As I wrote about last week in Part 1 of my mini-series on navigating childcare, figuring out childcare has been one the most important and difficult decisions we’ve had to make since becoming parents. As I outlined in Part 1, we started down one path with Big P (our first son, who is now 4), changed course, and then were forced to switch paths yet again. While I don’t regret any of the decisions we made, I knew we had to find a more stable childcare arrangement when we added a 2nd baby to the mix.

For background, we welcomed our 2nd son, Little P, into our family when Big P was almost 22 months old. Around the same time, my husband’s company asked him to relocate to central Iowa and I interviewed for and received an offer for a new job as well. As soon as Little P arrived, we started making plans to move, including finding childcare. Unfortunately our pediatrician did not clear Little P and me to travel to our new hometown, so we had to send Mr. P in my place to not only find us a new home but also to interview nannies (spoiler alert).

Yup, we decided to go with a full-time, in-our-home nanny when we added #2 to the mix. I’m not sure we would have made the same decision had we stayed in Colorado simply because of cost, but thankfully central Iowa is much more affordable, which opened up different childcare options for us. I’m also not sure we would have gone down the nanny path if we hadn’t been making such a big move at the same time. But at that time a nanny really seemed like the best and frankly only option. We didn’t have the time to do a lot of daycare tours and interviews or look into alternatives like au pairs, and we needed as much consistency and as little stress as possible.

I know there are lots of ways to hire a nanny, but we’ve always used and had success with Care.com. Whenever we’ve posted an ad, we’ve almost immediately received lots of responses, but it’s also been fairly easy to weed through them and pick out the handful of candidates that seem like they may be the best fit for your family. Each time we’ve used the service, I’ve narrowed in on a “favorite” candidate quickly and ended up hiring that candidate. And most importantly every time it’s been a good fit for our family – a very excellent fit, in fact, 2 of the 3 times we’ve used the service.

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Our nanny, who I will call Miss C, had recently graduated from college and was looking for a full-time nanny job while she figured out her next steps professionally. She loves kids and has a very gentle, easy going demeanor that is a perfect match for our energetic little boys. Immediately after we moved, we had extended family visiting for a few weeks, so we were able to transition both our boys and Miss C into our new arrangement when Little P was about 3 months old. And she’s watched our boys ever since then (for context, Little P turned 2 1/2 this past weekend, and we added a 3rd baby to the mix earlier this summer).

We adore Miss C and she’s been the perfect fit for our family. There are plusses and minuses to having a nanny, almost all of which are unrelated to Miss C herself and I will go into more detail about in Part 3 of this series. But overall it’s been a really good childcare arrangement for our whole family, and I think Miss C as well.

I should also note that, in addition to having to find us a house and interview nannies, I assigned Mr. P the job of touring preschools for Big P before we moved to Iowa. We started Big P in a preschool program 2 mornings a week when he was 2. Last year he moved to a 3 mornings a week program. This year we switched schools and have Big P in a 5 mornings a week Pre K program and Little P in a 1 morning a week program. We’re very lucky to live in Iowa where we can afford (although it’s definitely NOT cheap) to have a great full-time nanny plus enroll our kids in a high quality preschool program. That wouldn’t have been possible for us in Colorado, but it’s been a really good fit for us here. Our kids get a lot of the “benefits” of daycare (socialization, early education, etc) without a lot of the drawbacks (literally Big P has never had a cold or ear infection). And we all have a consistent “3rd parent” in Miss C who is also available to babysit :). There are some extra logistics with hiring a nanny to work in your home (nanny taxes yikes), but overall I think it reduces my stress of being a full-time working parent.

Did you change course in your childcare journey when you added Baby #2? Please share your experiences and any tips and tricks for other parents. And stay tuned for Part #3 in this series when I break down in more detail the nitty gritty of hiring a nanny (including, yes, a short tutorial on the scary topic of nanny taxes!)