Confinement lady- to keep or let her go??

stressgal

Member
   
Hi, I need some advice if I should keep or let my confinement lady go...

1) I was induced on 12 june n My hubby called the confinement lady to inform her I will b delivering anytime. She replied by asking my husband to call her again when we are going to be discharged then she come. Mi n bb were discharged on 15 jun n my hubby called her on 15 jun morning. She say we should have called earlier n she can only reach 16 jun afternoon/evening. (she is from malacca n we are puzzled why she need more than a day to reach sg). End up hubby got to cook for me on 15 jun n 16 jun. My parents in law from Penang reach sg earlier than her even. When she arrived, she say she doin voluntary work on 15 jun so cannot come in. Husband n i not very happy cos we already call her few days earlier to tell her I m delivering n yet she did come ASAP n push the blame to husband for not calling her earlier.

2) She complain abt everything.. Complain bath tub too big, ask to buy small basin to shower baby, complain hanky too thick not soft, complain house small, toilet small, kitchen small n start telling us how big is her house in malacca. My hubby n parents in law will ask her every morning what food to buy to cook n thy will go buy. She complained how come never ask for more plastic bags to separate meat n how come never ask chicken seller chop the chicken into pcs, complain abt fish they buy not the one she talk abt. She asked for kaya so my husband buy for her. Then she complained kaya too sweet, should buy this brand kaya got write xo on the cap. She even complained my mum bringing so much pepper when my mum only bring 2 pig stomach for her to cook. She complained milk warmer difficult to use. Every time we got to heat up milk on our own then she feed the baby.

3) She dun cook longan red dates water everyday.. She cook black water or red bean water or white fungus water for those days she dun cook longan red dates water. If I can't finish the water, she keep overnight n being first time mum I will juz drink without asking it's ok. She will also pour leftover water into mineral water containers n keep in fridge. When I questioned her, she say my husband wan to drink n then she say she herself wan to drink.. She even commented if not becos I got massage, she also dun wan to cook longan red date water everyday.

4) She fried ginger slices n put them in uncapped container n put inside the kitchen cupboard. It seems so unhygienic. I dun even know if any lizard droppings or other insects will go inside the container. She fried sliced meat with ginger n put into capped container n leave them overnight. The next day, I found the capped container in the fridge. When I asked her, she say the meat half cooked only, coffee shop n zi char shop all do like that.. She say will cook again with vegetables. I ask my mum abt this n my mum say she must b lazy to separate the meat out n cook more times, so cook more me at one go. I even found a cook book inside the kitchen cupboard!

5) She loves to go shopping.. She ask my mum in law go walk walk at pasar malam! We bring her to the mall yesterday cos baby is in hospital for jaundice n we need to do some errands n buy diapers. While we do errands, she went shopping on her own. We go into supermarket buy diapers n stuff, she say she wan go walk walk. When we q up to pay n ask if she need anything, then she say need to buy pork ribs. I was pissed n told her why dun say earlier, she say can buy tomoro also. She thought we gg to bring her out everyday to shop around..

6) We bought kidneys n liver from supermarket. She juz put everything into the fridge without looking what are they. When I ask my mum then I know need to put kidneys soaked in water n not in freezer compartment. So I told her say how come never checked. She say she dunno we will buy kidney. I tell her she dun wan to go shopping with us at least got to see what we buy then out in fridge. She unhappy n complained to my mum n even threatened us can pay her salary she will leave lo..

7) She loves to keep talking n boast abt how fantastic her cooking is. My mum in law taste her cooking n say dun even taste like confinement food. She uses a lot of cooking oil. She finished my half bottle 1llitre oil n finish a brand new bottle of 1litre n asked my husband buy more. I have 4-5 bottle of sesame oil n she use very little which I dunno y n ask my husband buy vege oyster sauce n abalone sauce..

