My wife just delivered in early Oct. This is our 2nd child. The first child I took the role of the confinement lady and looked after mommy and baby for 1 month. This time round, I thought that I couldn't go through the sleepless nights again. So in one of the baby fairs, we signed up with PEM. From the start, I was already worried as we were not told who our CL would be. We were told if we did not have anyone to specify, they would randomly send one to us. However, we were reassured that their CLs were all experienced.
The CL arrived on the first day we arrived home. She looked like a nice lady in her late 50s. We already made things very easy for her. We have a maid who would be doing all the cooking for the rest of the family and her. The maid also does all the housework and looks after the older child. So all that the CL had to do was to take care of mummy's food, change and bathe baby and wash baby's clothes.
The initial simple question to her was what does mummy need to eat so I could go buy the ingredients. Her reply was: "See what the maid cooks lar." Then I specifically asked her what does mummy need to eat during the confinement. Her reply was: "Chicken lar, pork lar fish lar. veg lar" ..... WTH? I also know how to answer like that. So we thought she was adjusting to a new family and decided to give her time.
The first complaint from mummy was that she takes 10mins to change the baby's diapers. I observed myself and found that she was super slow. I could change the diapers faster than her.
When it came to the cooking, she did not have any initiative. She can come to me and ask: "What does mummy want to eat?" In my head I was thinking:"Aren't you supposed to come up with a menu? Anyways why are you asking me? Shouldn't you be asking mummy?"
The second complaint from mummy was when the baby refused to stop crying one night. After trying some ways which did not work, she went to mummy and asked: " Now how? The baby won't stop crying"
My thought immediately was: "Aren't you the expert in taking care of babies? Why are you asking us now how???"
After 3 days, we were thinking of whether we should request for a change in CL. This CL seems so inexperienced. We discussed and decided to give her more time to adapt and maybe improve.
Things remained the same for the next 2 weeks. There was hardly any improvement in the sense of planning the menu. Confinement food for my wife for 2 weeks was just soup and rice. We had to ask her to cook more varieties for mummy before she cooked.... wait..... "Boiled Vegetable"... *Facepalm big time*
I really had to ask her if mummy required things like pork trotters and sesame oil chicken etc before she decided to cook it. And thru the 4 weeks confinement, She only cooked pork trotters once (big pot that lasted for 3 days), sesame chicken once, stirfried pork once, and fish on 3 - 4 occasion. We made things super easy for her in the sense that she only needed to cook lunch for mummy. Dinner was cooked by the maid.
The final straw came 3 -4 days before the end of confinement. As the baby had outgrown her swaddle, we had to use one that needed safety pin. When asked to pin the swaddle, she admitted that she didnt know how to use one!!!!!! How could any CL NOT know how to use a safety pin?? It is like a mechanic not knowing how to use a spanner.
I am not unhappy with this CL. Rather I am very unhappy with PEM for sending an inexperienced CL trying to pass off as an experienced one. In the feedback form, I ticked poor performance for all the questions and I wrote that I am very unhappy with PEM. It has been 1 week already and I have not received any calls from PEM. I think they have just happily taken the $600 agency fee and doesn't really care what happens.
So new-dads/mums to be, beware when you sign up with this agency. I know others have had good experience with them. But my experience was bad beyond description!
The CL arrived on the first day we arrived home. She looked like a nice lady in her late 50s. We already made things very easy for her. We have a maid who would be doing all the cooking for the rest of the family and her. The maid also does all the housework and looks after the older child. So all that the CL had to do was to take care of mummy's food, change and bathe baby and wash baby's clothes.
The initial simple question to her was what does mummy need to eat so I could go buy the ingredients. Her reply was: "See what the maid cooks lar." Then I specifically asked her what does mummy need to eat during the confinement. Her reply was: "Chicken lar, pork lar fish lar. veg lar" ..... WTH? I also know how to answer like that. So we thought she was adjusting to a new family and decided to give her time.
The first complaint from mummy was that she takes 10mins to change the baby's diapers. I observed myself and found that she was super slow. I could change the diapers faster than her.
When it came to the cooking, she did not have any initiative. She can come to me and ask: "What does mummy want to eat?" In my head I was thinking:"Aren't you supposed to come up with a menu? Anyways why are you asking me? Shouldn't you be asking mummy?"
The second complaint from mummy was when the baby refused to stop crying one night. After trying some ways which did not work, she went to mummy and asked: " Now how? The baby won't stop crying"
My thought immediately was: "Aren't you the expert in taking care of babies? Why are you asking us now how???"
After 3 days, we were thinking of whether we should request for a change in CL. This CL seems so inexperienced. We discussed and decided to give her more time to adapt and maybe improve.
Things remained the same for the next 2 weeks. There was hardly any improvement in the sense of planning the menu. Confinement food for my wife for 2 weeks was just soup and rice. We had to ask her to cook more varieties for mummy before she cooked.... wait..... "Boiled Vegetable"... *Facepalm big time*
I really had to ask her if mummy required things like pork trotters and sesame oil chicken etc before she decided to cook it. And thru the 4 weeks confinement, She only cooked pork trotters once (big pot that lasted for 3 days), sesame chicken once, stirfried pork once, and fish on 3 - 4 occasion. We made things super easy for her in the sense that she only needed to cook lunch for mummy. Dinner was cooked by the maid.
The final straw came 3 -4 days before the end of confinement. As the baby had outgrown her swaddle, we had to use one that needed safety pin. When asked to pin the swaddle, she admitted that she didnt know how to use one!!!!!! How could any CL NOT know how to use a safety pin?? It is like a mechanic not knowing how to use a spanner.
I am not unhappy with this CL. Rather I am very unhappy with PEM for sending an inexperienced CL trying to pass off as an experienced one. In the feedback form, I ticked poor performance for all the questions and I wrote that I am very unhappy with PEM. It has been 1 week already and I have not received any calls from PEM. I think they have just happily taken the $600 agency fee and doesn't really care what happens.
So new-dads/mums to be, beware when you sign up with this agency. I know others have had good experience with them. But my experience was bad beyond description!