Hi, I am a March mummy who gave birth to twin boys, I would like to share my experience with my confinement lady – Aunty Lilian
Before we confirmed on our CL, the main criteria is to be able to take care of 2 babies and mother at the same time, which Aunty Lilian claimed she can and have many experience handling twins.
I have to admit that 1st week I was quite impressed with her, partly cos I didn’t know CL actually cover so much work! Apart from taking care of babies and me, prepare confinement food, she also cook for my hubby and family members who dropped by to visit me at least once a week. Other than cooking, she also covered almost all housework, laundry, cleaning toilets, kitchen etc…and lastly bathed and massage for me! Have to credit her performance esp for e 1st week, cos night feeding for twins really not easy.
However, her “battery” seems to drop after 1st week and when my maid arrived. Before we confirmed her, I actually wanted to bargain her fees as we would be hiring maid to help her and also learn from her. As she said she would help us to train our maid, we agreed not to lower her price. But after maid arrived, which we tot her workload could be shared and expected her to focus more on taking care of e twins, she herself started to slack….1 very god example, my twins are actually non-identical, my maid could differentiate them within a week, but Aunty Lilian till now (3rd week) can still recognize them wrongly, even have to ask my maid which baby is which! And there were even 2-3 times she fed the wrong baby and both hubby and I caught her few times dozing off when feeding the babies middle of the night.
There are also some of her logics which turn us off, 1 of my babies seem to have phlegm when we started to switch him to half formula milk. Aunty Lilian claimed that phlegm was partly caused by the formula milk which she said was too “thick” for e baby, so she insisted for an amount of 80ml of milk, just put 60ml worth of powder to dilute the formula. My hubby and I actually have question abt this as it make our baby cried for milk less than 3 hrs, after raised up the question to her for a few times, Aunty Lilian said she leave e decision to us BUT started to tell us how baby would throw up and choked at middle of the night if formula milk never diluted, end up we gave in….
And there is another issue which I personally not very happy with, 1 of my babies is on full breastmilk while the other we alternate with formula, so I have to pump every 2-3 hrs to maintain the supply (that baby not good at latch on yet) and also let another baby to latch on to stimulate after I pump. Sometimes when babies are still awake or crying at night, Aunty Lilian would push to ask me to let them latch on in order to put them to sleep, even they were just fed less than an hr ago! If she is going to ask me to breastfeed them everytime they are awake or crying, what for she keep a record of their feeding time and amt and asked the maid to follow?
Hubby and I are considered as “qing cai ” or rather lenient as we would just let e CL do things her own way, no matter what she cook or what she eat. We understand that taking care of twins is tiring, so often I would not asking CL or maid to do anything for me in afternoon and chase them to take nap and rest, so they won’t be too tired for night feeding. But since we are paying Aunty Lilian more for twins, at least basic standard have to meet and make sure she deserves the pay. But from her performance after week 1, my hubby and I really feel that we overpaid her, esp the part which she cannot recognize the babies is really ridiculous! Overall, Aunty Lilian is good as a CL for single baby, but for twins, there is definitely more room for improvement!
Right now, Aunty Lilian is still with us and will leave after 1 more week, I just hope I can pick up as much in order to handle my twins after she is gone.
