Should Nannies and Tutors Give Families Their Personal Number?

You do not have to give families your personal number, and the big platforms say not to share contact details until you are ready. Give every family and client one lasting work number on the phone you already carry, answer it like a normal call while you are on duty, and keep your personal number for friends, family and your own accounts.

If you sit for three families, tutor four kids and clean two houses on Fridays, you are one person with a lot of households in your phone. Every one of them needs to reach you. None of them needs the number your bank, your mom and your doctor use. A work phone number for nannies and tutors (and sitters and cleaners) fixes that without a second handset.

Families get your work number. Your personal one stays yours. (326 555 0138 is a fictional number.)

The short version

Keep contact details private until you are ready, then share one work number that lasts.

• Platforms tell you to wait. Care.com, Wyzant and the International Nanny Association all say hold back your contact details at first.
• Your personal number spreads. It moves from one family to referrals and parent group chats, and it is hard to take back.
• Give one work number instead, on the same phone you already carry.
• On duty, it must ring like a normal call, because a family with their kids in your care has to reach you fast.
• Pick a number you keep for years. Families book you again next summer and pass your number to friends.

Why shouldn't families have your personal number?

Because once a family has it, it is out of your hands. A personal number collects years of your life, and work contact on top of it never really stops.

Here is what tends to happen:

• Texts on your days off. A parent asks about next week's schedule on Sunday night, on the same phone you use for your own family.
• Past families never leave. Months after a job ends, an old client still texts you, because the number is the same one you use for everything.
• Parent group chats. One family shares your number with the school or neighborhood chat, and now people you have never met have it.
• Your accounts. Your personal number is tied to your bank, email and sign in codes. It is not the number to put on a flyer.

Switching later is the hard part. Every family, referral and parent chat that has your personal number would need the new one, so it is far easier to start with a work number than to move everyone over later.

Work number for families and clients. Personal number for your own life. (326 555 0138 is a fictional number.)

What do Care.com and Wyzant say about sharing your number?

Both say keep contact details on the platform until you are ready, and neither requires you to share a number at all. When you do share, that is the moment to hand over a work number.

Care.com

Care.com's safety guide for professional caregivers says: "Use Care.com's messaging system to get to know potential employers, and don't share your contact info before you're ready." Its caregiver profile guidelines do not allow telephone numbers, email addresses or last names in a profile. And its guide to video interviews says the calls run through Care.com messaging without using your phone number or the family's.

Wyzant

Wyzant's help page on when tutors can share a phone number says you may share it with a student "once they have added a valid form of payment information to their Wyzant account." Even then, it suggests keeping lesson confirmations "within Wyzant Messaging" in case of a fee dispute. Its tutoring safety tips add: "At no point are tutors required to exchange personal contact information."

Other platforms

The International Nanny Association's recommended practices for nannies say nannies should "not give personal contact information to the family until after the Nanny has completed initial conversations with them within the internal company messaging system." Learn To Be, a US nonprofit tutoring platform, goes further. Its student policies say its system "allows texting between students and tutors through a private number, but no personal information is shared."

The takeaway: the platforms themselves avoid personal numbers. When it is time to share, share a work number.

What the platforms say, in one line each. When it is time to share, share a work number.

Which number should each person get?

Anyone who pays you, books you or refers you gets the work number. Anyone in your own life gets the personal one.

Work number: - Families you sit for or nanny for - Tutoring parents - Cleaning clients - Referrals from current families - Your profiles and flyers, where the platform allows a number, plus business cards

Personal number: - Friends and family - Your bank - Your own accounts and sign in codes

If you work through a platform, follow its rules first. A work number does not change when you can share it. It changes what you share.

Should a tutor text the student or the parent?

For students under 18, text the parent, and keep the parent on any thread. Follow the platform's own rules on minors.

Wyzant's safety tips say "An adult should always be present for tutoring lessons if the student is under the age of eighteen," and the same thinking works for messages. Send schedule changes, homework notes and running late texts to the parent's phone from your work number. For adult students, text them directly. If a platform has stricter rules for your situation, those win.

What if a family needs you urgently while you are on duty?

Then they must be able to reach you right away. While you have someone's kids or house keys, the work number has to ring like a normal call, and you answer it.

