75. Hiring a Nanny 101: The Step-by-Step Guide Every Physician Mom Needs

Hey Doc,

Hiring a nanny can feel like a lot.

Even after you’ve made the decision, there are still so many questions:
Where do I look?
What do I ask?
How do I know if someone’s the right fit?

In this episode, I walk you through exactly how to find and hire a nanny in five clear steps.
Nothing vague, nothing fluffy,  just what you need to move forward with more confidence and less stress.

I’ll help you:

• Get crystal clear on what you actually need (not just what feels "reasonable")
• Create a job description that attracts the right people
• Ask the right questions before you waste your time
• Interview and vet with confidence (and boundaries)
• Onboard and maintain a relationship that feels good for both of you

I even share the step most agencies skip, and the one that makes the biggest difference in how supported you’ll actually feel.

You don’t have to guess your way through this.
You deserve ease. And this episode is here to give you exactly that.

🎧 Listen now!

And don’t forget to grab the free nanny checklist here.

You got this doc!

Grab the Nanny Hiring Checklist here!

Thinking about getting an Au Pair? Get the Au Pair Checklist!

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Transcript

Hey Doc, it is time to find you a nanny, and I am so excited that you are here and you have realized that yes, I deserve support and I can have a paid village. And that paid village involves a nanny. Congratulations, but. I know it can also be very overwhelming, and yes, you can join the Nanny physician group and ask a bunch of people, but it's still a lot of information.

So I'm going to help you find and hire a nanny in five easy steps. Yes, five easy steps. So let's get into it and get you some help. Alright, so the first. Step, the most important step, and by the way, if you're considering an AU pair, this is the most important step as well, is to figure out what you need, not what you think you can find somebody to do, not what your friend said, not what your mom said, what you need from this person that you are going to hire, because hiring a nanny, onboarding them doing all of these things is a lot of work and you want to make sure that you hire the person that is actually. Going to make all of the effort worth it, and it's actually helping you and you feel supported, not just this extra warm body annoying you in your home, which can very well happen.

So please, please, please focus on this step. It is the most important for you to make this process successful. Okay? So the way that you're gonna do it is you are going to list every single task that you and your husband if he does contribute to some of the household labor list, every single thing.

And I wanna be clear again, this is not listing what you want the nanny to do. This is listing what you all do. And the reason is because. You are going to then pull from that list to create the task list for the nanny. But if you don't even quantify the things that y'all are doing, there's a big chance that you may miss things that this person can do.

So you're gonna list every single thing in minute detail. So for example, if you say, take my son to soccer, that's not enough detail. You want to say Who's packing the bag for soccer? Who is driving him? Who is actually staying, who's driving him back? It may end up being that it's you for all of those things, but. I think that was kind of a bad example, but there may be certain pieces of those larger tasks that could be broken up and could be shared between adults in the home, you, your husband, and the nanny. So you really want to break every single thing down and involve the mental labor, right?

Involve all of the thinking and the planning that you do because some of that can be offloaded to the nanny and. If you want to keep some of the thinking because you like doing the organization or whatever, okay, fine. You do the planning and let the nanny do the execution. So that is a reason for breaking it down in that minute detail.

So after you have your very comprehensive list, look at it and say, damn, I'm doing a lot, and I'm so glad that I listened to Dr. Toya and I decided to hire help. And then what you're gonna do is review that list. See what doesn't need to be done by anybody. So yes, I'm gonna sneak some of my coaching in here.

This is not just about you hiring a nanny. This is about you optimizing your life. So are there things on that list that nobody needs to be doing? Not you, your husband, not the nanny. Nobody, and only you can answer that question. If you're like, no, everything has to be done. Let's do a free coaching session and talk about it. 'Cause I'm sure I could find something, but I digress. See what just needs to go and take it off, doc.

Because before we start delegating, we need to really make sure we are spending our time where it needs to be spent. Okay? So after you have your list and you're like, yes, this is the stuff that needs to get done by somebody. You want to see what actually brings you joy? What are the things that only you can do? So. Now you're getting into what can this nanny take off of your plate? And you don't want to take off things that bring you joy.

