Maid or No Maid

Before Baby Chloe was born, I insisted to have a maid to help us out with taking care of Baby Chloe at my mum's place. Hubby was very supportive with the idea, however he told me to make the decision myself.

His reasons were:
(1) Too many horrible stories about how maids treated the employers' children.
(2) He feels that baby will act like a maid
(3) He is not used to have a stranger at home
(4) He doesn't want baby to speak in Indonesian language

But I didn't have much choice because it is impossible for me to hire a Chinese babysitter, they are too expensive (RM2K a month), and I do not want to send my baby to babysitter's place. A big NO NO. I feel it is not about the nationality or religion, it is more like one's personality and consciences, Chinese or Indonesian are no differences to me.

As long as I am a working mum, i need a helper to take care of my darling. My MIL is not the right person yet, and she admitted that she won't be able to help much. But of course, if we really needed her help, we can ask her for a favour as a last resort. My mum is a working mum too, therefore she is definitely not an option too. *sigh* Who else?

Therefore I must hire an affordable maid which means I have to opt for an Indonesian Maid.

My maid's name is Noviana and she is been with us since Baby Chloe was born. She was supposed to join us after Baby Chloe's birth according to schedule, but I was lucky that the agent manage to get her in one week before Baby Chloe was born.

She did not really give me much of good first impression, as she wasted the chicken rice and herbal drink that I had ordered for her. I don't like people wasting food! But I must say overall she is ok till date. Perhaps I didn't expect much from except that she can pay 100% attention to my Baby which she did. Cleanliness wise, she is at the borderline and I have to repeatedly remind her about her cleanliness. Well, not too bad. I told her that she must shower at least two to three times a day and change her clothes frequently.

She wakes up 6am every morning to boil water for baby's consumption. Then she will fill up the Electrical Pot to ensure there is hot water available at all times to heat up the breastmilk. Then, she will wash up all the bottles that are used during the night feed and sent those bottles to steam sterilizer. After that, she will change the dustbin's plastic which usually piled up with Baby's soiled or wet diapers. If Baby is awake by that time, she will feed baby and change baby's diaper then put her back to sleep on her crib. If Baby is still asleep, she will start laundrying until I call for her.

I usually call her at about 7am as I need to express milk and get myself ready for work, and I will leave home at about 8.30am. Novi is lucky as she has Rahir (my favourite maid hired by my mum) to help her out. From there, both of them will take turns to look after baby until around 10pm.

Haha....yes, my job starts at 10pm onwards until ....hmm...really depends on baby's condition of that day. Sometimes my job ends at 12 midnight when I can enjoy a good sleep and sometimes it lasted until the next morning which means no sleep for Mama & Papa.

I am happy that I have a maid to help out the daycare but at the same time I am horrified with all the different stories that appeared in our national news about how Indonesian maids abuse employers' children, how Indonesian maids hurt their employer with pestle, knife, wooden chairs etc etc...All sorts of terrifying acts.

To be honest, I am still not so confidence to put Baby Chloe under her care. We do not really know her well and anything could happen unexpectedly. So far, she did what I told her to do and of course don't expect her to do more than that boundary. *sigh*

How? To Maid or Not To Maid?