Beware of JIA Confinement Nanny Agency

[Cristina Q]

Pls be wary of JIA Cnfinement Nanny Agency by Mrs. Lai. We ended up having two disappointing experiences in less than a week but now have to pay a price that is clearly disproportionate with the poor performance of the two nannies.

We expected no less than what was committed to providing from Mrs Lai's website:

1) Enjoy peace of mind with our experienced or certified nannies

=> this was a very stressful experience for my Husband and I. Our daughter was 5 weeks premature because I suffered from Preemclampsia and had an emergency C section. The two nannies Mrs. Lai provided were horrible and did not help our situation at all being first time parents.

2) Our confinement nannies have gone through stringent screening in baby care, cooking skill, confinement food knowledge and hygiene habits

=> Baby care of there first Nanny, Nanny Chan was questionable, the last straw being she had no intention of providing our daughter with night feeds despite very clear instructions to continue the schedule we had in place. She was even caught on camera asking our helper to sleep with her in the same room at night so "she can practice taking care of the baby". In a desperate attempt to calm my crying baby she put her on the bouncy chair and rocked her harshly and stuffed the bottle in her mouth to stop her from crying. Nanny Chan's hygiene was disgusting, she smelled of body odor and had bad breath. She also touched our baby's hands after wiping her excrement. I fired her at 3am, I couldn't sleep and did not trust Nanny Chan with my baby anymore. She was with us for less than 24 hours.

Mrs. Lai provided us a replacement a week later, a night nurse this time, and she did not know how to distinguish between ml and oz measurements. She also did not know how to administer my baby's reflux medicine. This night nurse left after 3 days.

At this point my Husband and I decided not to take any more Nannies from Mrs. Lai. This took a massive toll on me because I was still recovering from high blood pressure and needed the help but we did not want to risk having another horrible experience from Mrs.Lai.

3) We pride ourselves in listening to the needs and feedback from our customers

=> Mrs Lai did not listen to us and refused to refund us the amount due to us. We wanted to fairly pay only for the days the two terrible nannies worked for us which was a total of 1 day and 3 nights combined.

4) Everything we do is designed to make your transition into motherhood easy and blissful.

=> our experience was the complete opposite. Dealing with Mrs. Lai compounded our already stressful situation.

5) You can rest assured that we will match a nanny who will meet your needs.

=> this wasn't case with neither of the 2 nannies.

I hope to share this experience with anyone who is considering to work with Mrs. Lai.

 

[Andy Lee]

I am a man and a father of a newborn baby girl. My wife recently engaged a confinement lady by the name of Auntie Judy from JIA Agency. She's a fine auntie but definitely not an experienced one for infant care. I gave her some time to perform but I only hear a lot of great self proclamations from her on a daily basis. I trust she may have gotten engaged because the true professional nannies from Malaysia are hard to come by recently due to Covid 19 restrictions. What amused me most and later frustrated me to the core was the lack of knowledge in basic formula feed (the need to increase in breastfeed and formula milk as weeks went by), basic ailments of my baby (heat rashes due to breastfeeding) and finally the confinement food! I have never seen this Auntie cook the most basic sesame oil chicken with ginger or pork, liver and kidneys for my wife for nourishment. I ate what my wife ate every single day. I seriously felt that my maid could do a much better job or we just catered confinement tingkat lah.

My wife have paid in full to both JIA agency and the auntie. I asked the auntie to leave by the 3rd full week. I believe this is very reasonable already considering her lacklustre help. After some consideration, I think it is also good to feedback to JIA agency and to Mrs Betty or Mrs Lai about the auntie so as to safeguard future mothers who seriously need a solid nanny's help.

Instead of acknowledging the problems and moving ahead for future good, there was a lot of excuses and substantion of her professionalism. The tussling triggered the nerves in my brain. So I am here posting my feedback. I wish I can get my money back but let it should be gone for good So let's hope this post will save the distress of many new mothers to be because I felt so bad for my wife who genuinely needed the care and coachings of an experienced nanny.

 

[SunHui]

I am a mother to a son, aunty Judy was hired as confinement lady during my confinement. She has been very thoughtful and helpful during my confinement. Thankful for her experience that my New born baby boy was well taking care of. Auntie Judy also volunteer to help me all those necessary things during my confinement, (buying fresh vege and meat, cleaning my house) we really appreciate her help.

After she left, we wanted to hire a nanny for my son while waiting infant care availability. Then we approach Auntie Judy since we already have chemistry before. Auntie Judy always respect my decision on taking care my son. Both of us will discuss the best way to make sure my son eat well sleep well. During that time, Aunty Judy still cook for me and my husband! We really appreciate the effort she ha done. She is kind, friendly. Most important she is not calculative at all!

