I'm crushed, because we lost another nanny

We've had a really hard time keeping a good nanny. When I tell friends my nanny stories, they say we've had really bad luck.

Our previous nanny seemed great on paper and had wonderful references, but she hadn't worked as a nanny in a year and a half. And in that time, she worked in corporate America and probably developed a drug problem. She came to work all spacey and with dilated eyes. Sometimes she couldn't follow simple directions. C said he thought he smelled weed on her a couple times. The final straw was when she fell asleep in the middle of the floor while my daughter literally jumped next to her and exclaimed "I'm a kangaroo!".

The nanny before that was a NICU nurse from Guatemala. She spoke very poor English, but had glowing references. I was apprehensive, but willing to work with her. Then a couple mornings after she started, C failed to turn off the stove properly and it leaked gas. After a few hours, the downstairs filled with gas and reeked of sulphur. Somehow the nanny failed to notice and when I tried to explain what happened, she didn't understand.

Finally we found a wonderful nanny about two months ago. Now she's leaving, because she wants to clean houses instead. She says she's quitting all her nanny jobs. Cleaning houses pays more money than we can possibly pay her. We pay $15 an hour. And she needs more money.

I'd just crawled out of my well of sadness and now I find myself getting sucked back in. I start to feel hopeless that we'll find a good nanny who'll stay with us.

My daughter's a sweet, affectionate, talkative and outgoing 3 year old, and it's relatively easy for me to find babysitters, nannies, friends to look after her. She literally runs around a lot and likes to go for walks, so she needs someone with a bit of energy.

It's Little T who's more challenging to find a nanny for. As I've written many times before, he smiles and laughs a lot. I also wrote how he won't eat. He also has reflux and his arm hurts sometimes, and then cries. Some people we interviewed were clearly put off by his medical issues. Now his feeding tube provides an easy visual cue that he's not your typical baby, and makes it easy to weed out people. However what I haven't written is that he's functionally a 4 month old. He can barely roll over, so he still likes to be held a lot. He's also slow to warm. He's been handled a lot by various doctors and nurses and he has separation anxiety. Therefore he cries a lot for anyone who looks after him the first few times. He cried for the first 4 times with our current nanny. Then he started smiling at her and now he's pretty content with her.

So Little T needs someone with a lot of patience, usually found in an older person, while Special K needs someone with more energy, usually found in a younger person. So it's a challenge to find someone to look after both of them. I need that break a nanny provides. I don't know how I would have coped without a nanny when my hormones crashed after Little T abruptly stopped breastfeeding. I'm not sure how I'll cope now. I'll manage somehow. I just hope the universe will see fit to give us a good nanny who stays. Goodness knows that my human efforts have failed so far and I've tried my best. I'd really appreciate any good nanny vibes you can send my way.