avocadochips1
New Member
Just need to get this out of my system for closure.
We hired a nanny through Confinement Angels and my month of confinement was one of the worse periods of my life. For context, we paid for a 3 star nanny, but got a replacement nanny instead when the original one was not able to make it as she apparently was running a fever. (Later on, I found out that this replacement nanny assigned to me had only completed 7 other assignments prior to me and had been working non-stop with only 1 week rest between assignments.) During the 1 month, I also catered confinement food on weekdays so the nanny could focus on the baby/myself. I also chose to breastfeed/direct latching even at night, so the nanny didn't need to do much night duties beyond changing diapers maybe twice/night. She stayed in a room by herself and baby slept in my room.
What went wrong:
Not pro-breastfeeding
1. Within 2 hours of meeting, the nanny mentioning that formula will help baby sleep better and I should keep a can of it at home. While we did have a can on stand-by, we told her we wanted to try breastfeeding/latching as much as possible.
2. Throughout the awful month, I had to report to her the number of times I fed the baby and the length of time spent nursing. She insisted on writing it in the awful awful awful logbook while I logged it down in my app. I felt like a prisoner every day when we had to go through that book. Worse still, she would make comments and faces when she thought the nursing sessions were too short. Often, she would comment in a passive aggressive manner to suggest that the baby would be hungry. Every time my baby cried, she would 'ask' the baby: Are you hungry cos you don't have enough milk to drink? She only shut up after we went for the paeds appt and the doctor said that the baby's weight gain was good.
3. She would give judgemental looks when I fed the baby within short intervals eg: 1.5hours. Told me that other babies would feed only once in 3 hours and that my baby was manipulating me to make me carry her. Seriously, if my newborn could do that, I would be happy cos that's some genius level thinking there.
Taking care of me:
1. We asked her to cook/prepare breakfast for me. Most days, she didn't cook for me and just gave me a piece of bread from the local bakery. Once, she gave me a piece of bread that I know was 2 days old since I saw it in the fridge the day before. If I didn't finish the fruits she prepared, they would appear again and again and again each meal time until I ate them.
2. Instead of cooking the bird nest that my mum brought over, the nanny kept trying to get me to drink the bottled birds nest that my friends gave. Maybe she didn't want the trouble of cooking for me. When she did cook it, it tasted really thin and I couldn't find the nest strands in the soup.
3. Cooking was so salty- I had a full tub of salt in the beginning of the month (500g) and the tub was nearly empty at the end of the month when she left. One day I stepped into my kitchen and almost broke down when I saw the mess that she made. I cooked frequently and I'm familiar with every nook and cranny of my kitchen- there is now a burn mark on my stove that no remover can erase.
4. She made my mum buy all sorts of herbs and ingredients but when she left, we found that these ingredients were barely used/hidden in corners of the fridge. My mum bought some lemons for me, but the nanny told me that I shouldn't be eating them as I would have osteoporosis later in life if I did so. Two days later, I saw that her bottle of water had the refreshing twist of lemons added.
5. I suspected that the pot she used to prepare the longan red date tea daily wasn't cleaned out every day- once at 3am I happened to be in the kitchen and opened the pot to find the previous day's tea still in there. Didn't have the chance to confront her, but this incident just made me feel more like a prisoner in my own home.
Taking care of baby
1. I stepped out of my room one day to find the nanny trying to put baby to sleep on its tummy. Nanny still told me that it was a recommended thing to do to help babies with gas. When I told her it was an unsafe sleep practice, she raised her eyebrows at me and made passive aggressive comments again, along the lines of "I've done this for many other kids before"
2. I wondered why my baby would scream so loudly during bath time, until I decided to observe the bath time at a corner quietly. Nanny was rubbing my baby's head quite roughly with a cleaning towel meant to clean the changing table instead of using the face towel that I asked her to use. She would rub the diaper cream in a rough manner as well and pull baby's limbs into the onesies instead of being gentle. My heart broke when I saw my baby howling as her head was scrubbed with the towel.
Other things
On at least one occasion, I found out that she eavesdropped on my conversations and would 'report' happenings and my actions to my mum. After she left, I found so many hair strands trapped behind the bed she was using- she shed more hair than post-partum me, the room and the toilet she used looked like they accommodated a Yeti. At night, she snored so loudly that my husband and I in the room next door could hear her behind closed doors. During her nap times, she didn't respond to my knocks on the door when I desperately needed to change the baby's diapers (baby's changing table was in her room), so my baby slept in slightly dirtier diapers than I would have liked. Only when my husband or mum was around, was she more responsive.
I wanted to fire her on the 5th day, but my husband and mum were under the impression that I was just hormonal- the nanny told them that new mums are might be hormonal and thus irrational. I regretted not following my instincts and instead going through such an awful month. The day she was gone, I danced around the house with my baby and a smile on my face, the first in 28 days.
