The lousy confinement nanny you will want to avoid hiring !

happymummy2015

New Member
I am a mother for a 2nd time. The confinement nanny which I had engaged for this time was recommended by my mother-in-law. She said that her niece had used her before in the year 2009.

According to her, the confinement nanny (Mei Zhu) was very good. She was from M’sia. She had experience looking after twin newborns, hence looking after just a single newborn was nothing to her at all. She had over 10 years of experience working as a confinement nanny.

My daughter was borned in Apr 2015, 1 mth before the EDD. However the confinement nanny wasn’t able to come in Apr’15. Hence she asked her sister (Bi Zhu) to come and work for 10 days before Mei Zhu took over.

Description of Bi Zhu: Age : early 50s, Height : +/- 160cm, body: +/- 70kg. Hair: curly/shoulder-length. Got a son staying in sg.

On the 1st day of confinement , Bi Zhu told us that although she has been working as a confinement nanny for a few years mainly in M’sia, she will come to SG only when her Sister (Mei Zhu) can’t make it and she had to stand in for her.

  1. 1st thing Bi Zhu told us was that she was lazy compared to other nanny (which keep myself & hubby puzzled & worried of her Standard of Services)

  2. On the 1st day when she prepared water for my baby to bathe, hubby went to test the water temperature. It was burning hot and she wanted to bathe baby in the water. She argued that she will adjust the water while bathing baby. Hubby immediately scolded her.

  3. When asked her to take temperature of baby using a thermometer, she placed the thermometer under baby’s armpit outside her clothes. She said in m’sia she did it that way for m’sian newborns. After this occasion, hubby asked her to wait for me to prepare the water for baby’s bath.

  4. When my hubby told her to wash the stove and part of the wall tiles directly facing the stove, she simply refused.

  5. When hubby asked her to mop the kitchen’s floor after cooking especially after frying food, she said the floor wasn’t oily and not required to mop.

  6. She told us she wasn’t aware of the agreement between Meizhu and us. She told us that when she was working as a confinement nanny in m’sia, she only had to take care of the newborn and to cook for the wife only. She said any other chores was taken care of by the employers’ maids . She also said she had to sleep by 9 pm every night. How is it possible that every single family that she has worked for happened to have maids?

    She happened to told us that her rate for confinement nanny while working in m’sia is 4100 – 4400 ringgit.

  7. Every night during the feeding at around 12pm she always failed to wake up to my baby’s cries. Hence, we have to go over to her room to wake her up.

  8. She likes to waste food. She cooked large amount of food for herself and hubby. There was once when she cooked a bowl of veggies enough to feed 4 persons. When asked why she cooked so much she said she didn’t know how to estimate. She added that normally the employer will go to market to buy the food for her to cook.

  9. Normally she will go to market to buy the food she likes so she can cook and eat them . Normally she didn’t consult what food the hubby would like to eat.

  10. She bought “kampong chicken” from market meant for myself but she cut away the meat to cook for herself and left a little meat with all bones left for me.


    Description of Mei Zhu: Age : 55, Height : +/- 156cm, Weight: +/- 55kg. Hair: wavy/medium long. Got 5 childrens: 2 sons, 3 daughters.
  1. On the 1st day of work when she took over from her sister Bi zhu, Mei zhu mentioned that she couldn’t sleep at night hence working as confinement nanny suits her . However, we observed that every night she slept soundly.

  2. There’s a time when Mei Zhu left the milk bottle in the warmer . By the time I saw it, she was already sound asleep. When I went to wake her up she said she dozed off already and asked me to pour the milk away.

  3. She asked hubby to go buy alcohol swipes but she never use it on baby which puzzled us .

  4. She mentioned to us frequently that all her children are unfilial and won’t want to spend time with her during CNY. That’s why she prefer to work on CNY.

    However, I discovered that her son who is working and staying in SG came to celebrate mother’s day with her while working for us

  5. She mentioned that Bizhu’s son was also unfilial . His son refused to pick up Bizhu’s call. However, according to bizhu, she told us his son had shown her around SG and brought her to eat nice food a few days before she started working for us.

  6. She was not honest. She put words in my mouth. There’s an occasion when hubby instructed her to cook meat for me, but she didn’t do it. When questioned by hubby she gave the excuse that I told her not to cook meat and cook other dishes instead.

  7. When she saw me washing a cup she should show initiative by taking over but she didn’t.( as during confinement I should touch as little water as possible )

  8. When hubby see the stove with stains after cooking and requested her to clean, she just said she had cleaned it.

  9. There’s once where she had used the slow cooker but didn’t wash it clean and left it inside the cupboard. Hubby went to take it out and discovered there’s oil and stains inside the slow cooker . He had to wash it thoroughly over again.

