Childcare

We've planned on getting a nanny for the past 6 months. With both of us working from home- it seemed like the best option. We wanted the flexibility and advantages to having one person dedicated to us.

I posted our job on care.com back in July only to receive a flood of emails. I had other more pressing items to work on before he arrived- so I mostly put that project on the back burner until September. I was surprised to find out how difficult it was to find qualified nanny's. Most people looking for jobs needed something immediate and weren't interested to wait until January 3rd (when I went back to work). It seemed majority of the applicants were young girls who babysat or people out of work or just decided to become a nanny or were in college for various degrees and needed income.

We shot high and wanted someone that had experience as a nanny. I made sure to only have qualified people come to the house to interview so we only saw about 7 women. It was tough to find someone experienced that we also meshed well with. We wanted someone we felt really comfortable with that was going to be in our home 40+ hours a week. We found one we loved- Marlene. She was a loving grandma with a lot of experience. We offered her the job but after a lot of back and forth she took a different one with twins for less days and same pay. We realized through that process with Marlene that she might not have been the best fit for us. However, I was diasppointed because the nanny search was a lot of work and I was starting to get concerned we wouldn't find someone before I went back to work. We weren't willing to settle and so we decided to explore other options. I started researching daycare's and came across a licensed home daycare 10 minutes away. We went there Friday to check it out. Stacey runs the daycare with her mother in their home. They have 4 preschool age kids that Stacey takes care of each day. Her mom, Joann, looks after the infants. They only have one infant currently and have room for one more. They have a great set up at their house and run a tight yet loving ship. They've had their daycare for over 13 years and seemed like wonderful people to co-parent Cooper. After talking to the other moms that send their kids there- we decided today (the day before I go back to work) that this is the place for Cooper.