Nanny agencies please

[Zo_Hop]

Hi

Can anyone recommend a good nanny agency? I'm due to have my second child in January and will want some help either from a night nanny or a day nanny a few times a week in the early days. Amy recommendations?

Thanks.

[WorkingMummy]

Perhaps not the answer you want, but are you sure you want an agency? They cost a lot. Of course, it's worth paying for peace of mind. But in my experience agencies do not do as good a job of checking people out as you would yourself. Twice, when our nannies' times with us have ended, the nanny has enrolled with a nice, pukka, knightsbridge-based agency to find a new position. Each time, I was only asked for a reference by email: the agency never called me to verify who I was or what i'd written. whereas when i recruit a new nanny i check out referees very thoroughly and always speak on the phone with at least two recent employers. And whenever I've tried to use an agency to recruit, I've been very frustrated that they would keep sending me CVs of people who did not fit my criteria.

i would recommend using a very specialist website, like findababysitter.com (which is very good, but misnamed - it has sections for all domestic and child-caring jobs, not just babysitting) writing a very specific job description, and go from there. You will be fairly inundated with replies, but you just have to be ruthless in sifting the really good ones - I don't even reply to the rest. You may have to wait a few weeks before you get anyone you want to interview, but the last two times I've recruited this way I have only needed to interview one (perfect) candidate.

[Zo_Hop]

Thanks for your advice. I just don't know if I can face doing it all myself at the moment, have so many other things going on but of course want to get the right person. Lets see what others suggest.

[WorkingMummy]

Just don't hang about. Jan is close.

You may have no luck with an agency supplying part time help in this area for the period you want anyway - especially if it's a live out post - so I would crack on and advertise on a website too, if I was you. You can always ignore the replies. It doesn't take long.

Like I say, an agency doesn't do it all for you anyway. They should for the price they charge but they really don't.

Ps. You could also advertise on the forum family classifieds page. If what you are after is someone just popping in three or four days/nights a week to tide you over the new born period, you are much more likely to get that from someone local than from a national agency.

[Norfolkvillas]

When I was recruiting a live-in nanny earlier this year, I used Margaret at NannyLink, who was initially recommended to me by another family roomer. I also had good candidates from Abbeville Nannies and Nappy Valley Nannies (both Clapham-based but happy to recruit for Dulwich positions). I found it impossible to recruit for a live-in position directly. On the other hand, when I was looking for a live-out nanny, I found that recruiting myself was much easier - gumtree, this forum, and either simplychildcare or childcare.co.uk, can't remember which. Not sure on temp positions though. Good luck!

[snowboarder]

I used Nannylink this summer to find a part time nanny (now living further out of London so didn't really have any local networks to tap into like edf). I thought they were good - yes you pay but I liked that they forwarded me candidates within my budget and that the nannies had at least been through some sort of initial screening first. I have also used Nightnannies in the past for some sleep training for my then 12m old baby - just 3 nights - as you say I just couldn't face doing the searching myself!