Two years ago, Jerry and Susan Milwit needed a reliable caregiver for their daughter-to-be.

They also wanted to own their own company.

Now, they have a nearly-2-year-old Molly and a nanny. Not only do they have a nanny, they have a fledgling nanny referral business.

Newborn venture
Launched in 2002, Metropolitan Nannies was created by the telecom- and sales-trained couple who decided to make a change when Susan Milwit got pregnant.

She planned to go back to work after the baby was born. The couple began searching for a nanny … and searching and searching.

“I started asking around to people I knew; no one could give us the go-to agency,” Susan says. “I really wanted a referral. People would say, ‘This one was OK; this one was pretty good.'”

They ended up using an area agency they won’t name, saying they provided adequate service.

“I wasn’t overly impressed,” she recalls. “I remember thinking we could do much better.”

And so, the research began. A business plan began to take form. Conversations were held with out-of-area nanny referral businesses. The child-care woes of friends and friends of friends was noted.

“Everyone we know is having babies,” Susan says. “Everyone they know is having babies. We had so many people coming to us saying, ‘How did you find your nanny? How do you get a nanny?’

“It was all starting to hit home.”

‘Horror stories’
Pat Cascio, president of the International Nanny Association, says that’s how it started for her.

She had three children and decided to return to work when she got pregnant a fourth time. That child was two when she went hunting for a nanny.

“I had seven nannies in my house the first year,” she says. “I found nannies with drug paraphernalia. I had a nanny that drank a bottle of Jack Daniels in four days. Horror stories. Absolute horror stories.”

A 19-year veteran of the nanny referral business, her current company, Morningside Nannies, has been in Houston since 1992. When she started in the business in 1984, she was one of the few nanny referral firms in the area. Now, she estimates that number at 10.

“Today, there are lots of organizations and how-to books and experts; it’s a lot more sophisticated now than in 1984,” Cascio says.

The industry has grown rapidly the last few years, as birth rates climb and the desire for in-home care increases.

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In fact, the International Nanny Association (http://www.nanny.org) has created an accreditation test for nannies. Four years in development, the exam assesses skills and knowledge in child care.

“We haven’t looked back once,” Jerry says of the new venture. “We’ve never worked harder and never been happier.”

Metropolitan Nannies offers full-time nannies, part-time nannies and other services, such as babysitting or help for when a child suddenly gets sick.

Parents seeking a permanent nanny fill out a $150 application fee. Metropolitan Nannies gets a percentage (typically, 10 percent) of the first year of the nanny’s annual gross salary as a finder’s fee. The nanny and the family negotiate the salary, which generally amounts to $400 to $600 a week, depending on experience and responsibilities.

“If, for whatever reason, the nanny leaves or doesn’t work out within three months, we replace the nanny for free,” Jerry says.

The Milwits leaned heavily on their sales experience while setting up the company. Getting the word out and getting the company up and running has proven to be a labor-intensive process.

Susan is still working full-time as a global account manager for Cable & Wireless, where she and Jerry met seven years ago. She plans to eventually join her husband in running Metropolitan Nannies. Jerry spent five years with C&W, but most recently left a sales job with Blue Ridge Networks, a security technology company in Chantilly.

They set up an office in the basement of their Reston home and opened one in Reston Town Center. They began to build up their nanny pool and started a Web site, http://www.metronannies.com.

Susan speaks to new moms’ groups. The company advertises in the yellow pages and in local parenting magazines. Jerry attends a slew of networking events � breakfasts, chamber meetings and cocktail hours. He meets with real estate agents, and is doing direct mail campaigns with physician’s offices and law firms.

“I’m starting to get recognized as ‘the nanny guy,'” he says with a laugh. “It’s rare and it’s great for marketing.

“As a new company with strong goals, we can’t afford not to dot the i’s and cross the t’s on everything,” Jerry says. “From a level of service perspective, our follow-up is second to none. A referral from customers is priceless at this point.”

Fertile market
A steady birth rate coupled with population growth generate a never-ending demand for reliable, home-based child care in the region. In Virginia alone, there were nearly 99,000 new births in the year 2000, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

This booming demand helped the Milwits reach their six-month goals in their first two months in business. They’ve made enough money to cover their startup and monthly expenses. They expect profitability by the end of this year.

They have about 20 parents on the list, and more than 100 available nannies, who have gone through extensive background, health and criminal checks.

The company has a full-time receptionist and contractors who handle the referral services. The paperwork alone is hugely time-consuming, so the Milwits are already in the market for two placement counselors. That will free up time for Jerry to focus on finding more clients. He plans to take their services to corporations.

“We can provide a service that they in turn can provide to their employees,” he says. “It’s a benefit they can offer their employees maybe at a discount and allow them better assurances that employees will be at work.”

The eventual goal: to franchise the company across the country.

“It’s nice to know everything you put into it you’re going to get out of it,” Susan says. “The fruit of your labor are yours and your employees.”

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One Potomac mother of five used to prepare for interviews with prospective nannies like a Hollywood audition. She cleaned her house, made sure the children were quietly coloring and “glamified” the family’s lifestyle, which includes regular trips overseas. She capped off talks with a tour of an au pair suite so deluxe it was mentioned in a glossy home magazine.