Care.com's article on emergency contact lists for babysitters and nannies says caregivers should give the family their phone numbers, plus a backup babysitter the family can contact if the caregiver is unexpectedly unavailable. Put your work number on that list. Then agree with each family what counts as urgent: a sick child or a locked door, yes; next month's schedule, no.

Off duty is different. Quiet time comes from your phone's own settings: Focus on iPhone or Do Not Disturb on Android. Set them for your off hours, tell each family your hours in writing, and reply to non urgent texts when you are back on.

How do you set up a work phone number on the phone you already have?

Add a second number app, pick a local number, label it Work, and share it. Here is how it works with Inovo Second Number.

1. Download Inovo Second Number on iPhone or Android, from the App Store or Google Play. Sign in with the option shown in the app.
2. Pick a US or Canada number in a local area code families recognize.
3. Verify your phone and label the line Work. Verification is one SMS and one tap, and each line gets its own label.
4. Give it to each family, and put it on your profiles and flyers where the platform allows.

You call and text families person to person from the app, up to 20 outbound texts a day. It is one person's own line, not an agency system, booking tool or group texting service. Wondering whether these apps are above board? See are second phone number apps legal and safe. Prices: see in app.

For more on how the setup works, see how to get a second phone number without a SIM, or our general guide to a second business number on one phone. Working in Canada? Read how to get a Canadian business number on your cell.

Why does a lasting work number matter?

Because families save your number, book you again next summer and pass it to friends. If the number disappears, that chain breaks.

Free numbers can be taken back when they sit idle. Google's help page on reclaiming a Voice number says Google Voice reclaims your number if you have no activity, and you then have 45 days to get it back. TextNow's article on recycled numbers says there is no fixed rule for how long a free number can stay inactive, and a released number cannot be restored. That is fine for casual use. It is risky for a number that sits on every family's emergency list.

With Inovo Second Number, the FAQ is clear. Numbers are tied to active accounts. If a number expires due to inactivity, it is released and cannot be recovered, so keep your account active. If you stop the work, you can release a line when you are done with it. For an app by app look, see our comparison of Inovo, Hushed, TextNow and Google Voice. Short-term rental hosts face the same problem with guests; see how Airbnb hosts keep guests off their personal number.

A number that disappears loses families. A number you keep stays on every family's emergency list, and referrals still reach you.

FAQ

Should a nanny give parents her personal phone number?

You do not have to. Parents need a number that rings while you are on duty, and a separate work number does that while keeping your personal number for your own life.

Is it safe to give my number to families on Care.com?

Care.com says to use its messaging system first and not share your contact info before you are ready. When you are ready, sharing a work number instead of your personal one limits how far it spreads.

When can tutors share their phone number on Wyzant?

Wyzant says tutors may share a phone number once the student has added a valid form of payment information to their Wyzant account. It suggests keeping lesson confirmations in Wyzant Messaging, and says tutors are never required to exchange personal contact information.

Should a tutor text the student or the parent?

For students under 18, text the parent and keep the parent on the thread. Follow the platform's rules on minors; Wyzant, for example, says an adult should always be present for lessons with students under 18.

Do I need a second phone for babysitting or tutoring work?

No. A second number app adds a work number to the phone you already carry, so you have one device and two numbers.

How do I stop families texting me on my days off?

Tell each family your hours, agree what counts as urgent, and use your phone's own Focus on iPhone or Do Not Disturb on Android during your off hours. Reply to non urgent texts when you are back on.

Will families see that I am using a second number app?

They see a real, dialable number issued by a regulated carrier. They call and text it from their own phones like any other number.

Does Inovo Second Number work on iPhone and Android, and can I get a Canadian number?

Yes to both. Inovo Second Number is on iPhone and Android, and you can pick a US or Canadian number. It receives verification codes from most services, not all; if a site rejects it, see why a website won't accept a VoIP number. Numbers are tied to active accounts. If a number expires due to inactivity, it is released and cannot be recovered, so keep your account active.

Keep families on your work number

Your personal number belongs to your own life. Inovo Second Number gives you a lasting US or Canadian work line on iPhone and Android, for calls and texts with the families and clients you work for. Prices: see in app.