Infant care OR hire a helper?

Hello.. We were at the same crossroad previously and we eventually hired a domestic helper. Our girl is 2.5yo now and #2 is coming out on June 2019. Our girl started going toddler class at 18 months old, full day. We decided on domestic helper as we felt that it’s more cost savings. Coz it’s also all in one, baby and housework all settled. But of course it comes with a risk too. Personally I feel hiring a helper is very dependent on luck. This helper has been with us for 3 years Liao. And we are very happy with her. She loves kids too. And it’s also very convenient to have her around. Anyway, to answer your concerns: To hire helper: 1) Having another person at home: yes you are right and sometimes it poses inconvenience also. It just feels weird. But you will get used to it. It took us quite a while to get use. We will talk things out immediately and clear any misunderstandings when we feel anything wrong. What I can suggest is you can also set rules with your helper before hand. 2) Alone with kid: We did not have much concern about this and we didn’t install cameras at home. I will just tell her what I need her help with before I leave house. I won’t tell her when I will come home, so will just pop in whenever. This gives her no time to prepare if she is really up to anything funny. We do go out late at night, leaving only her and Bay at home. Suggestion is you can install camera at home. 3) Taking easy way out: This can be coached. You can let the helper know what is your preferred way of stopping baby from crying. And provide feedback to the helper as necessary. 4) Bond w Parents: Not true. What we did is once we are back from work, we will take over all the baby duties such as showering, change diaper, feeding, playing etc. Helper will just concentrate on cleaning duties, if nothing to do, then we let her go rest. Our girl now is 2yo and she’s closer to us than helper. She will look for us for things instead of helper. Infant Care: 1) Rigid Schedule: Yeap you are right. Need to fetch before 7pm (not sure is it same for all childcare centre) otherwise will have to pay fine. Then at times if need to OT at work, gotta worry nobody fetch baby. I basically have to leave work at 6pm sharp so as not to be late. 2) Falling Sick: Yeap, right too. But no choice and anyway, the child will eventually build up immunity and lesser chance of falling sick. We gave our girl multi vitamins. Works well so far. But only worry is when outbreak of HFMD 😂 We feel it all boils down to trust and communication. Whether is it helper or infant care. Also we need to Ensure that our helper do have work life balance, just like ourselves. This are just my experiences and personal point of view. You should go with the choice that you are most comfortable with. Hope this helps 😊

I hired a domestic helper 6 years ago when my son was born. partly cos my in-laws wanted to help care (play) with their grand child but don't want the hassle of the diaper changing etc etc. my brother, whose daughter is the same age as my son, sent their' s to infant care. admittedly, i do find my niece a lot more sociable and vocal in the first few years. now , thankfully my son seems to have caught up on both factors. having an extra person at home does takes some adjusting to. as the other parent commented, it also saves you time and some money too (which seems surprising but true). I see my brother sending my niece to weekend enrichment classes, practically taking up the whole Saturday so that they have time for housework, shopping and personal time. subsequently, groceries are all bought online to save time too. My son is 6 and my daughter is 3 now. both do have strong bonds with the helper. I do make it a point to spend quality time with them on the weekends. make sure they understand who their parents are. in the first 2 years, my kids sleep with the help. now I make my kids sleep together in a room w/o the helper. from time to time, I'll bunk in with them. And sometimes, i do allow them to sleep with their 'aunt' too. I see the bonds being useful too cos it means that the helper also develops that link to the children. both options have their pros and cons. you'll have to decide what works best for you.

Perhaps it’s not just about the 1:1 ratio but rather the exposure for the child. For helpers and nannies, they are just there to ensure that the essentials are met - the child gets fed, bathed and is safe from harm. There is hardly any value-add. In pre-school, the child learns to live without his/her parents, enter into a new environment, (learns to adapt to uncertainty), learns to play with other kids (social skills), learns to take instructions from teachers (compliance) gets exposure to art and craft (creativity), gets sick too, (but developes immunity from germs), gets comfortable with teacher (prevents stranger anxiety). Lastly, kids get exposed to teaching materials at an early age and early childhood education (which is structured by studies and empirical evidence) - which develops their cognitive ability. What do kids do at home with maids, grandparents or nannies? Possibly on YouTube, watching TV? And these things have been proven to be harmful.

Suggest that put ut child to the infant car instead.. But at the same time taking maid is also much easier job..The only thing if u wanna take maid u have to buy a camera which have detected where ever she go or even do violence to the kids can be detected through the camera and there will be a alarm for that.. But one thing if u put ur child to infant care yes teacher may be with them but it also the same thing has u taking a maid.. But the difference there is u also don't know what happen if they do anything to ur child..

We chose infant care as the helper we tried out didn't work out after 1 month. The main pro of helper is housework is settled, but the biggest con is I think it's unsafe to entrust an infant to helper alone, unless u have an elder to help supervise. For ifc, the two cons you stated are basically the only two cons we faced. but after falling sick for first two months, all are good n well and we still feel that ifc was a good choice we made for our 5.5mo.. Now he's 2.5yo and still very happy to go cc daily

We have a helper. But under the supervision of my in laws. We sleep with our son. His bond with the helper is strong but never replaced her over us. Admittedly we should have sent him to play group at 18 months to at least learned some social skills and communication skills which was behind other children his age. Having a helper seems good for the first 18 months of a child’s life cause it really takes our burden off cleaning and washing. Which is a lot lol.

I prefer helper with someone’s supervision like grandma etc.. the reason is going to infant care will have all sorts of viruses, sickness etc.. can’t deal with it & especially cranky baby when sick, it’s more stressful I think.. fall sick every month at infant care is very common, thus I prefer helper personally.

my baby went to infant care when she is 3 months old. She did not fall sick at all. infant care always have weekly special themes games/lessons for them. let the baby do more explore and mix with more people. If not when they grow older, they are scare of new faces they will stick to you more &you might have an issue.

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Infant care, for sure. You can always get a part timer to help with the house chores, but infant care would help with socialising and teach your child professionally vs what your helper could do.