Daycare is expensive these days, and daycare for two or more simultaneously can be enough to break the bank.  In light of this, many working families with young multiples decide to go the route of hiring and employing a nanny, which is usually more cost-effective, and comes with several added benefits.

Employing a nanny in your home means if you don’t have to rush to get your twins (or triplets or…?) up, dressed, fed and out the door to be dropped off at the daycare before you head to work yourself.  It also means that if one or more of your multiples are sick, you don’t necessarily need to take a day off work yourself to care for them—the nanny can do it.  Also, since the caregiver-to-child ratio is smaller (unless you have sextuplets!) your nanny can often give your children more one on one attention.  Sometimes a nanny will even do some cooking and light cleaning, another advantage over out-of-home childcare.  And if you are a stay-at-home parent, an in-home nanny can provide a welcome extra set of hands when dealing with young multiples.  But employing a nanny, especially a live-in nanny, means finding just the right person for your family, and for those readers who may never have interviewed and hired an employee before, the task of finding the perfect nanny for your children can seem daunting.  I believe that the more time and effort you invest up front in this process, the more benefits you (and your children) will reap.  A few simple steps can help smooth the way:

Recruitment
Where do you find a pool of suitable applicants?  This depends on your needs.  If you are looking for someone to work for you full time, you may wish to consider hiring from overseas.  This is often the most cost-effective route, and many agencies offer detailed profiles of potential caregivers for you to interview.  (There is usually a nominal charge for this service, about $200-$1500, as the would-be nannies pay the agency the bulk of their “placement” and other fees.)  Once you have selected 2-3 potential candidates, the agency will set up a phone interview for you.

If you want to hire locally, you could place an ad in the paper, or at College or University Campuses that offer ECE programs.  Your ad should indicate approximate hours, as well as the fact that you have multiples.  (And I would toss any applications that don’t speak to this in their cover letters!)  Ask up front for a detailed resume and cover letter as well as several references.  Some Nannies or recent College Grads may not have a resume.  Demanding one will ensure that serious candidates take the time to consider their particular skills and how they might meet your needs.  Setting high expectations (and paying accordingly) may decrease your applicant pool, but in my opinion, will yield better quality candidates.

A third option for recruitment is to ask around at POMs meetings.  With so many fellow parents of multiples, someone is usually in the process of finishing a contract with a nanny they can recommend.  (And then you’ll know the candidate has relevant experience!)

The Interview
Some local agencies may do the interviewing for you, but if you need to interview yourself, you can prepare in advance by sitting down with your partner and thinking up a few questions.  These should cover specifics about experience with children in your multiples’ age range (“Tell me about a time you dealt with a defiant two-year-old.  What was the problem and how did you solve it?”)  as well as any information you want to clarify from the candidate’s cover letter or the agency’s profile.  (“I liked the fact that you play the guitar.  Would you be willing to play for and sing with the children?” or, “we noticed you left your previous employer after only three months.  Can you tell us more about this?”)  In addition, you should ask what direct experience the candidate has with multiples, and if s/he has none, what s/he thinks the most challenging thing about looking after twins or triplets might be and what s/he is planning to do to prepare for this experience.  This is especially important if you have identicals.  (Has the candidate considered what measures s/he will take to differentiate the children as soon as possible?)

If you are interviewing an overseas candidate, the interview will likely take place on the phone.  Expect language barriers, and try to word your questions so that the candidate can really show what s/he knows about children, rather than struggling with the complexity of the English with which you frame your questions.  Speaking a second language can be a real asset—our three-year-old twins have picked up a few words in Tagalog from their Filipino nanny over the past 18 months—but of course you will also want to ensure that a basic level of English language proficiency is present.

If your interview is in person, consider sending the first question to the candidate in advance by email so that s/he can prepare his/her best to share (this will put the candidate more at ease, and if s/he doesn’t know kids and has simply memorized a textbook answer, it will become clear later in the interview anyway!)  I also like to give the in-person candidates each question in large print on paper as I am asking it, so that they have an additional sensory way of absorbing the question, and can really focus on what I am asking.  (Just because someone is not an auditory learner, doesn’t mean they won’t be an excellent nanny!)