This is not a replacement of you in the home. This is not you delegating away the connection with your children. This is delegation of the work. So you delegate the work and keep the connection.

  📍  📍 So if you enjoy cooking, please keep it. That is your love language. Don't delegate that to the nanny. However, I want you to keep your mind open because if you do in fact, love cooking, but because of your work schedule, which you are going to work on, but it can change right this second. I. Cooking has become something that you no longer enjoy because it's, it's another task that overwhelms you when you're trying to rush home from clinic or whatever.

Maybe have the nanny do some of the meals, maybe have her do the meals for the children, and you cook for you and your husband. Like, see how this person can. Help you get joy back in those tasks that you actually love doing, right? So it doesn't have to be an all or nothing. This is time to be expansive and creative, to get the support that you need and that you want, right?

So once you have those things, the things that you love, the things that only you can do, which doc are actually very few, There are a lot of things that you think only you can do, but that's not true. Again, I digress. So you know that those are things that you're gonna keep

and then start evaluating everything else. Okay? So these are all the things that I want to get off of my plate.

so you start building the list of the things that you would like the nanny to do and.

It is very natural

to look at this extensive list and think,

I will never find somebody

who is willing to do all these things,

especially when there is this story

playing in your head that,

Well, I can't even manage it.

How could I ask somebody else to do it?

But let me tell you, you can't manage it.

First of all, you can, you just burn yourself out.

But you're saying you can't manage it

because you also have a full-time job.

You have other things going on.

When you bring in a nanny, that is their job.

  📍  📍 So it is not the same as you doing your full-time job and then doing your full-time mom thing.

Everybody needs support, so. Instead of wondering how you will ever find somebody to do all this stuff, I want you to think of it in very positive, expansive, hopeful ways. Just like, wow, look at all of these things that I'm going to have somebody else do, so that I can get my life back and enjoy time with my children and feel like a whole human being.

Isn't that amazing? Okay, so you have your task list for the nanny, and you're going to use that to create your long job description. And you know, when I originally developed these steps, it was you actually like writing something because this is before chat GBT, but now. You can just word vomit some tasks and tell cha GBT, all about your life and say, give me a job description.

Oh my gosh, it is so amazing. And you can tell it, you know, make it sound more friendly, make it sound this, make it sound that you can do all those things. But however you do it, you are gonna take the list of things that you wanna get off your plate. Create a long job description and from that you are then going to create a short job description,

so with the short job description, that is what you are going to share with the world. That is what you are going to put on care.com. If that's where you're looking, that's what you're going to use to create Facebook posts and to send to people. So you want it. To be sus succinct enough that people will actually read through it, but still comprehensive enough so that you don't get a bunch of people who are not a good fit.

So you really wanna put the highlights in there. You know how many kids, the ages, some non-negotiables and you want to focus more on the positive attributes, you don't wanna fill the short job description with negative attributes and things that you don't want, you wanna put out positive language, so that's what you attract.

Okay, so step two is start asking, start looking for this person. And I don't just mean post the short job description on care.com. You can certainly do that. It is a good resource. It's one of the biggest resources in the country. Do it. However, the best nannies you're going to find are gonna be from personal recommendations because this is somebody that you trust in some capacity, and more importantly, they have firsthand experience and they can tell you about this person.

They can tell you about any issues they can. Reassure you that this prison is trustworthy. So you really want everybody in your life to know that you are looking. And when I say everybody, I mean your neighbors, the postman. I don't know if people still talk to their postman. I dunno. You know everybody that you come in contact with people at work because you never know who is looking and you also never know who people know. Even if you mention it one time,  if they go on maybe a week or two later and they're talking to somebody who's looking for a childcare job, they're gonna be like, wait a minute. This stock was looking. Let me pass on your information. So you just want to have everybody doing the job of looking for you and trying to get that personal recommendation to start the process off.

Facebook groups are another huge resource, so find your local mom, Facebook group and post your job description in there as well. And I'm sure you'll get a lot of responses, not just from moms who have nannies who may be available, but other moms. So. The stay at home moms or the non-paid working moms who may be looking for a couple hours.

