Hey guys! I feel like I’ve been away forever! We’re all doing great!

Super-Mama and I have a question for the OS hive mind, since we’re too tired to think of anything on our own.
When Super-Mama returns to work in a few months she’ll only be working a few days a week and we are currently looking for child care for two days a week. We have worked our way through our friends and the people we know and are now looking for a stranger to watch Harry. We are starting to hear back from people who may be interested and they’re beginning to send us their resumes.

My question, what’s the next step? How do you go about hiring a nanny? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I am currently thinking about hiring a live-in nanny for whatever reason and I used gonanny to find a crazy artsy fartsy old lady who wants to do long-term care. Basically, we want live in so we have someone to watch our dogs too when we go away, and eventually water our garden, and if we get chickens collect eggs. We work from home, and have the space blah blah. But yeah, the site is a hundred dollars BUT they do a background check and references and so it works out in the end and I've previously found 3 great babysitters.

I like to make up series questions for them, and wacky ones to tell if they have a sense of humor/aren't crazy bible thumpers/won't sit my kid in front of the TV all day. So far so good, and I've met some really wonderful woman. I like Craigslist too, but I get so many freaks from there I try to avoid it!

If I'm remembering correctly you are in Austin, right? If so you can try Nannies from the Heart - might be more than you want to spend but they're screened etc.

No, he's in Indianapolis, I'm pretty sure.

Well that's not going to help then, is it?

They're good though...if anyone in Austin needs a Nanny.

Oh wait, that gives me a good thought, which is to ask if you've thought about contacting the career centers at any of the local universities. Local college students make great part time nannies.

If you do have a good pool of applicants and you're looking for interviewing help, well, I'm not as sure there. I think mostly you have to find somebody you click with, who checks out as having a safe driving record and no criminal history, and who meshes with your parenting style.

Of course meet with the person. See how you feel with them. See how the react around your kid. References, references, references! Grill them...how would they handle this? What would they do if that happened. Do they do housework? Do they drive? Do you want them to drive your kid around?

We had a nanny for a brief period of time. She came highly recommended by close friends of ours who used her as well. That made us feel better about the whole thing.

Network as much as you can. I let people know I was looking and different people told me about nannies they knew and loved who were available. In the end, a woman who owns this local indoor playground in Silver Lake (L.A.) told me about a nanny who was looking. She'd had the opportunity to watch her at the playground with other kids and said she was wonderful. I immediately had a good feeling about her and almost a year later I still love her.

I think going on how you feel about the person is important. Also, I suggest you having the person start before your wife goes back to work so that you can all get a sense of how it's going to work out. I started out leaving for half an hour and worked my way up from there.