I feel bad and unfair that previous post was complaining about Auntie Judy. For the confinement food, I always request what I want during confinement so I get real traditional
Confinement food from aunty! Till now I still craving the red wine mee suah cooked by her. Communication is really important during confinement, because I knew mummy will feel down after give birth due to hormone. For mummy to be, if you saw my post. Please ensure you express what you want during confinement, that’s your privileges.

 

[Sam86]

First of all, thanks SunHui posting the above. I think we had a similar experience as you and bit contrasting to Andy’s experience. We started looking for a nanny last Aug. It was really tough to find one as we are a non-Chinese speaking couple. During our search, we saw Andy’s comment here and also reached out to Mrs Lai (agent) out of desperation and she came back suggesting aunty Judy for us. As we seen Andy’s comment before, we were bit hesitating initially but asked for an interview with her. Interview went well and aunty Judy was able to answer our questions and also to understand us clearly. We went ahead booking aunty Judy for two months as we were happy and agreed to start right after our EDD. We told her clearly that we need the best help we can get from her as this is our first clild. Aunty Judy was very proactive with things and even met us before the starting date to check everything is in order and to buy all the needed things for us. And for the month, she was able to made us comfortable with all (taking care of the baby and cooking etc.) and it was exactly what we needed and expected from her. She always went that extra mile to fulfil our other requests too. I think main thing here is COMMUNICATION. We clearly mentioned her our requests / requirements and also she was very happy to share her experiences for our consideration too. After few days, she actually became like our mother than our nanny. It was the right decision to have that interview with her, otherwise we won’t be able to get aunty Judy’s help if we just considered Andy’s comment alone

 

[Rebeccaelle]

My experience with aunty Judy drastically differ from the comment above (Andy), and I would like to share my personal experience to give a more balanced review of aunty Judy’s work.
Aunty Judy exceeded all my expectations I had for a nanny. I am a new mother and taking care of an infant can be a daunting to navigate and aunty Judy was a blessing to have as a confinement nanny.
1. Someone of empathy and kindness
Post delivery was challenging for me, as my recovery was painful and slow, her jovial disposition was a joy to have around especially during the first few days of post delivery. She genuinely cared for my recovery journey and gave me a lot of advice on what I should do to alleviate some of my aliments. She was not imposing on some of the confinement practices and gave me meaningful advice on the things I should look out for or avoid. She also understands the challenges of my recovery process and tend to our baby while I rest. She even took the initiative and bought some baby essential items we were lacking in our house.
2. Hardworking and Honest
She is diligent and goes beyond the scope of her work- she is always punctual, taking her own personal time to do the grocery shopping, ensuring that our house is well kept before she ends the day, and she even offers to do some household chores that were not in her scope of work. When my parents visited, she would always cook up a spread for them even when they show up unannounced at times. She would also go the extra mile to source for the freshest ingredients and fruits for our meals.
3.Baby Care
Aunty Judy comes with a wealth of experience. She was a huge aid in helping us understand what made our baby fussy or uncomfortable. She also taught us many tips and tricks that would soothe our baby. She is also very patient and nurturing, demonstrating what is needed when caring for our baby (eg, bathing our baby, changing diapers, feed schedules,burping etc).
4. Genuine and caring
Our experience with aunty Judy was a very meaningful one. She takes the effort to understand our personalities and preferences. We were very impressed that she is very thoughtful to what we preferred to eat and specially cooked meals that we enjoyed. She is open to feedback and values our opinion. She is also constantly checking in to understand if our expectations of her were met. She does her job with a lot of heart- and is generous with her care and blessings, she even showered our baby with little gifts and love. She warmed our hearts which her care and love for our baby.
Over the course of one month, aunty Judy was a great asset to us. We are very blessed to have her and we’ve grown to be family friends. I would strongly recommend her to new mums like me who find navigating this new life change daunting.

 

[Moritza]

Aunty Judy was recommended to me by my good friend and I had her as my confinement nanny for the month of November 2024.
I really appreciated her confinement coking and baby care knowledge, skills and experience. The food that she cooked were delicious and nutritious, which also helped to boost my breast milk production. Her hands were like magic - my baby stopped crying whenever Aunty Judy picked him up, and she taught me many valuable skills in handling my baby safely and securely. I was also able to rest well during the day with the assurance that my baby was in Aunty Judy’s experienced hands. Thank you Aunty Judy!