I’d like to think I’m an expert at this, now that we’ve gone through sooo many nannies.  I’ve done a lot of searching on what’s the best way to find a good Chinese nanny.  The advice in the past have to post in the Chinese newspaper (Renming Ri Bao). Now I say, post on craigslist! It’s cheaper and pretty effective. 

We’ve had nannies that came from nanny services. There’s about 6 main companies in the Bay Area. They are for the one month post-partum period and cost about $2600 for 26 days. Each company have their on niche, like basing their practices from Taiwan, and etc. 

Those nannies are expensive and don’t make good long-term nannies. It’s hard work being a post-partum nanny, but they do it for the money. And when they are done with the 26 days, they can take a break for as long as they want before they decide to pick up the next contract.  

I used to think they were the super-nannies and that they should know a lot about everything. But now I realize that they really are the most opinionated and probably know the least. They are great for that one month old baby, but don’t have much experience in doing much else. 

Posting in the newspaper you can find nannies from $1200 to about $1600 and of course even more. The problem is that I live about 2 hours from the Bay Area. When I post, I can get about 20 to up to 50 calls. But as soon as they learn where I’m located, they aren’t as interested. It’s also really hard to to interviews over the phone. Most of them don’t drive. It doesn’t help listing my city, because most of them don’t read English or wouldn’t know still where my city is. 

I’ve read before that posting on Craigslist is useless. Since most of these nannies don’t read English. Well I have to say that whichever website I was at then was very wrong. 

It is true that the nannies don’t read English, but their children do or their friends. 

I’ve been very successful at finally finding a nanny that lives close enough to us that she’s here Monday through Friday and gets a break on weekends. 

So try Craigslist!