Tips to Trust Your New Nanny
Whether you’re searching for a new nanny or you currently have one, the question still stands: How do I trust a new person with my child? This is a fair question that many parents struggle with, so here we’ve laid out five actionable steps to help you calm your worries and build absolute trust with your nanny.
Use a Nanny Agency
To hit the ground running, use a nanny agency. Considering you don’t have a nanny yet, starting your search with an agency will be the best decision you can make for your sanity and peace of mind. Working with an agency will make your search more efficient as safety, qualifications, and security are imperative.
It is common for most respected agencies to:
have multiple interviews with their nannies
ask for personal and professional references
host mandatory group training
require their nannies to be first aid and CPR certified
pass through background checks
Therefore, when choosing from an agency, you’re picking from a melting pot of nannies who have already been identified as responsible, safe, and the best of the best by experts in the field. This allows you to confidently shift your focus from “finding a safe nanny” to discovering other attributes you’d like your nanny to possess.
You want to trust that your nanny will:
be a good role model
inspire your child to be interested in the world around them
encourage your child to believe in themselves and try new things
be mindful and educated about your child's physical and emotional needs
be passionate about your child's growth as a person just as much as you are
The list of small lessons we hope and trust our nanny to help teach our children is seemingly endless. When you go on the nanny hunt solo, you risk lowering your standards and settling after a fruitless and frustrating process. That's why we always recommend going through a local nanny agency to allow the floodgates of great nannies to come to you.
2. Use Technology, Baby!
Once you've found the right person, it's important to stay in the loop. Curiosity gets the best of us, and if we don’t feed our interest when it comes to our child, it can become overthinking. Although you get a general idea of what your child’s day looks like after the nanny's shift, you may still feel like you’re missing out. Initially built for preschools and child care centers, the app Brightwheel helps parents track their child’s activities, share photos, and receive daily updates. For younger children, we recommend having your nanny use Baby Daybook as a log to track all your baby’s specific activities, such as naps, diaper changes, playtime, and meals.
Getting updates and confirmation day after day that your child is well cared for will leave you confident and trusting your nanny.
If you feel updates through an app aren’t your style, create a shared album for your nanny to send photo updates! Sometimes that photo confirmation of what your child is up to can bring you all the ease you need.
3. Mutual Feedback and Communication
Communication makes the world go round. Did we make that up? Maybe so, but communication truly is KEY to building relationships and trusting anyone in our lives, and when it comes to parent-nanny relationships, it's no different.
If you have questions or anything you’d like to address with your nanny, bring it up sooner than later! If you are curious how your nanny handled a tantrum, ask. Are you wondering where a bump or scratch came from? Ask some more! The point here isn’t to be a helicopter parent, but you have the right to be informed about all aspects of your child’s life without feeling like you’re asking too many questions. If you’re new to the nanny world, satisfying the questions proactively will allow you to trust your nanny more freely.
IDEA: Monthly check-ins
Whether you schedule them in or let them happen naturally, having regular check-ins with your nanny is vital to creating a trusting environment. In an environment where communication is the norm, both nannies and parents get a chance to be heard and validated consistently. Give feedback, positive and constructive suggestions, advice, and don’t be afraid to bring up concerns—make sure your nanny knows they can do the same! This regular cycle of communication will build your relationship with your nanny, so you both can be on the same page more often than not! Over time, your nanny will know what you expect, and you will know the same about your nanny!
Communication = thriving relationship
4. Observe Your Child’s Behavior
If your child is acting comfortable and trusts your nanny, that’s a beautiful sign you can trust them too. Whether your child is verbal yet or not, reading behavioral cues and paying attention to how your child interacts with your nanny is an excellent indicator of your child’s feelings about your nanny. Below are a few observations you can make to see if your child trusts your nanny.
Does your child:
light up when they see your nanny?
approach your nanny for help?
communicate well with your nanny?
show their emotions freely to your nanny?
act excited and eager to interact with your nanny?
show interest in saying goodbye to your nanny?
If your child is verbal, ask them what they think!
Overall, you know your child best. So if your child is acting comfortable and being themselves around your nanny, you can likely trust they’re in good hands. (If your child is prone to separation anxiety, that is something to keep in mind.)
5. Talk to other families with nannies.
Let's face it; sometimes, we are the worrywarts. We can have all the information we need to trust someone logistically, but if we don’t open ourselves up to it, we won't. We give more time to our worries rather than our comforts. When there are no red flags, and we have done everything we can to worry less, yet we still stress, it’s time to get support.
That's where opening up to friends and other families with nannies can help. Having verbal confirmation that your feelings are normal and that other parents have experienced similar fears will help you to feel validated. We know it can be hard to trust another person, but by taking the actionable steps mentioned and hearing other families' nanny success stories, you will, with time, learn to trust.
