Almost there . . .
Sorry to hear that you’ve had a bad experience with your confinement nanny. We’re so in a similar situation. Last week, we fired our confinement nanny, Lim Ah Moy, after working with her for 12 days. We realized that she was not suitable for our household.
We are sharing our experience with her in the hope that others can benefit from it and avoid similar nannies in the future.
Our experience with Mdm Lim began in 2022 when we were expecting a child in June 2023. A good friend recommended Mdm Lim, who had provided excellent service to them and even extended her services for another month. We paid a $800 deposit to secure her availability in June, with an agreed salary of $4000.
Unfortunately, the pregnancy ended prematurely, and we requested that Mdm Lim return our deposit. To our dismay, she informed us that the money had already been spent by her family and suggested considering it as a deposit for our next pregnancy. Although this was unacceptable, we had little recourse to recover the amount, so we reluctantly agreed.
Later on, my wife became pregnant again for January 2024. We contacted Mdm Lim once we knew the estimated due date to engage her services. However, she repeatedly asked for an advance or additional deposit every 1-2 months, all of which we declined.
In December, she sent us pictures of her granddaughter in the hospital and attempted to obtain an additional $1000 on top of the $800 deposit we had already paid, claiming that her family needed the money. We firmly refused this request as it was unacceptable since she had not yet provided any services.
During her time with us, she insisted on preparing frozen roti prata, kway tiao, and bee hoon for my wife's breakfast. I advised her that my wife should consume more nutrient-dense foods, but she disregarded my suggestion. I later realized that the requested foods were the ones she wanted to eat, not those beneficial for my wife's postpartum recovery.
Mdm Lim frequently boasted about her cooking skills, claiming that her previous clients were all impressed with her food. However, we found her cooking to be severely disappointing. She frequently made soups like corn soup (ABC soup) and herbal black chicken soup, both of which were boiled for only an hour and lacked flavor. The final straw was when she served us sesame chicken that was raw on the inside, which posed a serious health risk to my wife. Additionally, her steamed fish was consistently undercooked or overcooked.
We were also very disappointed with the way she cared for our child. Despite her years of experience, she held our baby over her shoulder with one hand supporting the baby's butt, which was unnecessary and endangered the baby. My in-laws witnessed this and reprimanded her. She responded by telling my in-laws that she was merely "tolerating the next 28 days and then she would be off," which greatly alarmed us.
While at my in-laws, she refused to cook at my in-laws claiming that she had marinated pork for us. However, she ended up making fried rice with chorizo she found in the fridge (processed pork is not particularly suitable for postpartum recovery).
On one occasion when my wife had a friend over, she casually asked Mdm Lim if a cup of red date tea on the table belonged to her. This innocent question triggered an angry outburst from Mdm Lim, who claimed that she would not eat food that did not belong to her (even though she had been eating our food for the past two weeks) before storming off. We fired her the next day. (and paid her prorated for the days she worked + booked a hotel room for her for the night)
We wanted to share our experience with the community to prevent others from making the same mistake as us. We strongly urge you to interview your confinement nanny thoroughly to ensure a good fit.
fired confinement nanny after 12 days, several issues
1. money problems - keeps bugging us for advance/more deposit
2. food unacceptable - raw chicken and overcooked/undercooked fish, water tasteless soup
3. reckless with handling our kid
4. angry outburst at wife = immediate termination
