We appointed a PEM confinement lady #899 Jackie based on Facebook since the one that all my friends used weren't available. Lets just say that it was terrible and I called PEM on the 4th day and sent her home on the 5th day.
She was here the second day I was discharged, before Jaime was home. First day was fine, she cooked and familiarized herself with our place. The husband also brought her grocery shopping and bought a stool that she chose to bathe Jaime. I told her that I wanted breakfast to be ready at 8am, lunch around 12 plus and dinner around 7pm. She didn't need to do night shift as I've decided to take care of Jaime at night. She just had to help to cook and wash/sterilize all my pump parts and bottles for me. We were generally easy-going people really, and I didn't even need her to boil herbs for bathing nor cook red dates tea since I don't drink it. Even meals were quite simple as we didn't mind a meat, a vegetable and a soup. Soups were all clearly labelled by days and all she needed to do was to throw it into the pot to boil. She has been resting by 10pm till past 7am and breakfast was only ready by 8am the first day - an egg sandwich with cheese in a plastic bag that I ate while I pumped milk. My breakfast got later and later, and by the 4th day, I didn't even finish breakfast before my massage lady came at 9am.
I wrote in to PEM officially after I requested for her termination:
Some main complaints I have of the nanny:
1. She refuses to feed my baby when she fuss and cry, because '3 hour is not up yet'. We have told her repeatedly that if she shows signs of rooting i.e. Starting to cry and stick her tongue out etc, she should start to prepare the feed. My baby is fully breastfed and sometimes drinks 1-2hourly due to day 5-7 grow spurt. She takes her time to prepare her feed only after my baby cries loudly. By the time feed is ready, my baby is crying hysterically and hungry, gulping her milk and end up regurgitating afterwards. This becomes a vicious cycle as she did not manage to digest the milk and will need to feed again in the next hour or two.
2. She does not like to wash too many bottles and pump parts. As I exclusively pump my breastmilk, I need her to wash/sterilize the bottles and pump parts every 2-3 hours. She kept making comments that I'm pumping too often, that it's not 3 hours yet. She also suggested that I re-use my pump parts by placing it in the fridge. This is against guidelines and not hygienic, especially for a newborn. She also kept away my extra bottles saying that there are 'too many' and I end up having to wash them at night after pumping as I've ran out of bottles - while she slept!
3. We communicated that breakfast should be ready by 8am daily as my massage lady comes at 9am. She only makes sandwiches for me, which was ready on the first morning. However, my breakfast was late from 3rd day onwards and I had to start my massage without finishing breakfast on the 4th day. On the 5th day, my tuna sandwich was only ready 840am and came in a bowl of tuna from a can and the loaf of bread on table - she did not even bother to put the tuna on bread for me and expect me to diy the sandwich while she herself made 3 slices of golden brown french toast for herself.
4. She leaves my baby unattended constantly, even on a high changing table when she left to prepare her bath. This is extremely dangerous as she's kicking and there's nothing to stop her from rolling down. During the afternoon, she also leaves baby unattended for extended period of time as she takes a long bath with a face massage.
5. She rest in the afternoon although and shows zero initiative although she rests before 10pm and only wake up at 7am! When I was out for gynae visit and my mum was resting at my place, she told my siblings (18yo sister and 28yo brother with zero experience of babysitting) to take care of my baby while she rest in the room with closed door - call her if needed. She should be responsible for my baby instead of expecting my siblings to take care of her while I'm out!
There are other small things which I do not agree with, but the above made it impossible to keep her for the well-being of my child. We communicated the first reason as the main reason for her dismissal but she said that her training taught her to feed every 3 hourly and she was afraid that my baby is over-fed. This does not make sense as baby drinks about 60-70ml 3 hourly but only drinks 20-40ml when she drinks in an hour or two. She also went with us to the pd and told her that baby should be fed on demand and should not be left to cry.
To be fair, she did keep my kitchen clean and cooked a meat, a vegetable and a soup dish for lunch and dinner. However, I hope that no other mummy have to go through this as she's obviously complacent and lazy. I also hope that no other mummies have to pay her and ask her to leave early or pay her the extra $200 for a few days' worth of work.
I also found other recent reviews in August of her on Facebook:
This was my breakfast on the 5th day - a bowl of tuna, with the loaf of bread on the table only ready by 840am though I told her to prepare breakfast by 8am (in time for my 9am massage). I'm not sure if I'm supposed to give explicit instructions for her to 'kiap' my sandwich before serving, but she made 3 slices crispy golden-brown french toast for herself.
I seriously think that she has zero heart to work and really out to eat us as young first-time-parents. She has it so good as a confinement lady with us, yet she doesn't even bother to make the effort. I didn't have high expectations from her, but I really couldn't take her laziness and complacency! I suppose she didn't expect to be replaced so quickly.