8) For first 1 week plus, she had a gd sleep without needing to wake up at night to feed baby. Then we decided to get her help at night feed or carry baby if baby cry or awake at night. She complained say breast milk difficult, can alternate formula milk at night for easy feed. Once I wake her at 6am cos baby cried, she get unhappy n fedup n say should let baby sleep with her easier- fyi, baby sleep in our room with us. She say if baby cried abit n we wake up n wake her up then dun need sleep already..

After so much things happen in just 2 weeks, I m thinking of letting her go. No point keepin her n got to keep close supervision on her in case she bear grudges n ill treat or do something bad to baby.. My mum n husband say juz tolerate for another 2 weeks.. What should I do?? Any advise..??
 


Hi,
i think u shld let go...get other CL who can help u now.

During my 1st confinement, the cl is lazy n not gd so i ask her to leave after 7days.

My second CL is gd, if u wan i can pass u the contact, she is msia now, so maybe she can help u continue. I just called her to ask if she can help me for My EDD tis Dec but she is booked. so sad...now i'm still looking for CL to help me tis dec.

PM me if u need the contact.
 
btw i advise u post her name and contact in forum so that others mummy will fall into her trap.

As u know confinement is impt for mummy tat y we willing to spend to get CL and now the price is getting higher n higher. Getting a CL like tat really waste our money plus not being to build up our body as we needed to.
 
Dear Parents and Readers ,

While I may have very limited postings in this forum, I am not new to it as it was one of the main portal for supplying my pregnancy knowledge. Today, I decide to pen down my grievances against my confinement lady. Engaged her service from 8th May 2012. She is a freelance CL from Malaysia, called Ying-jie.

Negligence

• One noon I came out from toilet hearing my baby cry. So I briskly go to attend but midway, I heard her crying being muffled. That was because my CL tilted her 90deg (not 45deg) and went to do her cooking in the kitchen with the door closed! My baby ended up face to the mattress and her cries were muffled! How can she expect a swaddled baby to tilt to the right angle or not struggling when crying? If need be, she should be there monitoring and not leaving her alone! Luckily I was fast, otherwise my baby would had suffocated.

• She sat on my baby’s legs one time. Her big fat ass could smash the fragile little bones in seconds! Lucky I caught fast and I had a good sofa!

• Another night I woke up because I heard loud cries (nothing uncommon for baby to cry). I went to the baby room and my CL complained to me that baby vomited milk. I was very worried if she was overfed or is sick. However, the fatty CL only gave me the information that her pyjamas are wet and had to change and was worried her mattress was wet too. She totally wasn’t concerned about my baby’s well being and continues feeding her the remaining milk, or should I say force it down her throat? I was hinting and saying that baby vomited due to overfeeding but she went ahead.

• When we brings baby for her PD checkup, she carried the swaddled baby in taxi and fell asleep!!! Omg! What if the taxi e-break? So I had to talk to her to keep her awake, and carried my baby myself on the return trip. But its really scary to just doze off with a life in hand!

Laziness

• Her job is very simple because my hub told her don’t need to wash toilet or mop floor. So every afternoon when my hub is at work, she will Kiao kar on sofa. Sometimes even put her feets on my white sofa and start rubbing it!
• In my final wk of confinement, I told my CL don’t need to stock up so much raw ingredients cause I won’t be cooking much. So she really NEVER stock up any and end up one day, hubby and I was eating porridge with canned salted vege. I was shocked because such food is not good for confinement! She threw the blame to me saying I told her don’t need to buy. But using common sense, if no ingredients can just buy a little to last till the end of confinement! She is just plain lazy to cook!

• My hubby is very nice to give her cooking breaks on wkend. So we often called delivery or he go tabao for her. One wkend, she suggested to order the 933 Golden Pillow. So we all happily ordered and when the hot piping stuff came, she stopped me from eating the curry chicken saying coconut milk is not good for me. Then she offered me the bread to eat for dinner. I was FURIOUS because if we know that I cannot eat curry chicken, we wouldn’t even order 933 Golden Pillow! And she gets to eat what she wants yet I eat plain bread!

