Anyone with 2 maids or maid-nanny combo

[libran269]

Hi All,


I am expecting my second child anytime. My 1st DD is 4 year old and goes to a kindy for half day. I dont have help from in laws or my parents. My mum can help me for a month only. I have a helper/maid now who takes care of the house plus my DD1. I will have to go back to work after 12 weeks of maternity leave.

The big question is - should i hire another maid for the second one? Or a nanny to come home. I am not very comfortable sending to nanny’s place. My DD1 was very allergic and sensitive, so prefer keeping them home. Wondering if the second one also would be the same.

Has any one been in this situation before? Has anyone kept a maid and a nanny.Financially also a big hole in the pocket. Please advise.

[libran269]

No one? Wondering what to do…

[beanstalk]

How sensitive is your eldest? If she actually goes to kindy without effect, her tolerance level could be quite high. It is entirely possible to have one helper but you need to emphasize to your helper that her priority is with the kids, not housework. You could lighten her workload until the baby is older, eg send out the ironing, plan one dish meals that can be prepared without being monitored. You and your husband will probably have to clean the house after work if your daughter is extremely sensitive.

[beanbear]

When I had my 3rd child, I had my first maid who looked after my 5 year old, 4 year and baby. The older kids went to half day childcare while maid looked after 3rd child. My maid was able to juggle housework and 3 children while we went to work and eventually worked with us for 5 years. What made it work was: I trained my maid to be organized, whip up meals in short amount of time for 6months before baby came. She turned out be quite a fast worker too and could cook well and organize her time for housework so things really worked out.


After this maid left, I had new helpers and although my new helpers were experienced, they are not good with juggling with childcare & housework & cooking, unlike my first helper, even though my kids are older and more independent.

I recently had my 4th child and I brought in a 2nd maid because firstly, my first helper is afraid to deal with infants and there’s quite a lot to handle already for her current workload. I also had a confinement nanny for the 1st month and my 2nd helper came in only at the 2nd month.

Bottomline: Having 1 toddler & 1 baby - it’s possible for one maid to handle provided you have a current maid who is well-organized, well-trained to manage young kids when you’re not around. Generally, I also "give & take" when it came to housework. Children’s safety was higher priority than cleanliness of house so I don’t get angry with my maid for not being able to finish housework when she was juggling with 3 kids. As long as kids were safe, well-fed, happy, that’s good enough for me.

Now that I have 2 maids for the last few weeks, I could share with you what has worked so far if you choose to have 2 maids. Define very clear roles for both helpers. Do not have overlapping responsibilities so that you can hold each of them accountable. I also chose to have maids of different nationalities ie one Indon & the other Filipino so that they have to speak in English to each other. I don’t want a situation of maids "ganging" up on their Employer!! I chose the 2nd helper carefully in terms of personality so that neither one would dominate the other. So far things have worked out well between my 2 helpers and I’ve got good night sleep and I can continue to do my usual activities with my older children.

Financially, it’s definitely very heavy but my plan is to have 2 maids for 2 years until baby can go to childcare when he turns 2. So you might also consider what’s the cost for 2 years or however long you wish to have this extra help and whether that’s something you can afford.

[justcoping]

libran269:

Hi All,


I am expecting my second child anytime. My 1st DD is 4 year old and goes to a kindy for half day. I dont have help from in laws or my parents. My mum can help me for a month only. I have a helper/maid now who takes care of the house plus my DD1. I will have to go back to work after 12 weeks of maternity leave.

The big question is - should i hire another maid for the second one? Or a nanny to come home. I am not very comfortable sending to nanny's place. My DD1 was very allergic and sensitive, so prefer keeping them home. Wondering if the second one also would be the same.

Has any one been in this situation before? Has anyone kept a maid and a nanny.Financially also a big hole in the pocket. Please advise.

Mayb cope with only 1 maid but get part time helper to come in and do some cleaning up. This frees up your maid from some housework. U can also cater dinner and maid only looks after children.

[libran269]

Thank You all for valueble advise!!!

Really appreciate it!!!
Beanbear you are my inspiration

Do your maids sleep with the kids?

[libran269]

beanbear - which agency did you go to for your maids? My existing one who is trained may go back after 6 months. She wants to care of her kids. She is Phil. Also, indo maids conversant in english?? saw few of them with poor english and communication.

[beanbear]

Thanks libran269.


I will pm you my current agent. I’ve used 3 agencies before and this current one actually specializes in transfer maids and good thing is there are so many maids to choose from - Indon, Phil, Myanmar. So many agencies complain they lack supply, yet this agent has many maids coming to them to help them find employers, primarily because she charges them only 1 mth fee and treats them well.

Yes, my baby sleeps with the maid. I need a lot of sleep so I let my maid look after in the night. But to be fair to her, I allow her to have afternoon nap together with baby. When maids look after babies, you must really look after maids well so that they will feel motivated to treat your baby well. Babies can’t tell you if they have been mistreated. So far things have been good. My 2nd helper has been happy looking after baby and he looks happy with him, smiling and staring at her alot.

It was the case for DS3 as well and that maid was with him for 5 years! After that I was worried whether he would have adjustment problem but I got him to sleep in my room for a few weeks after my maid left and then I got him to sleep with the older siblings. Withdrawal syndrome was minimised.

[Busymom]

libran269:

Hi All,


I am expecting my second child anytime. My 1st DD is 4 year old and goes to a kindy for half day. I dont have help from in laws or my parents. My mum can help me for a month only. I have a helper/maid now who takes care of the house plus my DD1. I will have to go back to work after 12 weeks of maternity leave.

The big question is - should i hire another maid for the second one? Or a nanny to come home. I am not very comfortable sending to nanny's place. My DD1 was very allergic and sensitive, so prefer keeping them home. Wondering if the second one also would be the same.

Has any one been in this situation before? Has anyone kept a maid and a nanny.Financially also a big hole in the pocket. Please advise.

Hi, you may also have a look at my post here:
http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=13815&start=30

We hired 2 maids when I have my second child. So far, we still have 2 maids as we need them to fetch our kids at different time to different places.

[Busymom]

beanbear:

Now that I have 2 maids for the last few weeks, I could share with you what has worked so far if you choose to have 2 maids. Define very clear roles for both helpers. Do not have overlapping responsibilities so that you can hold each of them accountable. I also chose to have maids of different nationalities ie one Indon & the other Filipino so that they have to speak in English to each other. I don't want a situation of maids \"ganging\" up on their Employer!! I chose the 2nd helper carefully in terms of personality so that neither one would dominate the other. So far things have worked out well between my 2 helpers and I've got good night sleep and I can continue to do my usual activities with my older children.

This was also what I started off with, defined roles with each one to care for 1 child and housework split accordingly (the one with the older child did more housework obviously). One Indon and one Filipino. Overtime however, maids had to be replaced at different times, and the children ended up preferring the one who had been with us rather than the newcomer to take care of them. Lot of issues in that sense, and inevitably, the job scope gets blurred till non-existence...

Lately, I have been having 2 Indons (one of them just joined us), as the first one said quite upfront to us that she doesn't want to work alongside a Filipino... also, we started with 2 Indons sometime this year as our place has too many Filipino maids around (there's also a Red Indian Chief in the midst) and we feel any good Filipino maid would also become bad after mixing with the rest. If not for that, I probably would have stuck to having 2 nationalities.