Please note we continue to experience an extremely flooded and very competitive childcare market. Childcare is in high demand in West Michigan and we are facing the challenges of limited applicant pools due to the shortage of nannies in our area. As a general rule of thumb, we recommend beginning the process at least eight weeks in advance when possible. This time allows us to find a candidate whose availability matches with your needs and complete all the necessary screening, reference checks, and interviews. Nannies often need to give their previous employer a standard two-week notice before starting a position with us. We can provide a more detailed time frame after reviewing your completed Intake Questionnaire. There are also seasonal factors to consider when evaluating your nanny search timeline such as the time of year, the holidays, back-to-school season, and more. We experience high new-client volume at different times of the year while also dealing with varying applicant rates. If your nanny search is not progressing along at a rate we would like or hope for, we will reconvene with you and discuss options and possible solutions to best secure the right fit for your family. We are quite selective with who we bring on board, never sending someone to your home that we wouldn’t feel comfortable having in our own and as a result, we have a well-qualified, amazing team of nannies. We always work hard to secure care in time for your anticipated start date but will never compromise the right fit for your family for the sake of a deadline or start date and can consider temporary care if needed while continuing our work to secure your permanent nanny. While 8-12 weeks' notice is ideal, the more time is truly the better! Placement times can happen quicker or require more time.

Yes and no. Recruiting can be difficult to predict and oftentimes we can better evaluate this after your listing is active and circulating through our recruiting points for a few weeks. That said, before & after-school care, short-length shifts, and care that is irregularly scheduled or changes frequently tend to be the trickiest and most time-consuming positions to fill and may require more than one nanny to meet your needs. Nanny candidates apply to and accept a position expecting a certain number of hours and you may find that it is difficult to retain someone if they are not working the hours they signed up for and committed to for your family.

While we strive to meet all of your childcare needs and work hard to staff appropriately during busy times of the year and cold/flu season, back-up care and last-minute care is ultimately based on nanny availability and therefore is not guaranteed. We highly recommend having multiple back-up care options in place. Submitting your care needs as soon as possible is certainly helpful as we work to schedule in advance whenever possible, oftentimes around-the-clock for last-minute care when necessary and able. As such, we kindly ask that you notify management immediately if you have requested back-up care and no longer need it. If you need guaranteed, on-call care, we can work with you on an individual basis to secure a nanny to meet your needs. For our families that DO NOT use West Michigan Nannies' services on a regular basis, we will do our best to accommodate your requests for back-up care, but you must be registered with us prior to utilizing this service for the first time. Please contact us to see if we can help!

We can describe all the reasons you should pick us over our wonderful, fellow childcare providers but we prefer to let you discover them for yourself. We hope that you will see, feel, and love the West Michigan Nannies Way and we would be honored to serve you. One thing about West Michigan and our community is there are some pretty exceptional people out there around us. We have crossed paths with other remarkable people in the "Childcare Field" in daycares, schools, fellow agencies, and the like, and we must say there are surely others whom are worthy of caring for your child. So many choices--what a nice "problem" to have! We would be both humbled and happy to show you why we could be the right choice for you!