Introduction
Are you looking for a confinement nanny in Singapore? If you’ve been looking into confinement nanny services online or asking friends and family for suggestions, you’ve probably seen that there are mainly two types of confinement nanny services in the market: agency confinement nanny and freelance confinement nanny. And you may be considering which one to choose. Since every family has unique needs and likes, we are not going to tell you which option is superior to the other. Instead, we would like to propose a few factors for you to think about when determining whether to engage a confinement nanny through an agency or a freelance confinement nanny in Singapore. Most expecting parents, especially first-time parents neglect these factors, so make sure you read all the way to the end!
Nanny’s Experience and Skills
The nanny’s experience and skills in confinement care and newborn care are the utmost important aspect to consider when selecting a confinement nanny. These are the aspects that will definitely make or break the deal.
During the postpartum stage, the mother and the newborn will require extensive and attentive care, so make sure your confinement nanny has the professional knowledge, skills and experience to take care of you and your newborn.
Therefore, before hiring a nanny, it’s a good idea to learn about things like:
- What services is the nanny expertise in?
Some of the important skills are feeding and bathing the baby, cooking confinement meals and tonics, giving advice and assistance on postpartum recovery, breastfeeding and newborn care, basic newborn first aid. - In a year, how many clients does the nanny serve? When was her most recent service?
This provides you a better understanding of the nanny’s qualifications.
Some of the freelance confinement nannies may provide their skills and knowledge that they learnt themselves as well as traditional beliefs and practices. Their level of proficiency may vary according to the time and technique they used to master those skills, as well as their working experience.
Agency confinement nannies, on the other hand, are frequently required by their agencies to complete professional training before they begin to serve any clients. The comprehensive training includes a wide range of confinement nanny activities, such as baby care, postpartum care and confinement food preparation. Most of these training will be followed by severe written and practical exams where the learners’ comprehension and skills will be evaluated.
Trainees must demonstrate competency in areas such as steps to take when arriving at the client’s home, bathing, feeding and burping baby, cleaning baby’s umbilical cord, basic first-aid for choking infant, storing milk and sterilizing milk bottle. In addition, the trainee also learn about mother care, including preparation of confinement meals, breast massage, sharing knowledge on confinement food and herbs and more.
Trainees who pass all of the examinations will be issued a work permit and may start to serve clients. All nannies must also perform at least eight services in a year to ensure they are always gaining experience.
Punctuality of Service
Imagine arriving home from the hospital with your entire body aching and bloated, your baby is sobbing in your arms, and your confinement nanny fails to arrive on time! Sounds like a helpless scenario you wouldn’t want to be in, doesn’t it?
Life occurs, and your nanny may come up with certain circumstances or emergencies that hold her from showing at your doorstep on time.
If you’re hiring a freelance confinement nanny in Singapore, you’re most probably stuck waiting for your confinement nanny to reschedule her arrival time, which could take days or even weeks based on the situation. And you’re all on your own until she shows up.
However, there are more certainty and assurance on the arrival time if you hire a confinement nanny from agencies in Singapore. The agencies will always make sure that the confinement nanny arrive at your home on time.
Replacement of Nanny
Employing a stay-in confinement nanny means that you and your family will have to live with a stranger for at least a month. If you are pleased with the confinement nanny you hired, that is fantastic! However, for some parents, this is not always an easy task.
Just like all humans, every parent and confinement nanny has unique personality, values and point of views. As technology and medical science advances, practices of confinement care are also constantly evolving.
If you are not happy with the services of the freelance confinement nanny that you hired, or if she falls sick during her service, then you’ll be very stressful. It’ll be challenging to look for another help at the last minute. You are most probably on yourself for the next few weeks unless you can find a replacement right away. You may also have to deal with complicated issues such as compensation and refunds. So before hiring a freelance confinement nanny, make sure you do your homework.
While agencies work their very best to train their nannies to provide the most professional and dependable service, they understand and respect customers’ requests to replace their nanny. Some agencies provide one to two times of free replacement if the nanny is not a right fit for the customers.
Nanny’s Insurance
The main job scope of a confinement nanny is related to taking care of the mother and her baby, such as feeding and bathing the newborn, preparing daily confinement meals and cleaning the kitchen, preparing herbal bath water for the mother, wash the clothes of the mother and the baby.
Confinement nannies would frequently need to multitask as there is a lot of hard work for her. And despite their best efforts to avoid this, accidents do occur from time to time. She may cut herself accidentally when preparing food or hurt her ankles while moving around the house.
You may be liable for a freelance confinement nanny’s treatment and medical expenses if she is injured while working in your house. But if you are hiring a confinement nanny from an agency, the cost may usually cover by insurance for nannies which the agency will purchase to safeguard both the parents and the nannies.
Nanny’s Work Permit Application
Lastly, when parents hire a confinement nanny, they usually consider of what happens during confinement, rather than what happens before confinement. Most of the confinement nannies in Singapore are from Malaysia because the confinement practices in Malaysia are so similar to Singapore’s. Therefore, to make sure the confinement nannies from Malaysia work legally in Singapore, they must apply a work permit.
The application of a work permit for your confinement nanny consumes a lot of time and the process can be quite complicated with all the paperwork, levy payment and more. This will be the very last thing in your to-do-list with a baby due in a few weeks.
You can save a lot of effort in this process if you hire a confinement nanny through agencies. The agencies will do the application and save you from all the hassle. You can focus more on things that are important to you as well as your family!
Conclusion
The decision is in your hand, whether you want to hire a freelance confinement nanny or an agency-based one. We would highly recommend you to hire a confinement nanny through a trustworthy and well-established agency.