  10. There’s an occasion when my mother-in-law came to visit us and asked Meizhu whether she got made a dish “salted chicken” for me. She said she couldn’t find the salt in market. My mother-in-law said then why can’t tell hubby then he can go and buy it. Also she didn’t cook proper confinemen t food , also never brewed Martell or DOM for me.

  11. When I tell her that I actually wanted to do away with breast feeding she went to tell my mother-in-law.

  12. There’s some occasions where I suspected Mei zhu didn’t burp baby after feeding as baby tend to vomit some milk out right after . While she was feeding baby inside the room, she purposely backface the door so that anyone outside the room couldn’t see what was going on inside.

  13. She fed baby less milk powder with more water without consulting me. In the end , baby was hungry earlier and had to be fed more time. Her explainatin was she was afraid the formula milk will be more heaty for baby.

  14. There was once hubby walked into baby’s room to see baby and see the fan was put to stationary and blowing directly at baby. Immediately he went to tell Mei zhu off.

  15. There was a few occasions where Mei zhu deliberately didn’t wash the milk bottles and the breast pump and left them for me to wash.

  16. The most serious mistake she made and was caught in the act was that she actually placed baby lying flat on top of a pillow while feeding baby. Hubby saw it and confronted her immediately then she replied sometimes she did it so that next time baby will be easier to fed. The consequence of feeding baby lying flat completely will risk ear infection. The next afternoon we paid her till that day and asked her to leave.

  17. Conclusion was Mei Zhu was very lazy and tell lies very often . She will cut corner wherever she can. I couldn’t have a peace of mind while she’s working with us.

    Bizhu contact nos: +60 12 9x8 7xx9
    Meizhu contact nos: 9xx2 0xx6 ; +60 12 9x6 7xx4
 


Oh dear, I'm so sorry that you have to go through such a unpleasant experience :(
Thank you for sharing anyway. Will keep in mind these 2 folks and stay away from them.
 
Let me know if you need recommendation for a ok-ok nanny. not so good... but definitely slightly above average
 
Hi

I would like to share my recent experience with a terrible confinement nanny/lady. I am a 2nd-time mother so naturally am abit more skeptical about confinement practices. I noted that someone posted a bad review about her in the 2013 thread (damn, should have seen that thread before I hired her). Her name is Teh Hong, and she goes by the name of Feng Jie (from Segamat, Johor).
The experience that another member, sanflower, shared in 2013, was pretty similar to mine. Sanflower and I used the same CL.

1. She made my husband purchase her rice wine and god-knows-what other wine she brought in from Malaysia. She claimed that she made the wine herself and when we came, there were like 4 bottles (in some yogurt drink plastic bottles)? She had the audacity to charge us $180 for the damn wine. My helper saw her pouring away the content away from the bottles once in the sink and found it weird, esp when she boasted to my helper that the wine was expensive.

2. She told my mum to try her so-called homemade wine and said my mum praised her wine for being top-notch. When the CL left, I asked my mum about it and my mum said that she did not comment and just nodded away when the CL kept praising her own wine. WTH.

3. She would dump all the house chores to my helper and bossed her around as if she was the employer and mistress in the house.

4. Feng jie was rude to my mum and bossed my mum around too. Talked loudly and always interrupted our conversations.

5. She made my husband pay her $40 for some "weed" that she claimed was good for my daughter's skin because my daughter had really bad rashes all over. She supposedly brewed the weed to bathe my daughter in it so that it would "improve" her skin condition. She made her daughter Ruby drive in from Malaysia with the weed just so that she could sell it to us (her daughter was in Sg anyway on some assignment). Then she proceeded to scare us by saying that our baby's skin's condition was the worst she had ever seen in her entire "career". Of course I didn't believe her because I checked with the PD and my jamu masseur as well. They assured me that it was normal for such "bad rashes" to occur. When my mother questioned her and asked her why she charged so much for the weed, she gave us a black face. Mind you, the exchange rate now is 3x, so she pocketed RM120 for some "wild plant" which we had to buy to "cure" my daughter.

6. She kept watching TV and sat on my sofa with her legs wide open. Damn irksome to see her behavior. And she was always yakking on the phone as well.

7. She was rough with my baby and kept scolding my baby when she cried loudly and fiercely. And I suspected the CL didn't burp my baby well too because her stomach was quite bloated. She obviously pushed the blame away when i asked her about it.

8. When her daughter Ruby came to my place to pass her the "weed", she insisted that I talk to her daughter about eyebrow embroidery for her daughter to cross-sell me her service. Her daughter is a beautician based in M'sia who will do house visits and offer various aesthetic services even to Singaporeans. I didn't want to entertain her daughter but my mum told me not to be rude, so I had to pretend to be keen on her daughter's service. I was unimpressed with the daughter's skills when she showed me some pictures but had to feign interest.

