I rather not have a confinement nanny than engage one from CA.

Hi, everyone has different experiences and whether you like the nannies also depends on a lot of factors. Maybe the mom can get along with the nanny, the nanny can cook well, or seems nice overall etc. But if we are putting everything aside and strictly looking at the quality and capability of infant care, these nannies are not acceptable. Not only is it bad, but I find it almost dangerous for them to be the caretaker we are supposed to get advice from. The sad thing is that often times, we are also new moms so don’t know what’s right or wrong. In my case, my pediatrician had to intervene.

Just a few things,

- poor hygiene leading to infection. No washing hands after bathroom use/ touching raw kitchen ingredients and going straight to the baby even after several warnings

- touching baby’s face/ feeding baby after diaper change without washing hands

- no knowledge in proper baby bottle sterilization. I only found out on week 3 that it wasn’t being cleaned properly. Maybe that’s why my baby got infection? (hard to prove)

- they want their night time to be easier so will recommend things that aren’t necessarily good for the baby, so that the nanny can sleep more at night. If you just listen to them, you can also sleep but only if you don’t care what’s going on with the baby. I woke up so many times to find that nanny was feeding the baby with eyes closed/ half sleeping with her arm on my baby’s stomach as a resting spot and the baby was coughing and didn’t even take the bottle out.

- no proper knowledge in bottle feeding leading to air ingestion - possible colic issues

- no proper knowledge in confinement food ingredients. They know what’s “good” and can make you fancy soups with the recipe but they don’t know what’s BAD for you and I ended up eating a whole bottle of this sauce that I’m not supposed to eat.

- overfeeding the baby so that the baby will stop crying so the nanny can rest. This is the most serious issue. Often times when the baby cries, we also don’t know what to do and are clueless. When you overfeeding the baby, they WILL sleep. My pediatrician had to intervene because we were feeding a 2-3week old the amount that was more than what a 6 months would be drinking. All under the nanny’s supervision. I was also fully breast feeding and was told to top up with FORMULA which we did because we had no idea.

basically I had 3 nannies within one month and let’s say 2 of the nannies were like this. I rather not have a confinement nanny than engage one from CA. Please please for the sake of your baby, reconsider. I would hate to have this happen to anyone else in Singapore.