That being said, if you find that you are really at odds with your caregiver, be brave and say enough is enough! I have struggled and struggled with this situation recently. We let little things go, then little things became bigger things, and we kept giving this caregiver chance after chance. After a while, we felt we were on her every day, and I think she felt that we were too. It slowely turned into a vicious cycle. The more we were on her, the more she did her own thing and did not care. I had talked to so many other women who LOVED their nannies. I was getting frustrated! Why did I not LOVE mine? We recently made the tough decision to let her go. IT WAS SO HARD! This person was with our daughter since she was 6 months old. Carla, being intuitive, felt something was amiss as she left and sobbed as  our Nanny left the house. When my husband shared that info with me, pangs of guilt hit my heart. I felt terrible. Than I thought to myself, you kow what? Carla is two and she doesn't know what's best for her. We do. Thats our job. We put off this decision because we were so worried with how Carla would react to someone new.  But in the end, it is our responsibility to give Carla proper care. And we needed to make the tough decision.

In hindsight, we made major mistakes with our last situation As we tried to find a new nanny, I realized some good tips I wish to share with you.

• Interview, Interview, Interview! There are great resources on the web that you can download questionaires to help the process. Look at a lot of people. Don't just go with your first candidate. I think our friends and I looked at almost 10 candidates through a reasonable nanny agency this last go around (We nanny share) and it was amazing the range of people and skills we saw. Also take time to make  a list of questions of your own. Think about what is important to you in child rearing and make sure you touch on those subjects.

• Observe your child as your caregiver comes and goes. Is your child scared when she comes and glad when she goes? Or is it the opposite? Does your child have any new habits? Does your child exhibit odd behavior? For example, Does she walk around and giggle while pretending to be on the phone. This might suggest your nanny is on the phone a lot. Children are sponges and will mimic their environment.

• Trust your instincts. Also observe your child when you are home. Its amazing what little things can tell you about what goes on during the day. Carla suddenly started to swagger around our living room with a play cell phone and pretend to talk and laugh with someone on the phone when she was around 13-14 months old. All kids pretend to talk on the phone, but it was the way she was doing it. She walked around with this slight swagger and raised hip! I thought to myself, I wonder if she picked that up from our caregiver? Sure enough, weeks later my husband made the observation that our caregiver was on the phone way too much and not interacting with the kids. My instincts were telling me that same thing a few weeks before, but I said nothing.

• Make surprise stops when you are not expected. Do a drop off late or do a pick up early. You can get a sense of what goes on when you are not there. Also, swing by the park when you have a chance during the day and observe from afar your caregivers interaction. Is she actively with your child, watching them and staying close to avoid injury? Is she sitting on a bench chatting with other nannies while your child is running willy-nilly. I can tell you that my friend went to our park with our caregiver one day and was shocked with the coffee clutch that formed at our park. Some children were even running out of that park down the sidewalk out of view and these nannies were oblivious. They looked like they had been there all morning and were still there when my friend left. They never got up once to check on the kids. Some toddlers were strapped into strollers the whole time when they should have been running around. One child was almost two and still wasn't walking! Where are these parents? If my child was almost two and still not walking, I would make sure the nanny was getting him out and about so he could practice...not strapped in the stroller for hours at the park.

• Have your caregiver give you a rundown of what happened during the day. Most good nannies should do this anyway. If your nanny has trouble remembering verbally, keep a notebook there for her. This helps keep communication open and alerts you to behavior problems or inconsistencies.

• Be VERY aware of inconsistencies. What I mean is if you get one story from your nanny but later in the day you notice something that contradicts what the nanny told you...thats a huge red flag! Bring it up when you see her next and ask what the deal is. Pay attention to her story and make sure it makes sense. Be very aware if this continues. Little white lies turn into bigger ones. Gradually you start feeling like you really can't trust anything your caregiver says to you and it turns into that apathetic situation I was talking about earlier. TRUST is the most important aspect of the caregiver relationship (these are your children we're talking about). If you don't have that, I suggest you end it sooner than later. I learned that the hard way.

• Be aware that you may need to switch caregivers as your child gets older and changes. Some caregivers are great with babies but can't keep up with toddlers. Some are great with toddlers but can't handle pre-teens. Children need different things at different times, Make sure the caregiver is growing with the child. If its not working out, don't be afraid to end it.