9. She kept pushing me to contact a masseur that she claimed was good when my jamu masseur played me out a couple of times and didn't keep to the schedules as promised. I told her nicely that I wasn't keen to do any more massages because I suspected that she would be earning commission for referrals.

10. She was lazy and didn't respond to my daughter when she cried for long periods of time. I knew because I could hear the baby wailing through the baby monitor in the baby's room. And every day, she would complain to us that she was tired and had to take naps. I allow the napping, but the complaints were unnecessary. Aren't you paid to do the night shifts? If you can't handle them, why are you a CL ? Darn unprofessional!

11. She kept praising herself and said that she charged us very cheaply - $2700. Yah right. I had friends who hired CL for $2500. I allowed her to go back 1 day earlier and she never said a word of thanks. Upon her departure, I discovered that she'd stolen my Tupperware, chicken essence and oil(?!). WTH.

12. On her 2nd last day, her attitude took a turn for the worse (it was already bad). My baby cried for prolonged period (i could hear via the baby monitor) that afternoon whilst she was napping in the baby room. Sensing something wrong, I went into the room and Feng Jie was not coaxing my daughter, but lying on the bed enjoying the aircon. My baby was wailing loudly and obviously in discomfort. I couldn't take it anymore and asked her firmly why she allowed her to cry like that and Feng Jie just replied calmly that she didn't know what my baby wanted at all. I then proceeded to carry my daughter and stormed out of the room. The nerve of her; she complained about this incident to my mum the very next day, and was telling my mum that she was about to get out of bed to pacify my kid when I came in.

14. My helper claimed that feng jie sometimes used the bottles for feeding without sterilizing. How gross is she??

In summary, she was Rude, obnoxious, lazy, money-minded and kept thinking of opportunities to fleece and hoodwink my family. She was calculative and made us pay for her cab fare as well. Age is catching up on her and I think she should just retire and not spoil someone else's confinement period. I decided to put up with her for my baby's sake and didn't want her to go off early and let her earn $2700 and shortchange my family. Yes, she said that if her next assignment after mine "delivers early", she would still charge us $2700 for 3 weeks (usual practice for confinement period is 4 weeks). My husband agreed because we got her last min and didn't want to go through the hassle of finding another CL.

Oh and another thing, she said that in July 2015, she did an assignment and the employer (husband) told her to leave after 12 days. I guess she pissed the husband off big time with her attitude but of course, according to her, nothing is ever her fault.

Her Malaysian numbers are 012 *** 8126 / 02 **448203. She has a Singaporean number too: 84448203. Oh and she told us that she wouldn't do confinement for families who are unable to provide her with a bed during her stay.
 
Last edited:
Got any photos of those horrible cl.
Really lo, can't stand those cl, why so lazy and impatient and still wan spoilt our confinement period .
Come here con our $ only!!!
 
hi all, I would like to share my unpleasant experience with my current CL.

beware of this CL call Aunty Agnes from Penang. 2015-09-29 20.22.27.png

1) Prior to arrival
she keep asking for EDD (almost few day once) because she wanna book air ticket to come
we can only provide her the EDD given by gynae
she assume that is a confirmed delivery date and booked a 3-days later air ticket to come SG.
but one day prior to EDD gynae say baby not due yet, hence extend another week.
Called nanny and told her, she say ticket already book. If want to change, we got to bear for her next ticket (to & fro)
Since deposit has already been paid, we have no choice but to obliged.

2) Arrrival
she reached my place at 2pm. Starting to familiarise the place, cookwares and baby stuffs.

then suddenly she told us, she just had wrist operation recently, cant take heavy stuff. And said that god bless i did not give birth on that EDD which i mentioned earlier. Else she also dont know what to do.

3) Housechores
She wash baby clothes using washing machine. Same goes to mine and her.
supposed to be hand washed. but she insist using washing, saying that nobody hand wash.
she also mentioned that past families she worked for all had maids. Usually maid will do the washing, including washing her clothings. So she doesnt need to wash.

After washing need to dry using bamboo. She doesn't know how to bring down a bamboo from the holder at ceiling. Again she said past families got maid to do, otherwise the bamboo is electronic type. Not these manual kind.

she also did not wash my hubby clothing even though is using washing machine.

3days later she told my dad she just had wrist operation, cant mop floor. So? My dad will he helping her to mop.

She is very forgetful. Kettle boiling but she cant hear the whistle. Because she closed the room door.

Twice she tried to fill the pail with water and forget to off the tap, so the water just drip.

4) Meals
There was one day she forget to boil my red date longan tea. Luckily i have extra flask of that to sustain.

One of the dinner she asked me what time i want to eat, told her 7pm as im not hungry. Meal was ready at 6.30pm and she ask me to eat while its hot.

