Simply Childcare - anyone used it?

[goldenoldie]

And is it any better for finding qualified/experienced nannies than Gumtree and the like?

I've used it to advertise childcare. I've always had a good response. There seems to be a good mix of different nannies, eg, with their own children, qualified etc, more so than gumtree or nannyjob which seems to be mostly au pairs (some calling themselves nannies!)
There are also lots of other parents looking for nanny shares - are you looking for a nanny share?

Hi happymum,

Think we have spoken before. I need a sole-care nanny for three days a week.

Can't do a share on my three days, I have baby twins and would not consider a nanny that wants to look after other children on my days in addition to the twins.

that's right we have. Wasn't offering my services personally! lol

hi goldenoldie

i think if you searched the archives you would find many references to successful use of simply childcare.

having said that, my experience was:

• zero responses to my ad for after-school/holiday childcare - despite there being a number of ads offering that - ergo, my conclusion, people advertising not very dynamic/pro-active!
• only comes out once every 2 wks - OK if you have all the time in the world to find someone - much quicker response from the gumtree
• the people i followed up based on their ads in simply childcare were not any better (based on an overall view) than the people on gumtree - you still have to do the sifting yourself

however, as i said, it appears that quite a few people on mumsnet have used simply childcare successfully.

good luck with your search.

I've used it to advertise myself, so instead of a parent looking for a nanny, I did an advert as a nanny looking for a family.

Result was nothing. So that approach didn't work.
I am however outside of the M25 (by about 10 miles), so that could have been a factor.

Simply Childcare is probably worth trying if you live in London... but if you don't then I'd say it probably isn't worth it - though you never know you may strike lucky.

Most nannies I know will look for work at NannyJob , via local agencies, local newspaper, and on small ads at places such as newsagents, school, pre-school, toddler groups etc.

I wouldn't use Simply Childcare to look for my next nanny position - however, I am not in London, but in Surrey... If I were in London, then it would be something I would consider looking in.

I recruited my current nanny through SC. I also tried using websites at the same time. I found that there were more proper nannies in SC whereas websites have loads of people who are just au pairs/ can't speak English very well/ have very little real experience.

I think the fact that its a bit more effort to use Simply Childcare and not so easy to just stumble across it on the net and post and ad means that its got a higher number of genuine advertisers.

I would always use it as my first option when looking for a nanny.

We used Simply Childcare to find our first nanny. Second time we didn't get much interest, and ended up using an agency, and when advertising our nanny when we didn't need her any more we didn't find anything for her through our SC ad. But although we live in London, we live in a fairly nanny free zone (all childminders round here, as it is not a very wealthy area). I think for the money it's worth a go, and in certain areas there are obviously lots of nannies offering and families wanting.

Thanks for the responses. I will give it a go. Might try NannyJob too as it is pretty cheap to advertise.