All About Life Without Maids

[duriz]

Breadandmuffins:

Hi duriz


Yes, its indeed a privilege to be with our children before they grow up. Several years ago, I stopped work for a year to stay home & looked after my eldest but went back to work for another 2 years before becoming a SAHM again till today. It had already been 5 years since then. I have 4 children with a maid to help me. Although my maid is good , I would still prefer to be without one if I can. When I had only my eldest, I had a part time helper who came in twice a week to help. I looked after my eldest plus cooking. Its very manageable & I prefer to instill in my child certain habbits eg: no unhealthy snacks, soft drinks, expose them to all types of fruits & vege, good eating habits i(ie eat at table) etc. Some of the maid horror stories here and in tamarind's blog are really scary. Even with 4 kids & no ILs with us, I am contemplating if I can handle without a FT maid when she goes back. Can I check how much you pay for your PT helper to come in every day & how long does she stay each time?

Thank you.

Thank you for your response Breadandmuffins.
I loved and would love to be a SAHM again.
My PT maid gets paid $200 every two weeks and I intend to give her a nice angpow during CNY, should she stay that long with us.
As for DD's clothes, bottles, bowls and bedsheets, I still clean and sterilise (if need be) everything on my own. I don't think that will change regardless of whether we have a PT of FT maid.
So after putting in 10 or more hours at work, I go home to be DD's PT maid
No complaints, she's my one and only.

[foreverj]

hi duriz


may i check with u how did u find the current PT maid who comes in daily? is it thru agency or recommendation? tks!

[duriz]

foreverj:

hi duriz


may i check with u how did u find the current PT maid who comes in daily? is it thru agency or recommendation? tks!

Hi forever,

She was recommended by our neighbor. She was confinement lady to our neighbor's daughter.
Things are not super clean nor organized. But at least housework gets done and it frees up my MIL's hands and time to fully concentrate on DD.
I'm very thankful to both our PT maid and my MIL.

[foreverj]

i see, thank you very much! on a separate note, i think its great for u to want to take care of your dd on your own. the benefits are truly tremendous n if u can afford it, its best for your dd! good for both mother and daughter i myself never regretted my decision!

[minnie2004]

Angelight:

After more than a week without a full time maid, I'm starting to feel the strain on my mind and body. Now that I have to take care of all of DD's physical needs (like bathing, washing her clothes, cooking and feeding her etc), on top of endless household chores, I realise I have neglected her emotional and intellectual needs cos too tired to play with, read to or teach her like I used to...wonder if I should go back to hiring a full-time maid again?


Part-time maid can only help to a certain extent, but the daily chores are taking too much of my precious time away for my DD. Sometimes I really wish I can be a supermum like some of the mummies here without maids. How did they do it?

I'm in the same boat as you now, no maid for over a week. We already found a new maid but her application is not approved yet. So I'm looking at this maidless life for at least a few more weeks This is the first time I really had to do serious housework for a family of 4 and I'm exhausted. Maybe I'm not that efficient, I hardly have the chance to sit down (as compared to before I'm sitting in front of the PC too much), and I feel like I'm always washing something in the kitchen. My hands are getting rough and I've already lost 1kg.

Meanwhile, since I don't have much time to watch the kids, they're playing by themselves most of the time. Yesterday when I was preparing dinner in the kitchen, they got into a fight and my little boy bit his sister big time. She's screaming so much but there's not much i could do. Another problem is I don't have the time to help DD with her homework and she's lagging behind in development, although the long vacation we just took was to blame too. She has forgotten all her abacus and piano.

Yes the maid-related stress is gone (replaced by physical stress), and we tasted privacy for the first time since the kids were born. But it does come at a price. One solution is to order food delivery more. Does anyone have any recommendations on healthy food deliveries (similar to home-cooked food)? I never realized how much time is involved is making a simple dish like fried beehoon. I had to wash, soak, cut 10 different ingredients!! Not to mention the cleaning up afterwards :faint: .

[Angelight]

Hi Minnie,


I can totally empathise with you becos I'm also in the same boat. I've lost 2kg for the past one mth since my ex maid left and I realised my hands and finger nails are also getting rough and dry from all the washing. (I hand wash my DD's clothes every day). And my shoulder aches everyday (old injury) from bathing DD and doing the house chores.

What I did now is to lower my level of expectation in terms of house cleanliness cos no one to clean every day now. These days, I only cook for myself and DD for lunch and usually eat out or at in-laws' place. I tried cooking for dinner and end up doing so much washing and so tired after that, so DH said don't cook anymore.

If you want home delivery home cooked foods, you can try tingkat (cost around $200 per mth). You can check out the yellow pages or google about it. I tried calling one - Select Catering, but too bad they said they don't deliver around my place.

Although it's tough without a maid, I do enjoy the privacy and the peace of not having to deal with a problem maid. so take this as an opportunity to bond closer with your kids and take it easy. :hugs:

[minnie2004]

Thanks for your recommendation angelight, I'll try out the tingkat services. I think our maidless life will be much easier if all the hassle with dinner is eliminated :boogie:


I tried to google it and found out there's actually a KSP discussion on this topic. http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=911&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=10

[Angelight]

Thanks for the link to the tingkat food delivery. I will go thru them and maybe call up one to try out too. :celebrate:

[pinkycheeks]

Eversince my first maid left, I had changed 2 maids as both got bad attitude and refuse to work (they think they come here to shake leg!!!). My 3rd maid… I got to tolerate her inexperience (fresh one) and recently, she showed her black face when she’s doing work. Am trying to bear with her attitude for now… but I dont know when my patience will end.


I have 2 small kids (1st going to P1 next yr and another going to N2). I’m thinking of putting them in child/student care and engage a part time maid to help with the ironing and general cleaning.

Anyone got contacts to engage part time maids, besides going through agencies?

[minnie2004]

Hi pinkycheeks,


My kids are of similar age as yours! During the 3 weeks w/o a full-time maid, we hired a part-time Filipino maid from our opposite block whose employer was away for a long vacation so she was free to do part-time jobs outside. However, my DH recently received his phone bill with int'l calls to Philppines & Mid-East from his spare SIM card which he misplaced. The calls occured after she started working for us. So we suspect she's the one who stole the card.

So be extra careful when you're hiring part-time and lock-up every valuable things. Otherwise, hiring a part-time is not a bad alternative to a live-in maid. No more black faces to put up with :celebrate: .