CLIENT OF THE MONTH

This year, we are excited to be introducing a new feature - Client of the Month. Within this, we’ll be speaking to some of our clients here at Hampstead Nannies about their experience and advice when it comes to hiring a nanny.

Client of the Month - Brandon

What is the best thing about having a nanny?

I think the best thing is being able to leave for work knowing that your child is in fantastic hands. That's definitely one of the great aspects to having a nanny! 

What are the qualities you always look for in a nanny?

For us, it was important to have someone who could speak French as our child has Godparents who live in Paris and we visit a few times a year, so we want him to be able to converse with them and interact with local children when we visit. 

Another important quality is also safety - looking for someone who has the right skills, qualifications and attitude that you know they will keep your child safe. Then, the other really big one for us was finding someone who just brings a positive and vibrant energy to your home but also a sense of calmness during stressful periods, which are all qualities we’ve found in our nanny. 

What sorts of activities and pastimes would you like the ideal nanny to do with your children?

Our nanny is great. She takes our son out every day to Hampstead Heath or somewhere outdoors for a walk. He loves just sitting, looking at the grass, picking things up, inspecting them. They also attend lots of music classes and there's a bunch of brilliant music classes near us, so he goes to a different one almost every day.

What is your personal approach to parenting and would you want your nanny to adopt this, this same style?

What my partner and I decided is that the most important thing to us is to teach our son how to live a healthy life where he’s able to take care of himself and do something that he finds meaningful, whether he plays the violin, becomes a carpenter or has a passion for software engineering. We also want for him to get up and do something he finds fulfilling and develop good habits like good sleep habits and eating habits. 

With that in mind, I think our approach to parenting is about striking a balance between being kind enough and gentle enough to inspire creativity and let him explore and play, while giving him enough structure that he makes something of himself when he’s old enough. With a nanny, consistency is one of the most important things, so having a nanny who keeps that consistency and adopts that same approach is key and having a very open communication mechanism helps that too.

We’ll do a weekly check in (like you might when managing a team at work, for example) to chat through what went well each week, what didn’t go well and what could be improved so we can adapt our approach to parenting and ensure our son is getting the best opportunities to learn and develop.

Is there a piece of advice that you would give to other parents, families or people who are searching for a nanny themselves?

Absolutely! I’d say don't skimp on the interview process. When we’ve hired nannies in the past, we’ve used things like Notion Board which is an app that allows us to setup up a recruiting pipeline for ourselves to help whittle down candidates and keep track of what stage of the interview they were at.

Hampstead Nannies of course does a lot of pre-screening and does a fantastic job at bringing candidates to you that suit your family’s needs but we they have additional things we’re keen to put in place for our own family to ensure we have truly selected the right person for us because that is so subjective. 

Typically we’ll do one phone interview, one in-person interview and then two trial shifts; the goal is to have three nannies who come all the way through the pipeline and past the trial shifts so we can make an informed decision from there.

It’s always important to carry out a reference check and then the other key factor is seeing what sort of feeling they leave you with - you can really get a sense of whether someone will fit into yours and your child’s life during the trial shifts and interviews so I’d encourage it.

If you yourself had a nanny growing up, are there any moments or experiences that have really stayed with you?

I did have a nanny growing up and I credit her for a lot of who I am today. I think my sense of humour is actually much more similar to my nanny's sense of humour which was very cheeky.

She was like a second mum to me and we’ve remained close throughout the years. In fact, she flew over from the US a few weeks ago so that she could meet our son and went to a music class with him while she was here. I'm also extremely close with her daughter who lives in New York and is a teacher, so her daughter joined her when she visited which was so great. 

I think driving down the driveway and like making the car ‘dance’ is a fond memory I have with her. Not sure how safe that was by today’s standards and lots of my core memories probably wouldn’t be but they were such fun times and she was an incredible nanny.