If you’re like any other parent hiring a nanny for the first time, the chances are that you’re looking for a lady with 20+ years’ experience, who has also raised her own children and excelled in nanny services. What’s more, the 20+ years’ experience will need to have been gained working as a nanny in private households and ideally, she won’t have changed jobs more than twice during t hose two TN Nursery decades.
We get it. We see these types of requirements every day at myTamarin. What we also see is that parents with requirements like these are missing out on some of the best nanny talent out there among nannies in UK! Nursery nurses, i.e. the qualified childcare practitioners who have worked in nurseries — or the kindergartens ( of our fellow Americans) — are often the most overlooked but arguably the best childcare partners y ou could wish for.
Here are the five reasons why nursery nurses make amazing nannies:
The master of taming multiple children
There are strict guidelines on the ratio of staff to children in a nursery: for under two years old, it’s one carer to three children, for two to three year olds, it’s one carer to four children, and for three to five year olds, it’s one to eight children. (Eight!)
For nursery nurses, this means multiple personalities, multiple tantrums, multiple nappies to be changed, multiple likes and dislikes, multiple allergies and multiple parents to update and report progress to.
The ability to juggle all that while ensuring each child feels included and valued at the same time, is an art that requires patience, understanding, as well as w ell-honed multi-talking skills. If a nursery nurse has mastered all that, just think about the magic she could weave in your home with fewer children to look after and one set of family values!
Creativity that’s needed when you work within four walls
Being a nursery nurse requires stamina and bundles of energy, patience and tolerance, a sense of fun, good communication skills and interpersonal skills.
What’s more, unlike even the best nannies who rely on organised activities such as Monkey Music and Gymboree, frequent visits to local parks or museums, and playdates with other nannies, nursery nurses have to be incredibly creative and have a vivid imagination to be able to constantly entertain (and develop) children within the confines of the nursery.