Almost there . . .
Hi just want to share my experience with Star Confinement. I have a feeling Star Confinement deletes bad reviews as it’s impossible that they don’t have any online.
I fired nanny Evon Liew Siew Fong from Star Confinement after 10 days of being shortchanged. Basically, she took advantage of our kindness and ignorance and cut a lot of corners.
1) she cooked all dishes with the same method for both lunch and dinner for 10 days. She spammed ginger in my food and didn’t stop even after I got a flu and my hubs got an ulcer and we told her to reduce the ginger. I was breastfeeding but she didn’t make breakfast for me except for 2-3 days. Also didn’t make red date tea and told me to drink hot water instead by lying and saying it’s good for me.
2) She also asked us to do the laundry instead of doing it for us which is her job under the contract.
3) we were super nice to allow her to turn on the aircon. But Baby had started to show signs of sensitivity to aircon. There was one night where the temperature was 24 deg celcius outside and she turned on the aircon to 28 deg celcius, claiming that she wanted to accommodate baby because she knew baby’s nose was sensitive. Baby vomited out milk that morning and developed a flu after that.
4) in terms of baby care, she was quite meticulous in cleaning baby etc, but she really drove me nuts by insisting that we stick to a strict 2-3 hour schedule. If the time wasn’t up yet, she would refuse to let baby drink even if she was clearly very hungry, saying we cannot over feed her. Later on when we went to the paediatrician, we found out that we had been under-feeding her. It was a miracle that baby was still putting on weight.
5) She made many unhelpful in the comments and remarks about my milk, ability to breastfeed and care for baby.
The agency gave us a discount but still expected us to give a leaving Ang bao to Evon and welcome Ang bao to the new nanny. The replacement nanny was decent but not outstanding.
some tips I will pass on to new mums:
- Don’t rely on the nanny to teach you about baby care and breastfeeding. Go for classes to learn and educate yourself.
- Request for specific tried and tested nannies from friends’ recommendations.
- have a set of house rules ready for the nanny when she comes, including what she can or cannot eat or use, how to use the washing machine, how often to wash toilet, etc.
- don’t be afraid to tell the nanny what you want and to confront her if she’s not doing what is expected.
- the nanny should care for you and hubs as much as for baby so that you can recover and start learning to care for baby ASAP.
- get an experienced family member to “interview” the nanny and observe her for a few days.
- speak to friends about your experience to see if she is cutting corners.
- follow your motherly instincts and don’t let the nanny manage you!