This year, the pressure is off. When she recently posted an ad online for a new nanny, she was inundated with responses from qualified candidates and unemployed women seeking a job, any job. She ended up hiring a nanny agency to vet candidates.

A fundamental shift of power has occurred in Washington in recent months, and it has nothing to do with politics. For decades, good nannies were a hot commodity in a town rife with workaholics, where the percentage of working women is higher than the national average. The best nannies had to be snapped up immediately and kept happy with regular raises and other benefits, lest they be poached right off the playground by conniving parents.

In the past six to eight months, though, agencies report a deluge of available nannies as parents losing their jobs or downsizing turn to cheaper child-care options, including staying at home. Neighborhood e-mail lists are bristling with parents posting jobs for their former nannies. (“Dream nanny available immediately!”) Real-life Mary Poppinses who once had their pick of jobs are finding themselves out of work for weeks, or months, at a time.

Parents have more choices, and some are thrilled about it.

“Before, I felt like they were interviewing us. . . . Now, I’ll be in the driver’s seat,” said Lesley Kalan, a consultant from Alexandria who is seeking a nanny for her three children.

Lorna Spencer, co-owner of A Choice Nanny in Columbia, said that her business is down 50 percent in the past year and that the number of out-of-work nannies she is trying to place has doubled. Spencer used to have 10 qualified candidates to send to families; now she has 20 or more.

“We’re finding a lot of parents getting laid off, and they have to let the nannies go,” she said. “We have many nannies desperate for work . . . calling us every day.”

Even in good times, nannies have little job security and work for relatively low wages. A nanny in the Washington area makes about $16 an hour, according to a survey by the International Nanny Association. About 13 percent of nannies across the country reported being unemployed last year, up from 8 percent in 2006, according to association estimates.

Liz Caceres, 34, of Rockville lost her nanny job with a District family earlier this year after the father was laid off, she said. She returned from Christmas vacation and learned that the family wanted to slash her hours to one day a week.

Finding another position was tough, Caceres said. She placed an ad online but did not receive a single call. After a month, however, she was able to network her way to new employment through some babysitting connections.
During boom times, nannies had their pick of positions and handsome benefits, according to Barbara Kline, president of White House Nannies, a placement agency in Bethesda.

“I’ve heard nannies deliberate between a swimming pool and a Lexus, between a month of paid vacation and a trip to Europe with the family,” Kline wrote in “White House Nannies: True Tales from the Other Department of Homeland Security,” her 2005 memoir. “Stock options and signing bonuses were also common nanny lures.”

Most of those perks evaporated as the economy faltered, Kline said.

Nannies and nanny agencies report that the power shift appears to have gone to some parents’ heads. Prospective employers are offering some candidates salaries well below average and pushing them to handle additional tasks such as housecleaning. Some families have tried to deduct “rent” from live-in nannies’ salaries — unheard of before the economic downturn, according to Debra Weiss, director of placement services for Staffing Solutions@Mothers’ Aides in Fairfax Station.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Ali Burket, 28, a government affairs specialist in Alexandria who is giving up her nanny in favor of cheaper day care but is trying to help the nanny find another job. “When we hired our nanny a year ago, the difference was like night and day. The nannies were setting the terms, and it was very much a seller’s market. Now my poor nanny can’t find a job.”

One woman wanted to pay the nanny $300 a week to care for two children and do all the housework. “It’s insulting,” Burket said. “Her attitude was like, ‘You should be happy with what you get because of the economy.’ “

Jaclyn Gobuluk, owner of Metropolitan Nannies in Herndon, said that in the past six months, she has noticed that some parents make clear their preference for a college-educated, American nanny, even if the hire has less child-rearing experience than an immigrant nanny might have. Most do not say it directly, Gobuluk says.

“They want American nannies now. . . . They feel like there are so many choices out there, they’re going to be really picky and that’s the best choice for their children,” Gobuluk said. “I had one client who said, ‘My child doesn’t like anybody with brown hair. Find somebody with blond hair.’ I’m like, ‘Hmm. Your child doesn’t like somebody, or you don’t like somebody, with brown hair?’ We want people to be comfortable, but that’s pushing it.”

When a former employer of nanny Karen Taylor recently posted a job-search note on her behalf on a private school e-mail list, she described Taylor as “the closest person we have ever met to Mary Poppins.”

Taylor, 39, a Fairfax County resident, has 21 years of local experience, makes double the going hourly rate and attended nanny school — graduating from the American Nanny Plan in Claremont, Calif., two decades ago.

But since losing her job seven months ago — the single father who employed her was downsizing — she has had trouble finding another position.

Family and friends have helped her with living expenses, but it is scary, she said, because “I have no safety net.”

“This is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” Taylor said. “We’re all kind of surprised at how long it’s taking” to find work.

Kalan, the mother from Alexandria, describes the luxury of having many candidates to choose from after the birth of son Cooper this spring. She recalls once having to settle for a nanny who did not drive.

Now she expects to hire someone who can not only drive but speak Spanish and English fluently, someone who is good with her newborn and able to engage the two older children.

Kalan’s dream nanny is someone who would be “in our yard blowing bubbles with my 4-year-old, helping them set up the kiddie pool, having tea parties with my daughter and playing school. . . . My list of demands is getting a little longer now,” she said.

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