I'm writing this with the intention to save future mothers from stress, headaches, depression, money and the experience of having a bad confinement lady. I am not a mother myself but my wife is. I understand the need for good recovery and rest during the first few weeks after birth. Initially I managed to secure Jenny Low for my wife and paid for the deposit(SGD 500). A well recommended CL. She even have a blog post /review written about her on singaporebaby.com. I was very excited to have her caring for my wife and baby. However about 5 weeks before EDD, she decided to cancel on us because one of her family member was very ill. She manage to find a replacement for us so we don't have to go through the stress of finding one at such last minute. She mentioned the replacement is her cousin and assured my wife would receive the same quality of service from her.
Here is the data of the confinement lady:
Name: Chow Mei Yen / Aunty Cindy
DOB: 02 Dec 1964
Location: Kuala Lumpur
POB: Johor
Service Cost: SGD3500 for 28 days (SGD125 per day) (price maybe higher than Singapore because location was Brunei), RM80 per one way transport to airport (RM160 total), arrival and departure angpows, air tickets to Brunei
Health based on my observation: Generally good. Very bad eyesight and very slow movement.
This CL was only here for 6 days with two travel days included. I was already thinking of sending her back on day 4. Here is the day to day observations why I had to terminate her service.
Day 1:
- Use cup and didn't wash with soap. - unhygienic. (Happened within the first few hours of arrival)
- While wife and I were sleeping at night, baby started crying all night long because we thought baby was hungry. Baby had problem latching to mother so topped up with baby formula. Baby continued crying. A few hours later, I found out baby had urinated so many times that the diaper was completely soaked and baby's bottom was red. - Lazy to change baby's diaper or have no knowledge that baby diaper is wet.
Day 2:
- I had to tell CL to change and check baby's diaper every 3 hours. Baby's diaper was wet a few times throughout the day.
- Soap was still found in the baby bottle. CL didn't wash the bottle properly. Had to ask my maid to rewash them.
Day 3:
- Wife's breast was engorged. CL brought hot water towels to help. CL was very very rough. The next day the nurse came to the house and massaged my wife's breast and mentioned there is no need to be so rough. - Questionable if CL is experienced at all.
- While holding baby did not properly hold baby's neck / head and just left it hanging there. This was repeated a few times. I had to intervene and mentioned to make baby's head must be supported. - Having doubts if this CL knows what she was doing.
- Shaking baby a bit too hard. I had to tell her to be more careful and my baby likes to be swayed. This one made me angry.
Day 4:
- While bathing the baby. She placed the baby's towel on top of the toilet seat while bathing the baby. And used the towel again on the baby. This again is very unhygienic
- While changing baby's diaper. was very rough and lifted baby's leg very high- Doubts on her experience.
- Sleeps while wife is feeding baby.
Day 5:
- Caught CL washing the baby bottle without using soap. She didn't realized I was watching. I had to tell her to use soap to remove the milks fats in the bottle. - Unhygienic
- After changing baby's diaper, CL just threw the diaper on the bedroom floor. We have a special bin called Ubi pail to throw dirty diapers. We have already told her to throw into the diaper bin - Unhygienic
- Watching TVB on phone while wife and mother in law feeding baby.
Day 6:
- Did the same thing as day 2
- Sent back at 4pm
Other comments
- I would also like to mentioned that I also have my maid and mother in law in the house during my wife's confinement period. MIL's job was to cook the confinement food for my wife and maid's job was to keep the house clean and help cook dinner for myself, MIL and CL. I wanted the CL's main focus to be the mama and baby. Even with this extremely lighten load, CL was not performing very well. She did not have to cook for us or clean for us. She was lazy. I caught her playing with her phone many times. She didn't even offer to cook.
- Starting from day 2 till day 5, I had complaints from my maid and my MIL everyday. Let's start with the worst: Day 4, 4AM in the morning, my maid went to check on the baby and saw the CL was shaking the baby very hard to get him to sleep because CL herself desperately wanted to go back to sleep. Maid had to go to my MIL and MIL told her not shake my baby so hard. MIL herself slowly rocked baby to sleep till 6 in the morning. God blessed my mother in law. Maid complained on the bottles with soap and how rough CL was bathing the baby and changing baby's diaper.
- Wife also complained to me that the CL just left her and the baby to feed alone in the living at 3am in the morning. The CL just went into the room and slept. My wife was still recovering from the cut and couldn't carry the baby. CL only came back to my wife a hour plus later.
-After what my maid and MIL told me, I did not feel my baby was safe with this CL. I had problems sleeping the following night. I changed the return flight of the CL which cost extra. 4 hours before the flight, we informed her service was terminated and that she will only be compensated her for 6 days of work (SGD750), transport fare and departure angpow. Since I already paid for the deposit SGD500, I only gave her SGD250 plus transport fare (RM160). She was not satisfied and said the deposit had nothing to do with her and she said the deposit was a commission she paid to Jenny Low(the original CL) for this job with us. The CL wanted us to pay SGD750. We had to call Jenny Low that the commission was not our responsibility. What was agreed earlier was SGD3500 for 28 days. We informed Jenny that we were not satisfied with Cindy's service. Jenny got abit upset and imply that it will be bad karma if we don't pay her extra. Jenny made a fuss saying she wouldn't have sent Cindy or herself if she knew my mother in law and maid was there. After the call ended, Cindy had the audacity to ask for 3 extra days pay. We refused and stood our ground.
Overall this CL Aunty Cindy must be avoided at all cause. She is unhygienic, lazy, terrible at handling babies (this is a basic task) and inexperienced. She will may you feel like that your baby is not safe with her. Save the stress.
