When did you start nanny interviews?

[Ruby2]

Hello - I'm due with my first child in the middle of December. Unfortunately, I will only be able to take 8-9 weeks off of work. Hopefully dh will be able to take an additional 1-2 weeks vacation after I go back. After that, we need a nanny three days a week in our home. I've been chatting with 3 or 4 providers and have found many other possibilities on care.com and know who I want to interview.

My question is, when is a good time to do this??? I can't decide. I feel like I want to know NOW who will be caring for my baby in a few months, but I'm not sure if it's really feasible. If we interview now and find someone that we LOVE, we can't realistically expect someone who is looking for work in October to hold three days a week for us until February or March.

But I really don't think that waiting until after the baby is born would be a great idea either. What did you do??? I would really appreciate any advice.

[MtBikeLover]

I waited until 2 months before I needed someone.

I don't think you should start looking until at least January. It wouldn't be fair to the person you find to ask her to wait for 5-6 months and I don't know any that would wait that long if they were good unless you were willing to pay them starting now.

I had a hard time with care.com I didn't feel that any of the nannies I found were that great and I interviewed at least 30 from there. And the one that I did hire turned out to be terrible.

This time around, I am going on recommendations and also using an agency. I just started looking yesterday and have already talked to 2 great people - one through the agency and one through a referral from preschool.

[Ruby2]

Thanks for the advice about care.com. I live in a smallish city and there aren't really many choices other than placing an ad in the paper, which is a little intimidating to me.

I'm wondering about the stress of interviewing nannies so quickly after we have the baby. We'll only have about two months to get through the whole process if we wait until after the baby is born...then again, I guess we could wait to start until the first week of December or so.

I don't know! Any other advice is very welcome!

[jlpumkin]

My SIL was a nanny, very professional and amazing if I say so myself She clued me in that the most credible nanny's go through an agency. This isn't to say that there aren't fabulous ones out there w/o an agency or that you can't get a bad apple from an agency. Just that in her experience the most professional nannies - in the field because it was their career choice, love kids, educated in child developement, etc - went that route. Just something to consider.