We hired a nanny through Confinement Angels and my month of confinement was one of the worse periods of my life. For context, we paid for a 3 star nanny, but got a replacement nanny instead when the original one was not able to make it as she apparently was running a fever. (Later on, I found out that this replacement nanny assigned to me had only completed 7 other assignments prior to me and had been working non-stop with only 1 week rest between assignments.) During the 1 month, I also catered confinement food on weekdays so the nanny could focus on the baby/myself. I also chose to breastfeed/direct latching even at night, so the nanny didn't need to do much night duties beyond changing diapers maybe twice/night. She stayed in a room by herself and baby slept in my room.
What went wrong:
Not pro-breastfeeding
1. Within 2 hours of meeting, the nanny mentioning that formula will help baby sleep better and I should keep a can of it at home. While we did have a can on stand-by, we told her we wanted to try breastfeeding/latching as much as possible.
2. Throughout the awful month, I had to report to her the number of times I fed the baby and the length of time spent nursing. She insisted on writing it in the awful awful awful logbook while I logged it down in my app. I felt like a prisoner every day when we had to go through that book. Worse still, she would make comments and faces when she thought the nursing sessions were too short. Often, she would comment in a passive aggressive manner to suggest that the baby would be hungry. Every time my baby cried, she would 'ask' the baby: Are you hungry cos you don't have enough milk to drink? She only shut up after we went for the paeds appt and the doctor said that the baby's weight gain was good.
3. She would give judgemental looks when I fed the baby within short intervals eg: 1.5hours. Told me that other babies would feed only once in 3 hours and that my baby was manipulating me to make me carry her. Seriously, if my newborn could do that, I would be happy cos that's some genius level thinking there.
Taking care of me:
1. We asked her to cook/prepare breakfast for me. Most days, she didn't cook for me and just gave me a piece of bread from the local bakery. Once, she gave me a piece of bread that I know was 2 days old since I saw it in the fridge the day before. If I didn't finish the fruits she prepared, they would appear again and again and again each meal time until I ate them.
2. Instead of cooking the bird nest that my mum brought over, the nanny kept trying to get me to drink the bottled birds nest that my friends gave. Maybe she didn't want the trouble of cooking for me. When she did cook it, it tasted really thin and I couldn't find the nest strands in the soup.
3. Cooking was so salty- I had a full tub of salt in the beginning of the month (500g) and the tub was nearly empty at the end of the month when she left. One day I stepped into my kitchen and almost broke down when I saw the mess that she made. I cooked frequently and I'm familiar with every nook and cranny of my kitchen- there is now a burn mark on my stove that no remover can erase.
4. She made my mum buy all sorts of herbs and ingredients but when she left, we found that these ingredients were barely used/hidden in corners of the fridge. My mum bought some lemons for me, but the nanny told me that I shouldn't be eating them as I would have osteoporosis later in life if I did so. Two days later, I saw that her bottle of water had the refreshing twist of lemons added.
5. I suspected that the pot she used to prepare the longan red date tea daily wasn't cleaned out every day- once at 3am I happened to be in the kitchen and opened the pot to find the previous day's tea still in there. Didn't have the chance to confront her, but this incident just made me feel more like a prisoner in my own home.
Taking care of baby
1. I stepped out of my room one day to find the nanny trying to put baby to sleep on its tummy. Nanny still told me that it was a recommended thing to do to help babies with gas. When I told her it was an unsafe sleep practice, she raised her eyebrows at me and made passive aggressive comments again, along the lines of "I've done this for many other kids before"
2. I wondered why my baby would scream so loudly during bath time, until I decided to observe the bath time at a corner quietly. Nanny was rubbing my baby's head quite roughly with a cleaning towel meant to clean the changing table instead of using the face towel that I asked her to use. She would rub the diaper cream in a rough manner as well and pull baby's limbs into the onesies instead of being gentle. My heart broke when I saw my baby howling as her head was scrubbed with the towel.
Other things
On at least one occasion, I found out that she eavesdropped on my conversations and would 'report' happenings and my actions to my mum. After she left, I found so many hair strands trapped behind the bed she was using- she shed more hair than post-partum me, the room and the toilet she used looked like they accommodated a Yeti. At night, she snored so loudly that my husband and I in the room next door could hear her behind closed doors. During her nap times, she didn't respond to my knocks on the door when I desperately needed to change the baby's diapers (baby's changing table was in her room), so my baby slept in slightly dirtier diapers than I would have liked. Only when my husband or mum was around, was she more responsive.
I wanted to fire her on the 5th day, but my husband and mum were under the impression that I was just hormonal- the nanny told them that new mums are might be hormonal and thus irrational. I regretted not following my instincts and instead going through such an awful month. The day she was gone, I danced around the house with my baby and a smile on my face, the first in 28 days.
wanted to choose PEM but they were fully booked for my EDD. do you mind to PM me the name of your nanny? Thank you.