Sweet Peas Agency

If I could give 100 stars, I would. We hired Stacy & her agency to set up a «kids zone» at our wedding and they did a spectacular job. We continue to get compliments from all the parents that they were so glad their kids were having so much fun. All the sitters were excellent. Stacy made it all so seamless, Sweet Peas was probably the easiest and best vendor to work with during wedding planning (and that says a lot). Totally hassle free, showed up on time, brought a ton of activities and executed flawlessly. I googled Sweet Peas and contacted them randomly. They were half the price of everyone else and just so incredibly nice. First I thought everything was so easy that it was too good to be true and that we’d end up having problems on the day of our wedding — but that was not the case. They were flawless. Thank you Stacy.

When I had my twins I knew I needed to find a nanny but research and paperwork is not my strong point. I liked that sweet peas was a small local agency. I called and left a message and Stacie called me right back. She came to my house, snuggled my twins and carefully went over what I was looking for.
I had thought I needed a live in nanny but didn’t really want someone to live in. This is because of my ridiculous schedule so I needed someone with extreme flexibility who was willing to do overnights. Random weekends and was committed to always being on time.
I loved the first nanny Stacie sent but went on to interview a few more just in case. I ended up hiring the first woman I interviewed and she has been everything I could have hoped for. Any even minor issues that have come up Stacie has been an excellent resource and sounding board both for me and the nanny.
I’d highly recommend her and her company to anyone (and I have)

This agency is not a bad staffing agency. It is a _​dangerous_​one. They tried for a couple of months to place a full time nanny with us for our newborn daughter. It became clear to me quickly that their background checks were not as thorough as I could pay for myself on the Internet.
We ended up picking the best of a bad bunch. Why am I so down on them? We asked for apolitical, fun-​loving, child-​loving, people who are prepared to become part of our family for a few years. We wanted someone who would love and cherish our daughter. We got people who either lectured us and had lots of requirements or, in the case of the person we ended up hiring, would just have the child crying for 10 minutes and then give up and hand our daughter back to us saying, «you are better than I am.» Those were our options: wet noodles or disciplinarians. How does either fit our profile?
In short, use them for a short term engagement I guess as other reviewers have. For short term needs, anyone who will not hurt your child might be sufficient. For full time placement, however, they will provide bad people who have minimal experience with kids and they will coach those people to ask for high salary to increase staffing commission on the placement. Long term staffing is not something Sweet Peas should be doing.
Not interested in the parents or the children; just their own reputation and $.

Having our first baby was something my partner and I have looked forward for years! Once the time came we knew that we needed to find help since we both work full-​time jobs that do not offer much flexibility.
We looked on our own using Craigslist and mommy-​social networks and had no luck at all! We decided to look into nanny agencies. We tried two with disappointing results. Their prices were exasperating and they didn’t seem to consider or apply any of our personal preferences when choosing who to send to us.
We are not overly protective or particular but we feel having someone who genuinely loves children and can also embrace some our same values is essential in our childs formative years.
Thank our lucky stars we found Sweet Peas Agency. Our assigned agent was Staci. She is an absolute doll and so easy to communicate with. She listened and was attentive to our requests and sent nannies with plenty of infant experience that had been carefully screened and chosen to fit our needs. We met with 10 nannies, narrowed it down to 3 and found our perfect match after spending time with the final 3 gals. It was a tough choice since they were all so wonderful!
We are young and hard working parents who expected a lot from our agency-​with Sweetpeas we were not disappointed. Bonus-​we were able to split the fee into three payments. Thanks Sweet Peas.

I have been a career nanny in the bay area for the last two years, and have been working with children for twenty years. On the journey to finding the right family to work with, I applied with several nanny agencies, including several in San Francisco. Based on these experiences, I found Sweet Peas Agency to be the most personable and responsive. Some bay area agencies are very large and bustling and I had to play a fair amount of phone tag! Not so with Sweet Peas Agency. I always felt like I could reach one of their staff via phone, text, or email and always got a reply within a few hours. This is important when you are making sure that it is the right fit for both nanny and family, and contributes to an efficient and satisfying job-​hiring process. And who doesn’t want that, family or nanny?!
I always found Stacy (the agent that I worked with) to be very warm and personable, as well as professional and reliable. And judging by the reviews, it is clear that others feel the same way. The abundance of five star ratings is a reflection of the kind of service you get from a gem of an agency. Good luck in your search :).

