Sitting Made Simple

If I could give Sitting Made Simple zero stars, I would. The owner of the company is a snobby, uptight, horrible woman. I don’t suggest trying to work for her. I have been a nanny for fifteen years, When I sought her help to see if she could place me with a family, She said she could. During my interview with her, She kept checking her phone and talked to me in a very rude, condescending tone. I walked out, To be treated so disrespectfully is completely unacceptable. I have never met anyone so full of themselves until I met her. She thinks she’s Carrie Bradshaw. I have had better luck finding a job on nanny sites than I ever would with the help of this VERY unprofessional woman.
My advice, Stay away.

My kids have always been happy and safe. They have liked all their sitters. The business is very professional, and I greatly appreciate the background check that all sitters undergo.

With no family in Ohio and two very young children, this company was my life saver. At first I worked around the house with the sitter unsure of the quality of person I would be getting. I soon realized these individuals have been heavily vetted and are pure professionals. They wash their hands when they come in the house and even sweep my floor after dinner! My kids look forward to the craft bags the sitters carry –genius! Most of the sitters are OSU students but in order to work for the service they have strict requirements such as always being on time. My kids are now 5 and 6 and I don’t know what I would do without this service. Anytime we need a night out or a last minute sitter we just go on and book in 2 minutes. The only thing I dislike is it is hard to find a sitter more than once if they are good because they are in high demand but if you book many appointments at once or consistently you can get the same sitter. I feel good about paying responsible college kids who really need the money for great care. Easy Peasy!

We have recently been in search of additional options for sitting our children. We have a good regular sitter, but it’s nice to have a backup plan when she is not available. I think it’s fair that we are picky when it comes to who watches our children– they are the most important people in our world!
So we signed up for the service, which in my opinion is worth the fee considering the abundance of available sitters they have on their roster– it’s nice to have a sure thing. However, the one benefit you won’t have here is that you will not get to meet the sitter ahead of time. Being that we’re picky with our sitters, that was hard to get over, but understandable. When you book your «appointment», you can view profiles (which are very detailed and helpful!) to request a sitter. I wish you were able to select an alternate, because there were several great-​sounding sitters, but it only lets you select one. If she declines the job, Sitting Made Simple picks one for you. I’d like the option to request a few sitters that we like (I assume as we keep using the service that we’ll come across a few that we like).
Also, we live out in Johnstown OH, which they do provide service for, but there is a $ 10 additional mileage fee we have to pay the sitter. That’s understandable since we’re outside the city, but it would have been nice to know that before we signed up for the service.
Onto the good stuff: Booking the appointment online, looking through the profiles to make our sitter selection, and receiving communication by email that our appointment was confirmed– all a very good experience. We weren’t sure what to expect when our sitter showed up, except what we read on her profile.
We were VERY impressed by our sitter. Not one single complaint here. She was very friendly, made a good first impression, and was very personable, yet professional at the same time. Our kids warmed up to her immediately and it made it very easy to walk out the door for a few hours, leaving our children with someone we had never met. This made me think that they must have a great screening process in order to secure such great sitters!
I really enjoyed the notes that the sitter left us at the end of the night– Sitting Made Simple provides a form for them to fill out. Our sitter gave us a full verbal report, it sounds like they had an excellent time, and the notes were helpful!
We will use this service again. We’d love to have the same sitter come back again, but I am now confident that there are probably several great sitters available. Hopefully we get just as lucky next time!

Our experiences with Amanda and her service were initially very good. We had great experiences with several of her babysitters. When it came time for us to look for a new nanny, we went with Amanda’s service. As opposed to other nanny services and websites, Amanda assesses your needs and suggests a nanny based on which of her nannies may be the best fit. The kicker is you only get to interview a single nanny at a time rather than several over a few days. If you are a dual income family with young kids, this can be a bit of an issue because you can’t be without a nanny for very long or you don’t want a long, drawn out process to set up your child care. Thus, you’re inclined (and encouraged) to hire the first candidate you meet.
We agreed to hire one of her nanny candidates. Initially things were fine, but it quickly became obvious that the nanny was not a good fit for our family. Should this happen to you, be aware that you (the customer) are not correct. Amanda will side with her staff regardless of where the fault lies. We were informed that her service would not be able to find another nanny for us and that her babysitters had complained about our kids’ behavior (not true, we saved all the notes the Sitting Made Simple babysitters left for us and the sitters always enjoyed our kids). Well, $ 1700 down the drain, I guess.
So it can be a solid service, just remember that with Sitting Made Simple the customer is not always right, you’re playing by the owner’s rules and she may decide she no longer wants your business.

I have worked with this company for 4 years now. I have never had a problem. Amanda has high expectations for her sitters and you see that when her sitters walk in the door. I have never had a bad experience and recommend them often!!!