What Skills and Qualities Should a Nanny Have?

hiring a nannynanny resources
Written By Karen K.

Are you new to nannying? Perhaps you’re looking for ways to increase your value and rate? Or are you a parent looking for guidance on what to look for when hiring a nanny?
We’re sharing a list of the most frequently requested requirements and nice-to-haves from our family clients.

What Skills, Certifications and Qualifications Should a Nanny Have?

Are you new to nannying? Perhaps you’re looking for ways to increase your value and rate? Or are you a parent looking for guidance on what to look for when hiring a nanny?

We’ve compiled a list of the top skills, certifications, education and other qualifications that our families frequently list as requirements or nice-to-haves from a caregiver.

Essential Nanny Experience & Certifications:

Pediatric First Aid and CPR Certification: this is a non-negotiable requirement for the nannies we place with our families. 

  • How to get it: First Aid and CPR certification is fast and easy to obtain, either in-person or online. We find that the in-person training is a better experience, but you can find many online courses if you prefer online learning. The Red Cross offers many virtual and in-person options, and you may also be able to find local providers in your area.

Paid or Unpaid Experience With Specific Age Groups: this is particularly important for families looking for infant and toddler care, but applies to all age groups as each age comes with its unique set of challenges. 

  • How to get it: If you don’t have experience with the age group of the children you’d like to work with, you can gain experience and references by:

    • Reaching out to friends and family and offering to babysit or be a mother’s helper. 

    • Volunteering at your local non-profits or religious organizations that provide free or reduced-cost childcare

    • Tutoring.  Many non-profit organizations are always looking for volunteers to work with school-aged children on a regular basis. There are many national and local organizations; below are a few national nonprofit organizations:

      •  LearnToBe is a U.S. nonprofit that offers free 1:1 online tutoring. 

      • Reading Partners volunteers spend 1 hour per week helping students gain literacy skills.

    • Reading, taking online courses: This is particularly important with infants. As a newborn nanny, you should be familiar with the updated safety guidelines and other care of newborns. There are many, many free resources available, and our go-to resources is the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP / Healthy Child)

You can also find a number of online courses on Coursera, Udemy, Tinyhood, etc.

Experience or Interest in Early Childhood Education: Families want to know that you are passionate about enriching the lives of children, and an interest or education in early childhood education is a pretty good indicator. While a degree is useful, there are many other ways to gain this knowledge and experience:

Most Desired Nanny Qualities

The top qualities that parents are looking for in a nanny are:

  • Patient: Working with kids is inevitably challenging. As a nanny, you must have the patience to help children navigate their world and situations around them. If you are regularly working alongside your nanny family (parents, grandparents, other caregivers), you may also find yourself working with many different personalities and will need to extend your patience beyond just the children you’re caring for.

  • Loving: The best type of care comes with an emotional investment in the person you’re providing care for. 

  • Active: Parents look for caregivers who aren’t scared to run around, be playful and get down on their children’s level.

  • Calm: Parents want to know that a nanny will remain calm and exhibit a mature response to a stressful situation, whether that situation is a tantrum or a life-threatening emergency.

  • Engaging: As a nanny, your priority is the care and enrichment of the children in your charge. Parents are looking for a nanny that will keep distractions to a minimum (not always on your phone) and be engaged with their children, whether as an active participant or an active observer (during independent play).

  • Punctual: Being able to show up on time every time is crucial to parents who hire a nanny. Tardiness is typically the first complaint we hear from families who start to reevaluate their hire. When you’re considering a position, you must be honest with yourself about whether you can arrive on time every day.

  • Responsible: When evaluating candidates, parents will choose the candidates that are trustworthy, accountable, clearly understand and choose to do the right thing in any situation. 

  • Reliable: Parents want a caregiver that they know will show up and that they can count on. Reliability not only applies to being physically present, but also being consistent in work quality. 

  • Organized: Managing feeding schedules, nap schedules, and other child-related activities can get hairy for caregivers. Parents want to know that a nanny can stay organized and has systems in place to maintain schedules.

