Confinement diary

Confinement confinement...is this a yay or a nay for you?

For my first born Rayson, my mummy helped me with my confinement but I think it wasn't a very good arrangement as I was mentally stressed, constantly worried that my mummy would be too tired helping me. 

And being a first time mum made me all flustered and teary, painful wound, engorged breasts, endless pumping, struggling with a fussy baby during latching, figuring out the demand and supply theory...and the list goes on.

So for my second boy Rayden, I was determined to engage a confinement lady (CL). Thank God for my friend's recommendation, I managed to engage Yingjie as my CL. She was a great help to me! However, I did not have much appetite during confinement even though Yingjie was a great cook. Eating was a chore to me and I would just gobble all the food down as fast as possible.

But the greatest challenge was to manage my elder boy Rayson...his temperament changed drastically after Rayden was born...and started acting rebellious and cried hysterically everyday.

So.......my second confinement wasn't very enjoy either.

This time round...I am hopeful..really hopeful that I'll get a good rest during confinement. Rayson and Rayden have each other and will be at school during the day..leaving only me, baby Rayes and CL at home. Best news of all is I managed to engage Yingjie again!

Are you thinking of engaging a CL? Let me share my good experience with Yingjie.

1) Experienced, Efficient and Organised 

The moment she stepped into my house, she headed to my kitchen (her territory for the next one month) and started asking us questions on where we placed our woks, pots and the things she needs to use. She also cleaned and organised our fridge and made it so tidy!

Besides the kitchen, she also keeps our living room and children's bedroom tidy and organised everyday. Now that she has gone home, I try to keep the rooms as organised when she was around. What a good motivator she is ya?

She keeps herself busy and took initiative to help out with the household chores. 

As I am a latching mummy, baby Rayes is with me most of the time..(stuck at my breasts). Yingjie would help me with other chores like washing my clothes, sunning them, vacuuming and mopping the floor etc. She keeps herself busy and keeps my house clean.

After every meal she cooks, she makes sure she cleans up the kitchen and mops the floor. Love it!

She ensures baby Rayes is clean as well. She hand-washes his clothings and cleans him up twice a day. She bathes him in the morning and cleans him up again in the evening.

She's really efficient and would have completed most of her chores by 9pm.

2) Pro-breastfeeding

Many mummies have stumbled at the initial stage of bf because they have been misled by ignorant CL! They thought that babies cry because mummies have insufficient breast milk (bm) which is definitely not true! Hence, many mummies ended up supplementing their babies with formula milk and this will really affect milk supply!

So if you're going to breastfeed, ensure that you read up about breastfeeding and know what you're doing so that you will not be misled by CL or other people around you.

My definition of a pro-breastfeeding CL is very simple, that is someone who won't interfere with my breastfeeding, make unnecessary comments about my milk supply and pressurize me into supplementing formula. I do not expect them to have good knowledge about breastfeeding because mummies should be the ones with the knowledge. They're after all CL and not lactation consultants.

Yingjie acknowledges that breastfeeding is the best for babies and encourages me to latch on demand. 

Marvellous! So rare to find CL who are pro-breastfeeding nowadays eh? You may be interested to read my post about my thoughts on breastfeeding.

3) Great cook

She cooks a variety of dishes for me and I'll let the pictures do the talking. If you would like to see the confinement food that I had for all 28 days, please visit my Instagram. I think I missed out on a few meals towards the end of confinement because they were repetition and I got a bit lazy.

She cooks the dishes using the ingredients that my mummy bought. We leave it to her creativity as to how the dishes are done. However, she'll also cook whatever I want to eat should I have any particular cravings.

Do not worry if you know nuts about confinement meals because she will advise you on what to buy and plans what to cook accordingly.

Especially for nursing mothers, we should have a balanced - higher than usual - intake of calories, protein, iron, calcium, fibre and vitamins to ensure a good supply of milk.

Overall, my family and I love Yingjie! She is a really capable and humble lady who has a wealth of experience and interesting stories to share with us.

We really thank God for blessing us with such a good CL. Rayson even shed some tears when Yingjie left for home.

Some extra pointers when engaging a CL

1) Remember that you're engaging a CL and not a domestic helper. Their main job scope is to take care of mummy and baby only so if they're willing to help out with other chores or cook for your whole family or babysit your other children, it's a bonus...be thankful and don't take them for granted.

 

If your baby is pretty fussy or takes a long time to feed or needs to be carried all day by your CL (so that you can rest ) , then you must understand that her other chores will be affected as well.

Latching mummies must be mentally prepared that you'll definitely not be able to rest properly during confinement because baby will be latching very frequently. (which is good!) So while you work "night shift", it's also good to let your CL have a good night sleep so that she can help you better in the day and perhaps you can grab a nap or 2.

2) Treat them with respect. If you're willing to pay, then they deserve what they're getting for their job. They deserve good food, good sleep and respectable treatment. Cooking 3 meals 1 soup 3 times a day, preparing soups and snacks for mummies, caring for babies and washing up after every meal sounds quite a bit to me. If you keep thinking you're overpaying them then you'll be very unhappy.

CL are humans so they'll need to rest too. If they spend their nights waking up to take care of babies then they definitely need to take a nap in the day. They are humans!

3) Do you really need a CL? Do you have your parents, in-laws and helpers at your house to help you?  The more people there are the more complicated it gets because each has his/her own opinions and your CL will be confused whose orders to follow. 

And if you have a helper, you would have to state very clearly the job scope of the helper and CL, or do you naively think that they will help each other?

Personally I think the lesser the people the better it is. Mummies can have more rest (especially the ears..no nagging please!) and things get done faster. But of course I know some people do not have any choice.

Here's a video to view all the meals that I had during my confinement.

So have you decided on your confinement arrangement? 

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