What do you love about your nanny?

[LittleGriff]

I imagine every nanny has their positives and negatives. I'm just trying to put my own situation in perspective and was curious what other mamas loved about their nannies. What makes him/her the best possible caretaker for you? Have you ever switched nannies and regretted it? Have you stuck with a nanny that wasn't the right one for you?

Would love your stories. We have been struggling for almost a year now to decide if our nanny is really the right one for us. She has many good qualities and some definite drawbacks. And it's important to me to have caretaker consistency for my kiddos.

[CI Mama]

We hired 3 different college students to care for our DD before we found our current nanny, who is perfect for us.

College students were fine, but none was a perfect fit. We might have just stuck it out with them but they all left for the summer and we had to keep searching. And that's how we found our current nanny.

She lives in our neighborhood, is a parent of a 10-year-old son whom she homeschooled for many years, did cloth diapering, extended breastfeeding & AP with him, and is right on our wave-length in terms of our approach to parenting. She brings her son along to work sometimes, which is totally fine with us. He's super sweet with DD & is like a big brother to her. She adores him!

Our nanny gets out of the house with DD (way more than the college students ever did), she takes DD around to community gardens, the park, the library, etc. They come to visit me at work every Thursday for lunch.

In fact, as I'm reading this, I'm realizing how incredibly lucky we were to find her. It really was luck. We were OK with our previous sitters, but we're beyond thrilled with current nanny. She was persistent in responding to our ad, and I'm grateful for that.

I was a nanny for 2 years in the late 90s and perhaps I earned some good "nanny karma" that way.

I wish you the same good luck in finding your perfect nanny!

[Surfacing]

[fireHC11]

When our son was small (under 6 months), we hired babysitters and had great luck with older ladies with grandkids. They were patient, kind, soft, and would hold the baby nonstop.

Then, when our son started crawling, we hired college students. The timing just worked out that way. The grandmas went on to do other things (tend to new grandchildren) and the college kids were coming back to campus from summer break. These college kids were energetic, which was great in keeping up with our crawler. They wore him in a wrap or Ergo and took him places. They never questioned our breastfeeding and AP relationship.

Then we stumbled on our nanny through a Craiglist ad we posted. She's my age, speaks two languages, and has no kids of her own -- but wants to in the future. She wore him until he started walking, takes him everywhere (the ocean, different parks, library story time, etc.), teaches him both languages, tries to feed him (though he holds out for milk when I get home), and feels so attached to him that she e-mails from vacation to ask how he's doing and is as excited as I am when he poops. She's supportive of all our parenting decisions, including extended BF, AP, co-sleeping, and the transition to potty-training (which will effect her a lot!).

The biggest problem I have -- and it's not a problem at all, just kind of weird -- is I like her so much, I would totally be friends with her. But I know I shouldn't mix business and pleasure.

[Louisep]

It is obvious that our nanny treats our DS as if he were her own and that's why we love her. She has endless patience and dotes on him like a grandmother. She is energetic and does a ton of different activities with him. He will come home with new "skills" like rubbing our nose with his, high fives, and other adorable things she has taught him.

What are the doubts you are having about your nanny?