My replacement confinement lady was supposed to come on Monday 2-5pm, but PEM called me on Monday morning after reading my feedback above. They offered me a refund of the $700 deposit if I chose not to have the replacement nanny. However, if I chose to take the replacement who will arrive at my doorstep in few hours, the offer for refund is no longer valid and I will have to complete the full 28 days even if I'm not satisfied with the nanny. I only have one more chance for replacement and they will not make any refund after this final offer since I complained that the nanny 'does not take any initiative.
After the unpleasant experience with the first confinement lady, the thought of having to put up with a terrible nanny at home was really repulsive Can't imagine having to put up with this and still have to pay like $2k without any possibility of refund. I also felt that PEM was not confident that their nanny will meet my expectations since they would rather pay me back my deposit (without me requesting for it). They told me on the phone that they will offer me the refund since I feedback that 'my nanny did not take any initiative' - which was a strange reason to offer a refund instead of going ahead with a better replacement based on my feedback instead. Also, if they were really sincere, they would have let me try out the replacement nanny and refund me only if she was still not up to standard! It felt that they wanted to refund me and get out of it to avoid any more complaints or bad feedback from me. By the way, their Facebook reviews are highly controlled, only good feedback are found on their page. I also heard that nannies are asked to get good Facebook feedback, otherwise they will get $200 less - not sure if this was true. Some nannies also said that PEM took a big cut and it's getting worst after the sons took over, so many good nannies have already left.
So I accepted the refund and went without a confinement lady - not that the first one did much in the first place. Before that, I was all for a confinement lady, but after this experience, I'm not sure if I'll get one the next time. $2k plus is alot of money, and if you happen to get a lousy confinement nanny (which is not that rare), it's really depressing.
I'm totally not impressed with how PEM handled this, and seriously wonder why would they have offered me a refund when the replacement nanny was already scheduled to arrive at my doorstep in few hours (she should already be on her way if from Malaysia). What did they do with that confinement lady who was supposedly already on the way? Oh, and I only received notification for work permit of the first nanny, nothing for the replacement nanny.
I have to say that there were many good nannies from PEM that my mummy friends had too, I guess it's down to luck and there's no guarantee when it comes to confinement ladies despite the hefty price-tag. If possible, word-of-mouth is still ideal though even the same nanny may have different standards when it comes to different customers.
She was here the second day I was discharged, before Jaime was home. First day was fine, she cooked and familiarized herself with our place. The husband also brought her grocery shopping and bought a stool that she chose to bathe Jaime. I told her that I wanted breakfast to be ready at 8am, lunch around 12 plus and dinner around 7pm. She didn't need to do night shift as I've decided to take care of Jaime at night. She just had to help to cook and wash/sterilize all my pump parts and bottles for me. We were generally easy-going people really, and I didn't even need her to boil herbs for bathing nor cook red dates tea since I don't drink it. Even meals were quite simple as we didn't mind a meat, a vegetable and a soup. Soups were all clearly labelled by days and all she needed to do was to throw it into the pot to boil. She has been resting by 10pm till past 7am and breakfast was only ready by 8am the first day - an egg sandwich with cheese in a plastic bag that I ate while I pumped milk. My breakfast got later and later, and by the 4th day, I didn't even finish breakfast before my massage lady came at 9am.
I wrote in to PEM officially after I requested for her termination:
Some main complaints I have of the nanny:
1. She refuses to feed my baby when she fuss and cry, because '3 hour is not up yet'. We have told her repeatedly that if she shows signs of rooting i.e. Starting to cry and stick her tongue out etc, she should start to prepare the feed. My baby is fully breastfed and sometimes drinks 1-2hourly due to day 5-7 grow spurt. She takes her time to prepare her feed only after my baby cries loudly. By the time feed is ready, my baby is crying hysterically and hungry, gulping her milk and end up regurgitating afterwards. This becomes a vicious cycle as she did not manage to digest the milk and will need to feed again in the next hour or two.
2. She does not like to wash too many bottles and pump parts. As I exclusively pump my breastmilk, I need her to wash/sterilize the bottles and pump parts every 2-3 hours. She kept making comments that I'm pumping too often, that it's not 3 hours yet. She also suggested that I re-use my pump parts by placing it in the fridge. This is against guidelines and not hygienic, especially for a newborn. She also kept away my extra bottles saying that there are 'too many' and I end up having to wash them at night after pumping as I've ran out of bottles - while she slept!