• On my baby shower, there are so many guests around but her butt was glued to my sofa. My guests were asking me where is my CL, and I told them to look for my sofa and they can identify her. I had feedbacks that there is a fat lady sitting on the same spot for hours. She didn’t helped taking care of my baby’s feeding at all! And when the buffet started, she was one of the first to rush to eat when I only had time to eat at 3pm!

• After my 28th days of confinement, she was still with us cause she started late. But she lazy to cook red dates longan tea for me giving excuses that I don’t need it anymore and the ingredients are running out. I told her, go ahead and buy ingredients if she needs it and there are a lot of people who do confinement till 40days! I insisted to have my red dates longan tea and she reluctantly obey, with a big black face!

• She invited her children and son’s gf who works in Sg to my house so that she could brew ling yang for them. She literally treats my house as hers!
• She asked me to let her go downstairs because her phone reception not good at home. I agreed and she took her own sweet time to come back after more than 1hr!

Hygiene

• We had a very nice corelle bowl. She used it to contain water to wash baby’s face. At first I was fine till I saw she used the SAME bowl to defrost fish! OMG! So I quickly get my mum to buy another plastic container for her. Please do not expect CL to use common sense when it comes to hygiene!

• One night when my hubby was away at work, I went to scoop my rice for dinner only to realize my rice was already in a plate inside the rice cooker, stacked with a bowl of steam fish. So I find it weird and recalls of the overnight rice in fridge. Went to check the fridge and its not there. I don’t want to accuse people so I ask her straight if she gave me overnight food. She admitted and said she reheated it for me already. I questioned her if its right to eat overnight food for confinement. She said its ok cuz its reheated and if I not happy she can cook new rice. So end up, I had my dinner at 9pm because I insisted that food is impt for health!

• Left peeled ginger on basin top for following days usage! The detergent is just beside and I wonder if it attracts/caught any lizard droppings!

Unprofessional

• Reveal of her previous’ owners' privacy. She told me about the jobs the mother held, what they did, and who had depression, who had how much breast milk etc.

• She showed me recordings of her previous baby cries. There was one chubby fellow who cries till vomit a lot of milk but the recording goes on. She was more interested in filming instead of helping the crying baby. She was laughing with joy how cute it is when she showed me the video. I felt it disgusted for her unprofessionalism but she just started with us, so I didn’t comment that to her.

• When I was seated beside her on the sofa, she picked up my crying baby and slapped her lightly with her fingers, scolding her not sleeping at night. I got SHOCKED and held back her wrist and told her to STOP. When I let go, she continued slapping before my eyes! I was so furious that I carried the baby and told her very very STERNLY that my gal’s face is precious and no babies should be slapped! She started giving me a BLACKBLACK FACE and tried her ways to go against me.

• She badmouthed me to my hubby that I didn’t empty my pockets (inside got tissue) and caused the laundry to get the specks and go on and on without realizing I heard it all. She got a big shocked when she saw me standing behind her! She used washing machine to wash our clothes and baby clothings and yet, she still lazy to spend some time checking pockets.

• As long as baby cries at night, she will give her milk without thinking if theres any other wrongs. So my baby seldom had her diaper changed at night unless my hub or me was the one attending. And as a newborn, my gal drank from 80ml per feed to 120ml in the night. Isn’t that too much?

• There was a time when my family had some internal arguments. When people are arguing, the CL should take care of the baby right? NO! instead, she was busy poking into our family matters and trying to take sides. I HAD to INSTRUCT her to bring baby to the room to avoid all the noises but she seems more interested in our family disputes!

• She claimed that she got 5yr experience in this line. However, when I got the taimaobi staff to come and shave my baby, she commented that she had never seen such service before. And during shaving, she was meddling around and making idiotic comments. I was selecting the type of calligraphy brush for the baby hair and she said I should made a pair instead! I felt like scolding her and ask her to pay if she was so interested in poking into my biz!