5) Baby care
As im still increasing BM supplies, usually i will express it and store in fridge, accumulate to one serving for baby.
She took my BM and mix with FM to make it one serving. Told her she cant do that as it will destroy BM nutrients.
It happened the 2nd again. I repeat myself to her do not mix.
She said all past families do this, nobody dont mix, all also mix to feed, its ok.
otherwise very troublesome to feed BM and feed FM seperately.

There was one night-feeding where hubby saw her shaking the baby very hard and pressing the bottle teat to baby asking him to drink, but baby was pushing the bottle away. She just shake him hard wanting him to drink. She said this is the way, it's like that one.

The next day feeding i was in the room with baby and nanny, she told baby that daddy dont know how to feed, this is the way to feed.

One occasion night-feeding baby was hungry. Earlier than expected time, happened that my hubby walk past and take a look, she commented to him that its my fault that i control the volume of milk, now baby get hungry early

Today, baby have not yet cried for milk, but 2hours has reached, she make FM and feed him. She say time is up, he is hungry.

6) Overall
She is dishonest by not telling us in advance she had operation. Else we wont hire her
She talk bad about hubby infront of baby and me, vice versa she told hubby that i did not give baby enough volume.
She is one CL that do not know how to use bamboo and bring clothes out to sun-dry.
She keep mentioning all past families has maid to do the chores, she is so god-bless that she dont have to do.
Seems like we are sharing her workload rather than hiring her to help us.

Anyway we have decided to ask her leave after using her for 7days.
 
hi! how did you ask your confinement Nanny to leave after using her for 7days? & what about her salary? did you pro rate it?

hi all, I would like to share my unpleasant experience with my current CL.

beware of this CL call Aunty Agnes from Penang.View attachment 578327

1) Prior to arrival
she keep asking for EDD (almost few day once) because she wanna book air ticket to come
we can only provide her the EDD given by gynae
she assume that is a confirmed delivery date and booked a 3-days later air ticket to come SG.
but one day prior to EDD gynae say baby not due yet, hence extend another week.
Called nanny and told her, she say ticket already book. If want to change, we got to bear for her next ticket (to & fro)
Since deposit has already been paid, we have no choice but to obliged.

2) Arrrival
she reached my place at 2pm. Starting to familiarise the place, cookwares and baby stuffs.

then suddenly she told us, she just had wrist operation recently, cant take heavy stuff. And said that god bless i did not give birth on that EDD which i mentioned earlier. Else she also dont know what to do.

3) Housechores
She wash baby clothes using washing machine. Same goes to mine and her.
supposed to be hand washed. but she insist using washing, saying that nobody hand wash.
she also mentioned that past families she worked for all had maids. Usually maid will do the washing, including washing her clothings. So she doesnt need to wash.

After washing need to dry using bamboo. She doesn't know how to bring down a bamboo from the holder at ceiling. Again she said past families got maid to do, otherwise the bamboo is electronic type. Not these manual kind.

she also did not wash my hubby clothing even though is using washing machine.

3days later she told my dad she just had wrist operation, cant mop floor. So? My dad will he helping her to mop.

She is very forgetful. Kettle boiling but she cant hear the whistle. Because she closed the room door.

Twice she tried to fill the pail with water and forget to off the tap, so the water just drip.

4) Meals
There was one day she forget to boil my red date longan tea. Luckily i have extra flask of that to sustain.

One of the dinner she asked me what time i want to eat, told her 7pm as im not hungry. Meal was ready at 6.30pm and she ask me to eat while its hot.

5) Baby care
As im still increasing BM supplies, usually i will express it and store in fridge, accumulate to one serving for baby.
She took my BM and mix with FM to make it one serving. Told her she cant do that as it will destroy BM nutrients.
It happened the 2nd again. I repeat myself to her do not mix.
She said all past families do this, nobody dont mix, all also mix to feed, its ok.
otherwise very troublesome to feed BM and feed FM seperately.

There was one night-feeding where hubby saw her shaking the baby very hard and pressing the bottle teat to baby asking him to drink, but baby was pushing the bottle away. She just shake him hard wanting him to drink. She said this is the way, it's like that one.

The next day feeding i was in the room with baby and nanny, she told baby that daddy dont know how to feed, this is the way to feed.

One occasion night-feeding baby was hungry. Earlier than expected time, happened that my hubby walk past and take a look, she commented to him that its my fault that i control the volume of milk, now baby get hungry early

Today, baby have not yet cried for milk, but 2hours has reached, she make FM and feed him. She say time is up, he is hungry.

6) Overall
She is dishonest by not telling us in advance she had operation. Else we wont hire her
She talk bad about hubby infront of baby and me, vice versa she told hubby that i did not give baby enough volume.
She is one CL that do not know how to use bamboo and bring clothes out to sun-dry.
She keep mentioning all past families has maid to do the chores, she is so god-bless that she dont have to do.
Seems like we are sharing her workload rather than hiring her to help us.

Anyway we have decided to ask her leave after using her for 7days.
 

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