I am sure there are clients pleased with Sweet Peas. Perhaps I am the only one with this experience engaging them for a permanent nanny, but I wish I had known the caveats of working with them. I went in with complete trust, and I should not have done so. If I knew then what I know now, I would have made a different decision based on my own needs, and avoided four weeks of pain.
Full disclosure: I was a recruiter in high tech for 15 years. I have a good degree of familiarity with managing hiring processes, and client/​hiring manager and candidate expectations. I have worked at both an agency and in-​house, and understand why clients pay a premium for placement/​search. I’m also very aware of industry standards with regard to billing for recruiting services.
This is an abridged review. The unabridged review is at
Caveats about Sweet Peas/​my review:
1) Read the contract very carefully. There are some unorthodox terms in there, like how they want payment before nanny start date. They said «all nanny agencies do this, and many agencies get cheated,» so they protect themselves & only themselves.
2) They are verrrry aggressive about collecting payment. I personally didn’t appreciate being treated like a criminal. They drove by to pick up the $ 200 deposit check, which I just shrugged off as enthusiasm to start the search. But then when the full payment was due, they said it was immediately due & volunteered to drive by to pick up the final payment check (this was 7 days after being invoiced, and before the nanny started work). Eventually, I was told the payment wasn’t due for another week. This is very different from other reviewers who said Sweet Peas worked out a payment plan. BTW, I didn’t need, or ask them for a payment plan, I was going to pay them in full. I did pay them in full. On time. And was still harassed.
4) When I called them to discuss lack of client management, their response was, «You know you can pick up the phone and call us anytime.» I told them that that was their job to make sure I was okay, especially when they make mistakes (like a drunk nanny candidate), but they shrugged it off.
5) They said they are not in the business of taking care of my needs. They said they just provide candidates and it’s my job to figure the rest out. Why am I paying a premium for this service? Aren’t they supposed to be guiding me as subject area experts?
6) At one point towards the end of our relationship, they actually emailed me, «We merely place. If you need advice, that’s not what we do. We are here for questions or guidance once you hire your nanny, but our primary [sic] is a nanny placement agency. We provide you with qualified candidates and once you make a decision to hire one of them the rest is up to you.» They merely place. I also discovered they barely prescreen.
7) They provided me with 3 candidates: 1 didn’t meet our criteria. The 2^nd one showed up DRUNK, & we hired the 3^rd after being shocked by the DRUNK candidate.
8) There was no followup on the drunk candidate. Just an email that said, «What an unusual situation? We promise the next one is sober.»
9) We ended up not happy with the hired nanny, either. She ended up not able to take care of our baby, and kept handing me back my baby because she didn’t know what to do to soothe her. My child is not difficult. This was a major fail in Sweet Peas prescreening. I thought they’d done some prescreening in our interest.
I should have just done the search all on my own & sifted through the BPN network. Instead of paying SP thousands of dollars. I didn’t even call them for a replacement. They only want 2 make money. Off you.

I have been using the babysitters from this great agency for over a year and they have all been amazing. Extremely professional, flexible, friendly, great at taking their own initiative and having fun with my kids. What can I say, my kids look forward to the night’s my husband and I go out cause they have such a blast! Stacy has been there for us from day 1 to find the right person to look after our kids, many times at short notice. She is an incredibly caring and empathic person, we feel lucky to have her in our lives!

Sweet Peas is the agency to call if you have high standards for finding the right nanny for your household. It is obvious that Stacy cares deeply in finding the perfect fit for each family. We had an immediate need to find a part time/​long term nanny and within days of our call she had combed through her resources and came up with 3 or 4 nannies that fit our requirements for potential interviews. She is as helpful with the interview process as you need her to be and is very responsive in answering all questions and concerns. We now have a lovely nanny that our son adores. I highly recommend Sweet Peas/​Stacy Wilkinson for a very professional yet caring experience in finding great childcare.

Sweet Peas Agency really came through for us! Our daughter is 6 months old and had been cared for by her grandparents once I went back to work. They needed a vacation so we needed a short-​term nanny. I was working with another agency and thought we had it under control, but as the dates got closer, it was clear that the other agency didn’t have someone they felt comfortable sending. In a panic at 9:30 on a Friday night, I called Sweet Peas Agency. Stacy answered the phone! She was meeting with us at 10:00 on Saturday morning, and by Sunday we were interviewing our first candidate (whom we hired!)
Stacy put us at east through the entire process… not an easy task! Our daughter had heart surgery at 2 months old, and requires a feeding tube since she doesn’t yet eat. We expected to have a very difficult time finding someone we were comfortable with. But the nanny we worked with was up to the task, quickly mastering the tube-​feeding routine and understanding the importance of attempted oral feedings. I was thrilled with both the nanny and the agency, and highly recommend Sweet Peas!

I am one of the nannies working with Sweet Peas, and I’ve been placed on temp work with some great families. They do an incredible job screening both families& nannies for a perfect match. I encourage families to take the guess work out of finding a nanny on craigslist& call today!

Stacy Wilkinson at Sweet Peas Agency came to my rescue when I needed a short-​term nanny placement with almost no notice and a rather mediocre budget. I called on a Thursday, met Stacy the next day, interviewed one very qualified candidate that evening and a second very qualified candidate on Saturday morning. By Monday morning, I had a fantastic nanny helping me with my two kids.
The five-​week time period that I needed help might have stymied another agency, but Stacy was absolutely calm and professional about finding me someone to help out while my husband was out of town. The process was easy, and she even let me work out a payment plan.
Stacy checked in with me after the nanny placement began and stopped by a few weeks later to follow up. She knows how to be hands-​on as well as professional – a sometimes challenging balancing act. Her experience as a nanny is invaluable to the process of screening candidates and also screening clients.
During one of the nanny interviews – which she attended personally – she very quickly figured out how to distract my rambunctious 3-​year-​old while letting me observe the nanny interacting with my semi-​fussy infant. At one point, the nanny called in sick, and Stacy offered to step in personally to help me out that day. Now that’s dedication to client satisfaction.
I am very happy to recommend Stacy and the Sweet Peas Agency to any family needing quality childcare assistance. (And P. S., she accepts PayPal, a major plus in my book!)