Today my heart broke a little bit. It was my little ones first day of preschool and I brought my helper along to assist me. When we were ready to leave, my little one kept bawling away and would not let go of my helper and kept saying "ateh, don't leave me" (ateh is big Sister). I told my baby, ok, mumma can take time off from work and spend with you and she replied, no I want ateh to stay and play with me. I feel jealous and hurt that my baby prefers The Maid to me. Am I being unreasonable? I feel like changing maids.

Actually instead of changing ur helper, i feel that the problem is u. im not judging u but the solution is u. the fact that ur child prefers ur helper shows that she is doing her job well. u shouldn't change her, u dont knw what ur next helper would be like. while it may be harsh to say all this, this is a good chance to reflect on how u can turn things around. it is nt late to build a stronger bond with ur child. i share with u my example. my helper's main duties are housework, laundry n cooking. she does not look after my son. my mum helps out while im at work and after wrk i rush home immediately to take over. i breastfeed n prepare all my lo solid foods. i bathe him in the evening n my hub bathes him in the morning. i spent all my after-wrk time with my lo, teaching n playing with n looking after him. my hub n i rock n tuck him into bed. my hub n i look after him entire wkends. my helper has little contact with him, the only thing she does for him is wash his clothes. i know different ppl have different constraints n may not have a mom or mil or hub to help out. but i feel that as a mother, we are always making sacrifices. it depends on what u want to prioritise, what is impt to u. for me, i sacrifice my me-time and my career advancements for motherhood because it is impt to me. if u feel that, for example other than motherhood, u also want to focus on n grow ur career then sacrifices have to be made. n cant complain when there is less bonding between u n child. but if u decide to focus more on motherhood but have no one other than the maid to help u, maybe make it such that ur maid takes care of the child when u r at wrk but u take over entirely once u r back? more work for mummy but no choice. so now is a good time to reassess ur situation. sometimes we need incidents like this to help us realign our life directions. all the best!

Hugs... I totally feel you but I dun have a maid to be jealous of. I m jealous of my hubby. My elder boy always prefer my hubby. From making milk, making him sleep & going out, he always prefer daddy. sometime when daddy need to work late or out for meeting, he will cry very badly & insist I call daddy to come home immediately. I feel very sad most of the time but keep it to myself. to my boy, I always play the bad guy at home, daddy is good guy. daddy always look after him since he was born, making sure he get his milk every nite since birth. I reflected & try to spend some night time to study with him & weekend to play with him. you can do it too. mayb take a day off once in a while to spend time alone with ur child & weekend leave all household chores to ur helper to do while u spend time with ur child. every second is precious & is memorable for urself & child.

I'm sorry you feel that way. Probably it was coz you're working (I presume) and your helper looks after your child most of the time. It's normal for a child to find someone that they are always with when they go to a place that is unfamiliar to them. You shouldn't feel jealous, you should be thankful, your child is in good hands. For me, i believe so. What you can do is, spend more time with your child without the helper whenever possible. Go out just the two of you without the helper. Understand and know your child's needs more than the helper. I used to have a helper when my elder boy was younger but he was never close to the helper. There are things I don't allow him to do with her. He finds me for comfort still until today that he is already 7.

*hugs* It can be heartbreaking but I'm sure your child will know over time that maids can be replaced, but her mummy will always be there. Thinking positive, it means your maid has done a good job in looking after your girl. Between heartbreak due to jealousy and heartbreak due to child abuse, I'll pick jealousy any time. She does not deserve to lose her job for a job well done. But having said that, you can try to spend some alone time to bond with your girl. If your maid comes along to interrupt, let her know it's Mummy and Daughter bonding time. Try to handle most things yourself when you're at home (ie. bathe, feed, diaper, sleep, etc). Kids build bonding not by the identity but by the time spent with the person. Cheer up. :)

It's never too late to change the situation, it's good that at least you feel this way, mean we are bonding not enough with our kids, that the kids prefer the helper/caregiver instead of the mum. Do plan how you can bond with your child after she back from school. My girl go school full day, hence after school, i will spend a bit of time with her, give her materials to do activities, doesn't need to accompany her whole night, about 30 minutes +- is good and let her free and easy. Too dependent on us also not a good thing too. Don't change your helper if she can get along well with ur child and treat her well, it's not easy to find a good helper nowsday too. After all, you are the mother, just keep bonding, it'll get better.

oh! dont worry, i use to feel the same way when my baby was abt 9 mts always was crying and wanted to go to my helper.. i decided to spend as much time with my baby when i get home from work and on weekends playing doing fun stuff like hide and seek, playing the ball or just running around the playground. My son is 18 mts now and runs to me when i get home, he wants me most of the time when we are home so much so that his dad is now jealous ;) So dont worry it will pass just spend time with your kid and know your helper is taking very gd care of him. When jealously exists hatred will begin so break the pattern and just spend as much time u can possible with ur kid

Hey mummy, I can understand how you feel! Don't feel like you're a bad parent or anything like that, and you should also be happy and thankful to have a helper that is good to your child - there are many stories of helpers mistreating children when their parents aren't home, so your child being attached to her is a sign that she's doing a good job :) What you can do is to spend more time with your child whenever possible - bringing your child out, playing together, bath time, or even just lying in bed with songs and stories. While it has nothing to do with your helper, it's really important NOT to let your child think that you're all about work, work, work :)

mm.. well you should manage it. honestly looking at another perspective you know your kid is well taken care by your helper. and your kid is not abuse when you can have more peace of mind at work. however for that you might have taken advantage of yourself having a helper and neglected to spend time with him/her. removing your helper definitely will not bring positivity to your kid growth. what you need it's work on yourself. being parent is tough, we burn ourself to make money, we forfeit our rest and enjoyment that we use to have. that what we do. jia you don't give up!

I can understand, it's normal for you to feel jealous and normal for your LO to feel attached to primary caregiver. It is also one of my greatest fear that my LO (now 4 months) will prefer my helper (main caregiver when I am at work) than me. In the first week of returning to work, I was so jealous that I thought of quitting my job and firing her... But we have to work, so no choice... All we can do is to spend as much quality time with them as possible, and hope they will understand when they grow older...

I know how you feel, even though my little one looks for me when i am home, i do feel jealous when she turns and smiles at the helper. Its natural as little one spends the day with our helpers more than us, and we as mothers also feel hurt because it's not that we do not want to spend the time with them, just that we have to put food on the table. Mother-child bonds are hard to break. Instead of focusing on your helper, turn your efforts to spend time and strengthen the bond you have with them.