Hiring a Nanny for Infants: Part 1 – Determining your Needs
For a family with a young child, making the decision to hire child care can be difficult. Once that decision has been made, the real work begins. To help you through this process, I’m giving you my tips, learned from years of experience in child care.
Once you’ve decided that you’re going to hire in-home child care, like a nanny for your family, you have to determine what your needs are so you can find the right person to care for your child. There are certain things that should be required of the person you hire, such as Emergency First Aid and CPR training for infants. If the individual you are considering hiring doesn’t have these certifications, offer to pay for their training if they’re willing to obtain it for your position.
You’ll also need to figure out what type of person will fit into your family. Do you want someone living in your home full-time, or would you prefer the individual comes and goes each day? Do you need someone full-time (typically 25 hours per week or more), or part-time; is it a regular schedule every week, or will it vary depending on your schedule, work or otherwise? If you’re considering hiring a live-in nanny, decide if you are willing to sponsor someone from outside of Canada under the Live-in Caregiver Program.
When you have decided your options for the type of caregiver you need, consider the timeline of when you’ll need to start looking for this type of care. It varies depending on what you’re looking for. If you choose to look for a foreign live-in nanny, you’ll need to give yourself about 6-8 months for work permit processing times. If you choose to look for a local nanny, 6-8 weeks is usually sufficient, in my experience.
An option that has grown in popularity recently is sharing a nanny. This is where two families share one nanny, either providing part-time or full-time care to both families at the same time, or part-time to both giving the nanny full-time employment. Look for families in your area with children of similar age, or post an ad online; we have a dedicated place for nanny share ads on CanadianNanny.ca available to registered families.
My last piece of advice is to remember that you are hiring an employee for your family, not looking for a new friend. It is very important to keep the relationship with your nanny as professional as possible.
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