JTS my bad experience with the nanny. She has only been doing my confinement for the past 12 days and she is driving me and my hubby crazy...Here're some of the things that happened.
Food
1. She cooks large portion of confinement food for me for day 1 and day 2. Afterwhich, she cuts down the portion by A LOT. E.g. My hubby and I shared 1 thin slice of fish, some snow peas, 1 herbal soup. (note that the herbal soup is pre-packed by my TCM so she just needs to boil it.)
2. My red date and Logan Tea is never ready unless I woke up around 10am which is hardly because I wakes up every so often to pump and latch. Hence, I have to keep a tumbler of red date tea from the day before. Didn't everyday say we cannot have overnight food?
3. She couldn't proportion the food well. She could cook 1 herbal soup, 1 dessert, 1 other soup, steamed herbs with chicken essence all in 1 meal. Sometimes she cooked vegetables sufficient for 3 pax just for me alone.
Helper
3. I have a helper, hence, she doesn't do housework nor wash baby's clothes. She prepares dinner with my helper for the whole family (since there wasn't much to do). She limits the amount of food that my family eats. E.g. for 6 pax (including her), she cooked 1 small piece of thigh chicken meat per pax, watercress soup and small steamed fish to share. We never restricted the amount of food she used. I don't understand why the need to cut down.
4. She asked my helper to cut fruits for her to eat. Yet she told us the helper was very poor thing, wanted to eat fruits but didn't dare to ask us. So she decided to give it to her.
5. She asked my helper to go to supermarket with her to buy fruits for herself to eat. When we suggested that she could have the fruits we have, she said she didn't like the fruits we had ie apples, oranges and banana. She wanted papaya. But guess what? She came back with pineapple and bananas no papaya.
Weird habits
6. She enjoys small talks. She barges in my closed door, sat on my bed and started talking non stop about her other clients. I think there should be some customer confidentiality. She would stare at me breastfeeding and showed me her stretchmarks and nipples telling me how they came about. She couldn't take cues and would go on forever, repeatedly.
7. She attended confinement classes and thinks that it makes her above the rest of the nannies. She constantly brought it up and mentioned that's how she knows so much. But really, what she shares are what the mummies in the forums have shared like how to test water temperature when feeding baby. She doesn't even know she shouldn't be shaking bottles up and down while making forumla milk.
8. My relatives and friends came to visit me. She would eavedrop from behind us and join in if it's the relatives mentioning about confinement. She would then show off her knowledge. She even corrected my MIL in how to carry baby and how the baby should address the family. I should also add that she complained to my MIL that I didn't eat enough when I finished everything she cooked.
Moral Support
9. She demoralised me throughout the time she was here. I cried almost every other night. She commented every so often that I didn't have enough BM for the baby or that baby is not full after latching. Just when I am learning how to latch properly, it is inevitable that it takes longer than usual. She made comments like, "so long already, still not done." and "your milk is too thin. no wonder baby is still hungry." As a FTM, encouragement is very important. I dwelled on the fact that my BM is not "thick" enough for my baby for the longest time till I paid a visit to the lactation consultant.
10. I brought the nanny along for the consultant. Hoping that she could benefit from it and stop her discouraging comments. In the end, she interpreted the session in a different way and came up with her own theories of things.
Baby care
11. She would bring in baby for me in wee hours in the morning and said, "baby needs you. You can pass me the baby when she's asleep." I wonder why I engaged then.
12. She sleeps so much and so often that half the time I need to wake her up to change the baby or bath the baby. She even had to ask me how much did baby sleep in the day because she was asleep most of the time too and was afraid that baby would wake up at night.
13. I supplement BM with FM. 2 weeks old baby, she gave 50ml FM on top of BM by default. During the short hours that I was asleep (1am - 4/5am), she fed baby with EBM. Each time, she also gave 50ml. I asked her why, she said because baby vomitted if given more. Yet she complained to me that she had to wake up 5 times to feed baby. She had no idea what's baby's intake of milk.
These are just some of the experiences I had. It was recommended by a friend. But we reckoned it was because we were a young couple and didn't have any experience, she took advantage of us.