Disrespect
• She was chatting with my hubby in the living hall while I was expressing breast milk in my room. They were on a topic about her farm in her hometown which has pigs. Then when I came out innocently after pumping, she said “There, she pumped pig’s milk and now she’s out”. I was totally provoked because as a CL, she did not respect the new mother and insulted breastfeeding! Such insensitive remarks are not tolerated so I scolded my hubby in her presence. She kept quiet and went to the kitchen. I didn’t scold her directly because she still had 2wks left and I didn’t want our r/s to turn sour and put my baby at risk.

• She was literally 3x my size. But she commented that I am fat.

In case you all got the wrong Ying-jie, this CL I had was fat and in her early 50s. Please feel free to pm me for more of her description. Its been more than a month since she left. But I still wasn’t appeased and felt obliged to share this info.

I strongly urged all mothers to think twice about engaging a CL, especially Ying-Jie, unless you don’t have any other alternatives. My white kitchen tiles are stained with grey spots because she wore a pair of slippers while cooking. And confinement food being oily and steamy, her slippers sole managed to make such an impact as she don’t clean up after staining.

To all MTB, wish you all the best in labor and motherhood.
 
Hi,

I bet u must be more than traumatized by this CL. Indeed, must expose her to alert all mummies. I hope that marked the end of her CL career! All the best to all mummies engaging CL. My 1st n 3rd were really good, I missed their cooking, simply yummy and loved by my hubby and 2 kids. My eldest always checking on what will be prepared for em. I am still smiling as I recall those 28 days. Expensive n well spent on the whole. Even my guests during baby shower got to enjoy her ginger fried rice though we had buffet. She loves to show off her cooking too. ;P I had 50 guests then n she cooked the rice the night before we all know fried rice must use overnight rice in order to taste nice.
 
i wanted to sack her halfway but my hubby was too kind hearted cuz she already bot her bus ticket for end of my confinement... i was like wtf...
 
HI Parents in search of CL:

I would also like to share my BAD experience with LAN JIE from Seremban. I have never really written into any forum though I tap the forums frequently as an info source. Lan Jie had 2-3 strong recommendations online which is why I used her but I personally found her very unprofessional. WIll objectively list the good and bad.

The Good - she cooked confinement food well and knew the soups to prepare to help breast milk. Was competent in terms of how to handling/sooth baby but relied on usual techniques of rocking baby and feeding on demand. Certainly does not have any know-how if u are thinking of sleep-training or putting baby into routine but maybe that's too much to expect of a CL.

THE BAD
(1) DOES NOT FOLLOW INSTRUCTION-- this is a big issue for me because CLs will sometimes have own methods which conflict with advice from doctors. I just wanted her to just check with me or respect my choices. She will just do things her own way even after I repeatedly tell her not to. And most annoyingly she would always deny doing it even when caught in the act.

Some of the things she did:
* She fed my baby red-date tea when she was 4 days old while I was asleep EVEN tho I told her I wanted to only give breast milk.

* She put corn floor onto my baby's bum twice - i didn't see it but my maid did and second time, she hid the corn floor behind her back when my maid caught her.

* Puts baby sideways unattended on high table top to change diaper and walks away to get things. My mom and i both told her not to use the table but caught her doing it several times after. Denied leaving baby unattended even though we caught her in the act.

* Thaw my frozen breast milk without my permission and keep feeding my EBM to baby instead of bringing baby to me to breast feed! This was particularly stressful in the early days when my milk supply was not well-established and EBM was precious and meant to be reserved for planned outings.

(2) HYGIENE ISSUES
* Personal hygiene poor - had bad BO
* Like to clear her throat and spit directly into kitchen sink when our dishes are in there or into open trash bins in the house. Continue to do so even after being told.
* Caught her wiping my baby's bum then back into front which is a big NO NO. Denied doing it even though I saw her at it twice. As I said, does as she pleases.
* Use same water and cloth to wash baby face and backside. At least she stopped this after I told her.
* Didn't bother to clear up baby motion that she spilled on toilet seat and floor when she was pouring away soiled water. Waited for maid to do it the next day.

