I engaged STAR confinement in Jan’21. Due to Covid & CNY, we paid ~$5k hoping to have a restful recovery.
However, we had very bad experience:
- On Day 1, I told nanny I would like to bf my baby & share the baby room with her (2 single beds + 1 baby cot). But she rejected me stating that she’s not comfortable sharing the room & refused to let me bf my baby at night. She insisted us to buy fm for her to feed baby at night. We had to rush out that night to buy fm. As I’m not allowed to bf baby at night, I woke up every 2-hrs to pump to avoid clogging, then washed my pumps & bottles for the next pumping session, 3-4x a night.
- During the day, I would nurse my baby. Baby would latch to sleep & once I put her down, she would cry. Nanny never offered to take over baby from me during the day, claiming that I want to bf. Instead, she hid in the spare room in my kitchen all day long voice texting. While I carried baby all day long from 7am to 7pm. She cooked only breakfast, lunch & dinner, no morning tea, no afternoon tea even after I requested. She never stepped out of the kitchen except for her afternoon nap. She spent all day just to cook me 3 meals, I could have just ordered confinement meals.
- A few days later, we realised she always batch cooked rice for lunch & dinner. She kept the rice cooker warmed all day. We requested her to cook fresh rice for dinner & cook enough for lunch. She obliged for a few days but went back to cooking whole batch of rice for lunch & dinner again subsequently.
- I also realised she boiled red date soup before bedtime & kept it warm for the rest of the night & served me the next day. I asked if the soup should be boiled the next early morning for fresh soup instead of overnight drinks, but she insisted “This is the way it should be”.
- During my bath time, she poured hot water into the pail with the herbal pack in. I asked if she could boil the herbal pack & water together instead, she told me “No need, it works the same”. I never had boiled herbal water for bath at all.
- One day we walked pass her room & saw her sipping my confinement soup in a big bowl. We weren’t sure if this is the norm, so we reached out to agent privately to ask. A while later, she stomp out & said she would quit if we are unhappy & claimed that the other 2 mothers she served prior to me allowed her to drink. But a while later, she said let’s just forget about this & move on. We were overwhelmed with new parents challenges & did not manage to digest this.
- In the contract, nanny could help wiping the floor 1-2x a week but she didn’t after 3 weeks, so we asked if she could help to wipe the floor. She was in total disbelief & did it unwillingly.
- She damaged all our non-stick cookware. The kitchen was in total mess while she's here & after she left. We had to do a deep cleaning.
I conceived my firstborn naturally without any difficulty within 5 months. I have not been able to conceive again although trying for ~2 years now. I tend to think that my body is not conditioned to get pregnant again due to my terrible confinement experience.