  • Open Communicator: Nannies typically do not have corporate advocates (like an employee might have a manager or an HR resource at a corporate position), so they must be able to advocate for themselves and speak up about difficult issues. This means being able to have hard conversations or open conversations about what’s going well and what needs to change regarding employment, children’s routines, behaviors and other day-to-day challenges. 

Nice-to-Have Nanny Skills and Ways to Increase Your Value

  • Second language: Many families want to expose their children to different languages and cultures. If you don’t know a second language (yet!) but want to increase your value by improving this skill, you could:

    •  Learn baby sign language. Baby sign language is especially helpful for infants and toddlers who haven’t learned the words to communicate their needs yet. You only need to know 5-10 signs to help a toddler communicate their needs. Here are our favorite, most useful baby signs.

    • Learn a language together. Learning a new language together is a wonderful way to connect with the children in your care. Not only are you learning something new together, you can also model learning behavior (“This language is new to me, and I may make mistakes and not get it right the first time, but I will keep trying.” or “Yikes it can be frustrating not to get it right away, and it’s ok to be frustrated, and it’s also ok to keep trying. Let’s learn this together!”) Dinolingo is a good app for 3-14 year olds to learn Spanish.

  • Strong swimmer: Summer activities may involve pools and water, and parents want to know that their children are safe with you. If you don’t know how to swim, but you are willing to learn, this is a great skill to have. 

  • Activity planning: Many parents want to have enrichment activities for their children during the day but may not have the time or resources to plan these out. There are a number of free and paid resources available to help you plan out your day and your week. Here are some of our favorites:

    • Busy Toddler: This is a wonderful resource for planning activities for kids of ALL ages. You can use her free resources or purchase the Playing Preschool Homeschool Resource for a school-year full of fun and engaging activities

    • Pinterest: There is no end to the inspiration that you can find on pinterest for crafts, messy and sensory play, and other themed learning activities.

    • Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds: A school-year worth of themed activities for 2 and 3 year olds. You can modify activities to suit younger kids too. 

  • Traveling with your nanny family: Many families take trips throughout the year with their children and would love the opportunity to bring a trusted caregiver with them. If your home life allows for travel with your nanny family, this can add value to your services and bring in additional income. 

  • Overnight care: If your home life allows it, you can offer overnight care for your nanny family. 

  • Night nannying for newborns / sleep consultation: 

    • Newborn Night Nannying: Families will pay a premium for sleep in the early postpartum weeks. If you have extensive experience with infants, this could be a way for you to earn extra income. 

    • Sleep Consultant: You can learn how to implement sleep routines from a number of websites (we like Taking Cara Babies) and offer sleep consultation after you’ve had a chance to put your knowledge into practice.

  • Household management: This is a great way to provide value to your nanny family if you’re working with older children who are in school part- or full-time. Typical household management duties include:

    • Managing family schedules

    • Shopping for groceries, children’s clothing

    • Preparing meals

    • Pet care

    • Laundry

    • Managing some of the family’s budgeting / finances

    • Light housekeeping

    • Vehicle maintenance

    • Running errands

    • Managing other household employees

Before offering household management services, take an honest look at the time you will have available outside of providing childcare to determine whether you can commit the additional duties.

  • Home organization: If you pride yourself on being able to organize closets, pantries, drawers and other areas where clutter tends to accumulate, you can offer home organization services on a project-by-project basis or as a part of your weekly routine. Like household management, make sure you truly feel that you have the time to commit to these projects during your regular hours OR offer to do these projects outside of your regular caregiving schedule.

  • House cleaning services: If you’re open to keeping the house tidy, whether that’s light housekeeping or deep cleaning once a week, you can increase your income and your value to your nanny family. 

  • Animal care: You can offer animal care during your regular schedule or offer to pet-sit when your nanny family is out of town.

We hope this article has been helpful in giving you some ideas to either start your nannying career or increase your value and career longevity.

Karen K.
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