Not recommended: Hao Jie
Nationality: Malaysian (from JB)
Age: 56
I had bad experience with this confinement nanny so please beware. Plus my baby boy is a special needs baby (cerebral palsy from brain damage) and she didn't take good care of him. I initially contacted Auntie Lian, a confinement nanny who seems very popular in the motherhood forums ... she in turn recommended hao jie, saying she's capable & all. Later I found out that Auntie Lian took commission from hao jie for recommending her ($200 out of the $1900 we paid hao jie).
What happened:
1. Found hao jie to be 'chor loh' / rough with my bb. My bb, coz of his brain damage & cerebral palsy, suffers from hyper tone (excessively stiff muscles). Yet she would anyhow bend his limbs forcibly so that she could bathe, clothe him etc. Our physio therapish, after observing her, cautioned me against her.
2. TV addict ... she was glued to the TV day & night, even when feeding bb, her eyes would be on the TV, not my boy.
3. She constantly passed insensitive, yaya comments at me to show off her 'capabalities' while undermining my confidence as new, 1st-time mummy. Eg: that my bb always cries when I carry him whereas he doesn't when she carries him ... that I don't know how to do this & that in terms of babycare ... ah duh, if I know, I wouldn't be a 1st-time mummy or would want to hire her.
4. Snide gossip ... I later found out she was gossiping about me to my mother-in-law behind my back while doing the same to my MIL to me behind her back. What on earth does she get out of sowing discord? At the same time, she curried favour with mil until in laws wanted to hire her long-term to look after bb when I return to work.
5. Very thick-skinned esp in asking for things. On her 1st day, before she even started work, she checked out things in my bb's room and asked for unused milk bottles for her grandkids. She constantly went thru' things in the house and asked us for things that we no longer use.
6. Unreliable - at times I found her talking away on her handphone while leaving my bb to cry & fuss on his bed.
In the end, we fired her and I took extended leave to become SAHM with help & support of my mum.