Baby Talk: Ask These Questions Before Hiring Your Friend’s Confinement Nanny

After hearing horror stories about confinement nannies, you’ve decided to bypass the heng-suay nannies from agencies by hiring your friend’s supposedly amazing confinement lady. 

Not so fast! Postpartum preferences vary so much that it’s still worth assessing the nanny’s work style in depth instead of blindly trusting your friend’s recommendation. 

I don’t just mean interviewing the nanny - you need to probe your friend about her preferences and experience to see how closely your values even align. Is your friend the type who wants to room in with the baby, or did she hand over night duties to the nanny? Does your friend breastfeed, and if so, at what point did she feel comfortable introducing a bottle? How closely did she adhere to confinement practices, like not showering and wearing long pants at all times? 

As someone who hired a friend’s freelance confinement nanny, I lucked out a little because while I didn’t think to ask these questions, my friend and I are so closely aligned in our preferences that I ended up loving her nanny as much as she did. 

Thinking of hiring a freelance confinement nanny? Here are some things to consider: 

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How similar is your friend’s lifestyle and personality to yours? 

I once heard an acquaintance say that she regretted hiring her friend’s nanny without considering her friend’s love for going out. My acquaintance, on the other hand, is a complete homebody who fully intended on staying indoors all 28 days. The result? A confinement nanny who grumbled about having to cook three meals a day. 

Think about your friend’s personality and day-to-day life. Is she bo chup or particular? Is she a super hands-on mummy who enjoys doing everything herself, or is she okay with outsourcing baby duties? Is she pantang? To what extent does she care about sticking to age-old confinement practices? 

Chances are, if your friend is a little zealous about any of these areas, so was her confinement nanny - or at the very least, her confinement nanny allowed it. If your friendship is more “opposites attract” than “birds of a feather”, you might want to consider other options. 

How clean and tidy is the nanny? 

If you’re the type who still masks up on the train post-COVID, who has a bottle of hand sanitiser in every bag, and who wouldn’t dream of drinking Singapore’s tap water no matter how much PUB insists on its merits, then you’ll definitely want to interrogate your friend on the nanny’s cleanliness. 

How many times a day - and when - would she shower? Where does she prepare the food - on the kitchen counter or on the floor? Did your friend notice any red flags when it came to hygiene? How does she handle bottle teats - with her bare fingers, or with tongs? 

Conversely, maybe you care about cleanliness, but at the same time, you’re someone no one has ever called OCD. You’d probably find the tongs thing a little intense. My confinement nanny was so averse to germs that she asked that we help her buy groceries instead of buying them herself - her logic being that if she caught any viruses, she wouldn’t be able to care for the baby. 

As someone who’s also a germaphobe, I loved that my nanny voluntarily confined herself at home with me. But others might prefer a nanny who saves them the effort of buying groceries by getting them herself. 

She was also so neat that she created a whole new system for organising my fridge before she left. While I enjoyed receiving the Marie Kondo treatment, maybe others would find it intrusive. 

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How pro-breastfeeding is the nanny? 

If you’re a first-time mum, you might still feel a little clueless about feeding, so the best thing you can do for now is to ask your friend about her journey and to what extent the nanny supported it. 

Some pointers:
- How long did it take your friend’s milk to come in? How did she and the nanny feed the baby in the meantime? 
- At what point did they introduce a bottle? Is she happy, in retrospect, with that decision? How did the baby take to it?
- What would she and the nanny do for night feeds?
- To what extent does she latch (i.e. breastfeed directly) and what was the nanny’s attitude about it? 
- If your friend chose to feed her baby with formula exclusively, how did the nanny respond to that?
- In what other ways did she feel supported or not supported by the nanny while feeding the baby? 

Anecdotally, most nannies will have a feeding “KPI” - they’re ultra-concerned with ensuring the baby hits a certain volume of milk every day at a set timing, but this practice might turn off mums who’d rather approach feeding intuitively by monitoring baby’s hunger cues. While my nanny kept a tight record of milliletres consumed, she also supported my decision to breastfeed directly by teaching me different positions, by bringing the baby to me frequently to help me establish my milk supply, and by encouraging me in the early days when the baby fussed about at the breast. At most, she “hit KPI” by recording exactly how long I latched the baby, but this didn’t bother me in the least, especially when I heard stories about nannies who discourage latching because they can’t monitor how much baby drinks when the milk is on tap. 

How chatty is the nanny? 

My friend told me that her nanny likes to make conversation - and she also gave me fair warning that not everyone likes it -  but I didn’t grasp how chatty she was until she arrived. Aside from when I was showering, asleep, or feeding the baby, I don’t think I went more than 10 minutes without talking while my nanny was here. 

But even as an introvert, I loved it! The first few weeks of motherhood can feel especially isolating and weird, so talking about all things postpartum with the nanny kept the loneliness at bay. And chatting about non-baby stuff - like her hobbies, her kids, and things we’d seen in the news - gave me a sense of normalcy amidst all the new experiences. 

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How much input does she give into child-rearing? 

One thing I’m grateful for is that my nanny took a completely mummy-led approach. Whatever choices I made for my child, she’d encourage them, as long as they weren’t endangering her life. 

Some nannies will tell you not to hold your baby so much or you’ll spoil them. Mine encouraged me to carry her - even though older relatives said not to - because one day, she’ll be too big for me to carry. 

I’ve heard of other nannies who scold mummies for rocking or feeding their newborn to sleep, or who hard sell sleep training. Others will have very strong opinions on pacifiers. As someone who doesn’t like unsolicited advice, I’m glad my nanny kept her opinions to herself, so if you’re at all like me, check in with your friend about how freely her nanny expresses her views. 

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