3. We communicated that breakfast should be ready by 8am daily as my massage lady comes at 9am. She only makes sandwiches for me, which was ready on the first morning. However, my breakfast was late from 3rd day onwards and I had to start my massage without finishing breakfast on the 4th day. On the 5th day, my tuna sandwich was only ready 840am and came in a bowl of tuna from a can and the loaf of bread on table - she did not even bother to put the tuna on bread for me and expect me to diy the sandwich while she herself made 3 slices of golden brown french toast for herself.
4. She leaves my baby unattended constantly, even on a high changing table when she left to prepare her bath. This is extremely dangerous as she's kicking and there's nothing to stop her from rolling down. During the afternoon, she also leaves baby unattended for extended period of time as she takes a long bath with a face massage.
5. She rest in the afternoon although and shows zero initiative although she rests before 10pm and only wake up at 7am! When I was out for gynae visit and my mum was resting at my place, she told my siblings (18yo sister and 28yo brother with zero experience of babysitting) to take care of my baby while she rest in the room with closed door - call her if needed. She should be responsible for my baby instead of expecting my siblings to take care of her while I'm out!
There are other small things which I do not agree with, but the above made it impossible to keep her for the well-being of my child. We communicated the first reason as the main reason for her dismissal but she said that her training taught her to feed every 3 hourly and she was afraid that my baby is over-fed. This does not make sense as baby drinks about 60-70ml 3 hourly but only drinks 20-40ml when she drinks in an hour or two. She also went with us to the pd and told her that baby should be fed on demand and should not be left to cry.
To be fair, she did keep my kitchen clean and cooked a meat, a vegetable and a soup dish for lunch and dinner. However, I hope that no other mummy have to go through this as she's obviously complacent and lazy. I also hope that no other mummies have to pay her and ask her to leave early or pay her the extra $200 for a few days' worth of work.
I also found other recent reviews in August of her on Facebook:
This was my breakfast on the 5th day - a bowl of tuna, with the loaf of bread on the table only ready by 840am though I told her to prepare breakfast by 8am (in time for my 9am massage). I'm not sure if I'm supposed to give explicit instructions for her to 'kiap' my sandwich before serving, but she made 3 slices crispy golden-brown french toast for herself.
I seriously think that she has zero heart to work and really out to eat us as young first-time-parents. She has it so good as a confinement lady with us, yet she doesn't even bother to make the effort. I didn't have high expectations from her, but I really couldn't take her laziness and complacency! I suppose she didn't expect to be replaced so quickly.
My replacement confinement lady was supposed to come on Monday 2-5pm, but PEM called me on Monday morning after reading my feedback above. They offered me a refund of the $700 deposit if I chose not to have the replacement nanny. However, if I chose to take the replacement who will arrive at my doorstep in few hours, the offer for refund is no longer valid and I will have to complete the full 28 days even if I'm not satisfied with the nanny. I only have one more chance for replacement and they will not make any refund after this final offer since I complained that the nanny 'does not take any initiative.
After the unpleasant experience with the first confinement lady, the thought of having to put up with a terrible nanny at home was really repulsive Can't imagine having to put up with this and still have to pay like $2k without any possibility of refund. I also felt that PEM was not confident that their nanny will meet my expectations since they would rather pay me back my deposit (without me requesting for it). They told me on the phone that they will offer me the refund since I feedback that 'my nanny did not take any initiative' - which was a strange reason to offer a refund instead of going ahead with a better replacement based on my feedback instead. Also, if they were really sincere, they would have let me try out the replacement nanny and refund me only if she was still not up to standard! It felt that they wanted to refund me and get out of it to avoid any more complaints or bad feedback from me. By the way, their Facebook reviews are highly controlled, only good feedback are found on their page. I also heard that nannies are asked to get good Facebook feedback, otherwise they will get $200 less - not sure if this was true. Some nannies also said that PEM took a big cut and it's getting worst after the sons took over, so many good nannies have already left.
So I accepted the refund and went without a confinement lady - not that the first one did much in the first place. Before that, I was all for a confinement lady, but after this experience, I'm not sure if I'll get one the next time. $2k plus is alot of money, and if you happen to get a lousy confinement nanny (which is not that rare), it's really depressing.
I'm totally not impressed with how PEM handled this, and seriously wonder why would they have offered me a refund when the replacement nanny was already scheduled to arrive at my doorstep in few hours (she should already be on her way if from Malaysia). What did they do with that confinement lady who was supposedly already on the way? Oh, and I only received notification for work permit of the first nanny, nothing for the replacement nanny.
I have to say that there were many good nannies from PEM that my mummy friends had too, I guess it's down to luck and there's no guarantee when it comes to confinement ladies despite the hefty price-tag. If possible, word-of-mouth is still ideal though even the same nanny may have different standards when it comes to different customers.