Their kids may be now going into daycare themselves, or they may be a little bit older. You never know who is looking and it may be the perfect person for you, so You definitely want to maximize using your local mom Facebook groups, and also if you have a local mom, physician Facebook group as well.

When you are using care.com, they give you guidelines about the things that you are going to put on there. So you will use your short job description, but they'll have their other categories that you have to fill out.

And you can certainly use agencies. I'm not a fan just because it's a lot of money and they still don't do the vetting that I'm talking about, right? I, if you wanna use the agency, I'm all for outsourcing. You know that. But still go through these steps. Because I think we assume they do more of this work for us than they actually do.

So you may end up spending a ton of money and still not getting the right fit because you didn't take time to do the task review, and then do the job description and all of those things that really think about what you need. So sure, use an agency, proceed with caution, and make sure you're not spending too much money.

So step three, you are going to start getting applicants. Yes, you're gonna review and track these applicants. Hopefully you have a whole bunch of people to choose from. But if you live in the middle of nowhere, like I do, sometimes you may not get that many. However you still want to review everything and, track the ones that you do get.

 use a spreadsheet, write it down somewhere just to keep everybody straight. And once somebody has applied or reached out to you, you wanna send them some standard questions that you're gonna send to everybody. And those questions are usually going to involve the things that are in your short job description, because the important things are in there, right?

You just assume that they have not read your job description. Just assume that that did not happen, and you wanna make sure you know, Hey, are you vaccinated?

Or whatever other important things were in that job description. And you wanna also include some of your other non-negotiables. Are you okay with nanny cams? Are you okay with being paid on payroll? You want to know right upfront so that you don't waste your time and find things out later on. So you can do this by the messaging app on care.com, you can do this in dm, Facebook, by email, text, whatever, but you want to make sure you get those questions answered 

  📍  📍 So you're sure that it's worth moving on. Once you get those questions answered, go ahead and send them the long job description so that they have a full idea about what the job entails and if it's a good fit for them. Then once they have read the long job description and said, "Yes, I'm still interested", you all move on to the next step.

Step four is interviewing and vetting.

You are gonna start with a Zoom interview. 

  📍 And in that Zoom interview you standard questions that you're going to ask every single person who you interview and you want to make sure there are questions that are really going to help you understand this person's experience. So not do you like kids? Tell me what types of activities you'll do with my 3-year-old, because if this person really has experience, they're gonna know what to say.

And if they don't, they're gonna be like, well, we will go to the park.  And that's it, right? So you wanna make sure you ask open-ended questions, deep questions and very specific questions that are going to be important for the things that you need, and also for childcare in general.

And all of these steps, doing the job description, having those initial questions, doing Zoom interviews first, it decreases the amount of work on the end because It screens out people that are really not a good fit very easily because you are constantly asking questions and whittling and confirming that this person is what you need and want, and you don't bring somebody in your home or meet somebody that really just isn't a good fit.

So once. You have a good Zoom interview. You've asked all the questions. You're like, okay, I think, I think we can move on. Do a quick Google search and make sure this person's not a mass murderer and they're not in the news for something. You know, you don't have to go through a whole background check at this point, but just Google is your friend and.

Once they check out, you wanna invite them for an in-person interview. Now, some people don't like to have them in their home quite yet. That's adding on a different step if you meet them somewhere and then meet them in your home. 'cause I do think in the home with the children is important, so it's up to you.

But meet them in person with the children around you can ask more questions about. Some of the things that you talked about. Again, it's good to ask the same questions multiple times just to make sure you get the same answers and then importantly, see how they interact with the children and see like, okay, I think this is somebody that we can work with,

and also if this person is going to drive your children, this will be a good time to test out their driving. So go for a drive with them, make sure you're checking to see if they have any accidents or anything like that, and make sure that they're safe drivers.

And then. The last part in this step with the interviewing and vetting is to call references. Please don't skip this step. You don't even have to talk to these people for long. You can text whatever. You want to make sure you ask at least two questions. Why did you part ways and would you hire them again?

Those two are going to tell you everything that you need to know if this person can be trusted.

And step five is you make an offer and you actually onboard this person because you have found your nanny, and congratulations for getting to this step. You want to make sure that you have a contract, not because it needs to be legally binding or anything like that.

