on their age or education level or their charge out rate, but some basic qualifications we sought, including infant CPR.  I think if we were looking for a full time nanny and if Aviana was slightly older our requirements would be very different.  Equally, we weren’t looking for just a babysitter, Aviana’s development is important to us, even if it is only one day a week.

All of this process we managed to do in just four days.  We really hope this works out!  Next week is when she starts a trial day, so watch this space….. :-s