(3) VERY GOSSIPY
I found it very annoying that every time i sat down for some peace and quiet, she would come sit by me and gossip about her ex-employers, money, my maid or just make useless chatter. Kept going on about how big my place was and asking how much I made. When I worked on the computer, she would sit by me and peer into my screen and ask questions. I had to directly ask her to leave me alone as she didn't take my hints that I was working. When I had guests or visitors, she always lurked around to either participate in conversation or eavesdrop.

But what I found unacceptable was that she tattle-taled to me about my maid many times from the minor ("she eats 3 bowls of rice") to the major ("She is stealing from you and gambling at the casino"). She went through my maid's wallet and belongings many times and proudly reported back her suspicions! I did tell her she should not be going through people's things. When I looked into her accusations, I found most of them to be unfounded which is really bad especially when you are making serious accusations. And also when she was on the surface very friendly with my maid and always hanging in her room after dinner for hours.

Conversely, when she left and I spoke to my maid about these things, I was not surprised to hear she was always calling her friends to complain about me. Also very unacceptable is she tried to complain to my husband about me.

4) GENERALLY SLIPSHOD IN EXECUTION
Doesn't put caps back on after using cooking sauces or left rice container lid half-opened. My biscuits went soft cos she ate them as she didn't put back lid of airtight container. Did not put cover on water jug properly so water full of ants. Did not use placemats on my expensive wood dining table which left permanent heat marks, left ink stains on my kitchen bar counter top and caught her writing there even after I told her not to after the first time. Double-stacked eggs in fridge door so a few eggs fell on floor when i opened the door.

4) ATE UP ALL MY LUXURY FOOD ITEMS
I believe in the CL being well-fed and she is entitled to eat everything I eat during my 3 meals but she also ate up all my luxury items that I set aside for myself like strawberries or chocolates and then denied doing so. Its not the money but its annoying when these things aren't there when I'm ready to eat them. Even said my maid threw away my strawberries. My maid has been with me 6 yrs and my food has never gone missing. Yet she was always pronouncing that she is such a "simple" eater.

Finally, she stayed for 2 mths (28 days x 2) but ended up leaving 2 days earlier than i expected because she said its standard that CLs leave early morn on last day and start night of first day. On the 28th day of her first month, she left 7am to renew her passport and only returned back at 7pm that day yet she counted this as both last day of Mth 1 and first day of Mth 2. And on her last day of Mth 2, she basically just packed up and left at 7am. Is this really normal practice?

Finally, despite my unhappiness, I gave her $150 red packet when she arrived and $100 when she left. I didn't think she deserved the $100 at the end but I felt bad that I cut short her stay to 2 months (had originally asked her to stay 5 mths).

Sorry for the long story but my word of advice to all mothers is please take a personal referral or interview thoroughly!
 
Hi TCMom,

Honestly, i would ask her to leave as soon as i finish the confinement if i were u. Of course i guess you had your reasons for keeping her. Glad that she left!

Was fuming mad when reading your feedbacks abt her. I hope the future MTBs will be warned and not fall into her traps. I seriously dun like people lying and being a CL, she thinks she is more superior than ur 6yr long service maid... haiz... the corn flour issue is WOW.. *speechless*
 
  
Dear all, FYI my confinement lady is called auntie Meimei from malacca.. Her Hp is 0102319077.. She is recommended by another confinement lady called auntie guihua. Auntie guihua Hp is 91305526 and 60122878467 n she is from malacca too.

To add on The above, Auntie Meimei even commented that auntie guihua is not a good confinement lady.. I feel that she should be appreciative that auntie guihua recommend her for a job to make money n yet she tellin mi auntie guihua not good etc.. So terrible of her instead of being thankful..
 

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