Whether by phone or in person, plan to start the interview with some small talk, just to put the candidate at ease.  Indicate something in their cover letter or profile that your family was drawn to, and spend some time telling them about your children and household.  (This is especially important for overseas candidates, many of whom may have little or no information about you at the time of the phone interview!)

Job and Family Expectations
Be very clear about your expectations.  If you are hoping your nanny will do some cooking and/or cleaning in addition to childcare, ask in advance if this is something s/he would consider.  (Some nannies may prefer to focus solely on the children, and are not interested in a job that includes additional responsibilities.  Better to clarify this before making a job offer!)  If you have a dog that needs walking as part of the duties of your nanny, you need to know before you make a job offer, that this person is comfortable with and not allergic to 4-legged creatures!  If you have strong religious beliefs and expect your nanny to model these to your children, you may want to clarify in advance, for example, that there are to be no overnight visitors or that only halal meat be cooked in the home.  If you are a smoker and your would-be nanny is not, s/he deserves the right to know this before accepting a job offer.  Remember, ideally, you want this caregiver to work out well for your family for at least a year.  Knowing as much about the job and each other in advance can help to ensure long-term success.

Once you have finished your interviewing and have decided on a first and second choice, take the time to contact references.  It is useful to get a previous employer’s take on a particular character trait you may have noticed during the interview.  You also want to confirm that the job and experience claims the applicant has made are actually valid.

Job Transition
Now is the time for major investment…  Having a pre-start meeting is a great way to see how everyone gets along.  While this is not always possible with overseas candidates, you can still take measures to begin introducing the idea of the nanny to your infants or toddlers.  Show them photos of the nanny and use your nanny’s name to tell your twins/triplets about their new caregiver. 

Once your nanny arrives, spend some time together with him/her and the children just having fun.  After letting her sleep off the first few days upon arrival from Hong Kong, we took our Filipino nanny to the Toronto Islands for a day at the beach with our twins.  Since she was new to the country, we also felt a sight-seeing trip was in order, so we arranged a suite at a hotel in Niagara Falls.  The first night, after the twins were in bed, she stayed at the hotel with them while we enjoyed an evening out without the kids!  The next night, it was her turn to hit the town.  (She still has the picture of herself and Tom Cruise—albeit a wax Tom Cruise—in her wallet!)  Upon our arrival back home, we arranged a welcome party for our nanny, introducing her to our family, church friends and neighbours, including some other Filipinos in the community.  Right from day one, our nanny knew she was not alone in the challenge of helping us raise our wild boys!

Within 10 days, Our new nanny was ready to try her hand in our household on her own.  By then, she knew the boys’ routines fairly well, and Alex and Simon had started to recognize her as part of our family.  Although they cried when we left the house for work that first day, they had a great time afterwards, and upon our arrival back home, were quite pleased with their new playmate!

Maintenance
Just as with any other childcare provider, the investment doesn’t end with your nanny’s first successful workday.  In the first few weeks following our nanny’s arrival, we arranged  to sign her up for a childcare course through Mothercraft.  We offered to pay for tuition and bus tokens if she agreed to make her way there and attend the weekly classes.  This professional development experience empowered our nanny, and she learned many new things about young children which we saw her incorporate into her daily care of the boys. (She also made some new friends, many of who were also newcomers to Canada.)  We continued to have monthly “check-in” meetings to discuss how things were going with Simon and Alex, and how we could support each other as employee/employer.  At holidays, we tried to give her some extra (paid) time off, and of course remembered her with a gift whenever appropriate.

Hiring and employing a nanny is not without its challenges.  Our nanny’s food tastes and cooking abilities when she arrived were vastly different than our own, and she continues to burn our pots mercilessly!  The paperwork we have to fill out each month for Revenue Canada has grown a bit tiresome over time.  But the benefits of having our twins spend their early years with a single caregiver in our own home have well been worth our efforts.  The boys are happy and confident, and developmentally comparable to other children their age. Their transition to daycare as they prepare for Kindergarten has been a relatively smooth one, and we’ll certainly miss our nanny’s zucchini muffins as well as her knack for making the beds and having the front hall clean when we arrive home from work each day!

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