Her contact number: +60 17-648 6998
Food
1. She cooks large portion of confinement food for me for day 1 and day 2. Afterwhich, she cuts down the portion by A LOT. E.g. My hubby and I shared 1 thin slice of fish, some snow peas, 1 herbal soup. (note that the herbal soup is pre-packed by my TCM so she just needs to boil it.)
2. My red date and Logan Tea is never ready unless I woke up around 10am which is hardly because I wakes up every so often to pump and latch. Hence, I have to keep a tumbler of red date tea from the day before. Didn't everyday say we cannot have overnight food?
3. She couldn't proportion the food well. She could cook 1 herbal soup, 1 dessert, 1 other soup, steamed herbs with chicken essence all in 1 meal. Sometimes she cooked vegetables sufficient for 3 pax just for me alone.
Helper
3. I have a helper, hence, she doesn't do housework nor wash baby's clothes. She prepares dinner with my helper for the whole family (since there wasn't much to do). She limits the amount of food that my family eats. E.g. for 6 pax (including her), she cooked 1 small piece of thigh chicken meat per pax, watercress soup and small steamed fish to share. We never restricted the amount of food she used. I don't understand why the need to cut down.
4. She asked my helper to cut fruits for her to eat. Yet she told us the helper was very poor thing, wanted to eat fruits but didn't dare to ask us. So she decided to give it to her.
5. She asked my helper to go to supermarket with her to buy fruits for herself to eat. When we suggested that she could have the fruits we have, she said she didn't like the fruits we had ie apples, oranges and banana. She wanted papaya. But guess what? She came back with pineapple and bananas no papaya.
Weird habits
6. She enjoys small talks. She barges in my closed door, sat on my bed and started talking non stop about her other clients. I think there should be some customer confidentiality. She would stare at me breastfeeding and showed me her stretchmarks and nipples telling me how they came about. She couldn't take cues and would go on forever, repeatedly.
7. She attended confinement classes and thinks that it makes her above the rest of the nannies. She constantly brought it up and mentioned that's how she knows so much. But really, what she shares are what the mummies in the forums have shared like how to test water temperature when feeding baby. She doesn't even know she shouldn't be shaking bottles up and down while making forumla milk.
8. My relatives and friends came to visit me. She would eavedrop from behind us and join in if it's the relatives mentioning about confinement. She would then show off her knowledge. She even corrected my MIL in how to carry baby and how the baby should address the family. I should also add that she complained to my MIL that I didn't eat enough when I finished everything she cooked.
Moral Support
9. She demoralised me throughout the time she was here. I cried almost every other night. She commented every so often that I didn't have enough BM for the baby or that baby is not full after latching. Just when I am learning how to latch properly, it is inevitable that it takes longer than usual. She made comments like, "so long already, still not done." and "your milk is too thin. no wonder baby is still hungry." As a FTM, encouragement is very important. I dwelled on the fact that my BM is not "thick" enough for my baby for the longest time till I paid a visit to the lactation consultant.
10. I brought the nanny along for the consultant. Hoping that she could benefit from it and stop her discouraging comments. In the end, she interpreted the session in a different way and came up with her own theories of things.
Baby care
11. She would bring in baby for me in wee hours in the morning and said, "baby needs you. You can pass me the baby when she's asleep." I wonder why I engaged then.
12. She sleeps so much and so often that half the time I need to wake her up to change the baby or bath the baby. She even had to ask me how much did baby sleep in the day because she was asleep most of the time too and was afraid that baby would wake up at night.
13. I supplement BM with FM. 2 weeks old baby, she gave 50ml FM on top of BM by default. During the short hours that I was asleep (1am - 4/5am), she fed baby with EBM. Each time, she also gave 50ml. I asked her why, she said because baby vomitted if given more. Yet she complained to me that she had to wake up 5 times to feed baby. She had no idea what's baby's intake of milk.
These are just some of the experiences I had. It was recommended by a friend. But we reckoned it was because we were a young couple and didn't have any experience, she took advantage of us.
Her contact number: +60 17-648 6998