It says in paper what the expectations are. Especially for things like vacation. You don't want any confusion about time off, sick leave, all of those things, and you want to make sure that you have it in writing. They have reviewed it and they have signed that this is the case. I would also recommend things like. You agree to get vaccinated and things like that that are your non-negotiables that they agreed to. You just wanna make sure that everything is in there.

And once you have made the offer, you wanna do the formal background check.

This is something that you're gonna need permission for, so they have to actually sign something for you to do a background check, and there are agencies that handle that and you can just pay the fee or whatever.

So once they have signed the contract, you wanna set up your payroll and. You can try to do it on your own if you'd like, or you could just pay a payroll agency, which I recommend because they will help you with withholding the taxes and just keeping that part of it clean and tidy.

And then you actually have to onboard this person, so please don't throw them into the fire. This is not residency. This is somebody coming in to take care of your child. So hopefully you can be home with them for some overlap, but I understand that's not always possible. So you definitely want to have a handbook with.

Extensive instructions. Not in a micromanaging way, but in a supportive way. It's just like I have taken the time to tell you about our family, the things that I expect so that we can both be successful. Because one thing that causes a lot of discontent between childcare providers and their employers is mismatching expectations and things that are unsaid.

So if you have this handbook at the beginning, you review it in detail. Then you let her read it to make sure if she has any questions, you answer them so that everybody is on the same page. And if you have that time to overlap, perfect. You can show her exactly how you like to do things and just set the tone for the relationship ahead.

The onboarding is great. The longer the better, but it is not the end. Please continue to meet with your nanny regularly to thank her one. To make sure she doesn't have any concerns or questions and to also address your concerns and questions. And I said that in that order for a reason. You always wanna start with gratitude, Dr.

Alexandra talked about this when I interviewed her for her episode. Childcare is really a thankless job, just like motherhood sometimes. So you really want to. Express how thankful you are that this person is here supporting you, even if they're doing something you don't like. You want to make sure that

they're getting more than negative feedback from you and that you are expressing your gratitude. Because even if you're annoyed, chances are you are grateful that they're there. You just need to work on some things. So gratitude often, and giving them a safe space and environment to address any concerns that they have.

And then of course, you don't settle right? You. Can give feedback. You can review things that were a problem during this time so that you both have a successful relationship moving forward. And that's it. Doc. Five, easy steps. You got this. So number one, figure out what you want and need. Number two, ask around who is gonna help you find this nanny number three.

Start tracking and reviewing all these applicants and making sure that you send them your non-negotiable questions. Then you want to start interviewing and vetting them. And number five, make an offer on onboard five easy steps. And if you like Dr. Toya, that sounded like way more than five easy steps.

I know it still sounds like a lot, and that is why I have the checklist for you that goes over all of these things in detail so that you can just check everything off and keep it as simple as possible. So the link is in the show notes for this episode. If you're listening to this episode a long time from now.

Check on my website. I've had this checklist up for a long time in my socials all over the place. It is one of my most valuable resources because it really does cover everything that you need from beginning to end in a very quick and easy way, because that's what we need. We need to make this easy. So. You have this episode, you have your checklist, and maybe in the future there may be a quick course that you can download from my website that will go over everything. If you're like, I need more detail on some of these things, maybe that may be coming as well because how do I find a nanny?

Where do I find them? What do I do? These questions come up all the time in our circles, and I just want to make this as easy as possible. 'cause I get it. I know how overwhelming this could be, especially when you didn't even really want to hire out in the first place and now you've decided, and it's just like, well, this is too much work.

You see, this is why they wanna do it anyway, so I want to help you get over that hump so that you can. Enjoy having somebody there to help you and to take away the work of motherhood so that you can keep the connection. So that is what I have for you, my five easy steps. Make sure you share this episode with another physician mom who is hiring a nanny and make her life easier to doc.

And if you found this helpful, don't forget to leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, a five star raising everywhere else. Make sure you follow and subscribe and do all of the things so that other physician moms could find. This podcast and feel a little more seen and a lot less alone, and a lot more supported because they have all of this amazing information to help them live their best lives.

I will see you on the next episode of Stethoscopes and Strollers.