Oic. Guess a maid is best solution in this case if you need someone else to take care of bb at night time. But a lot of time, most of them do not have infant care experience. Think transfer maid may have higher chances to have experience. If you had not given birth, get in the maid earlier so once your CL is in, she can help to guide the maid on taking care of the bb too.
we're in a similar situation so decided to hire a transfer maid; found one from Myanmar, she has cared for an infant of her ex-employer. we don't mind hiring her about 2 months earlier, that:
* we could know what she can/cannot do, and train her accordingly (e.g. cooking Chinese dishes)
* she could get to know the family (including in-laws) and our "systems".
* confinement lady could guide her during the 4 weeks (like lingyou suggested).
for us, infant care is last resort, especially after hearing from my friend that his boy contracted HFMD many times while at such centres. we also think that the babies to caregivers ratio is too much, it's not just the facilities.
yes, there will be another set of risks associated with maids but guess we'll have to manage it to our best. our strategy is to establish a family type relationship, keep her physically/emotionally healthy, and motivate her with her primary desire (earn monies to improve her family's lives back home). we promised that if she took good care of us, we'll take good care of her needs; mid & year-end bonuses (just like we get bonuses for our employment).
hopefully, our kindness gets reciprocated with kindness and the plan works out well ^_^
after confinement period, caring for our boy will be on all 3 of us. yes, husband must also help to change diapers and do what knot, not just play with baby.
after maternity leave (workdays), plan is to bring our boy and maid to parent's place every morning, fetch them back in the evening. mother will help keep an eye on them both during the day. tedious and somewhat costly cos we'll have to upkeep another set of baby stuffs at parent's place (bed, toiletries, clothes, diapers, etc etc).
just sharing our plans ^_^