Making Caregiving
More Transparent

"First of all, Sister Cui is a very easy person to communicate with. From the very beginning—planning postpartum meals, setting up the baby’s sleeping space, discussing feeding methods, and daily routines—every conversation with her went very smoothly. She would calmly and clearly explain her recommendations and the reasons behind them, while also fully listening to and respecting our opinions and considerations, ultimately following our decision. She communicates very logically, which made us feel very reassured and made discussions and execution much more efficient. Sister Cui is also extremely calm. Our baby was born a little earlier than the due date, and as first-time parents, we were still far from having enough knowledge at the time. Every time the baby cried, spit up, sneezed, coughed, or developed a rash, we got nervous. After Sister Cui arrived, it often felt like she gave us a “reassurance pill.” She could always assess the situation in an organized way and help us handle the immediate problem. More importantly, she didn’t just solve the issue in the moment—she would also teach us, based on the specific situation, how to judge and handle similar problems in the future, and what the underlying principles were. For example, when it came to soothing the baby, she taught us to respond promptly, but not to over-soothe; not to let the baby cry harder and harder, but also not to interfere so much that it disrupted her gradual development of her own rhythm. For things that easily make first-time parents nervous—like bathing, trimming nails, and suctioning mucus from the nose—Sister Cui would guide us step by step, hands-on. She would patiently observe and remind us what to pay attention to with each movement and how to transition between steps. Sister Cui also patiently talked with us about what challenges the baby might face over the next few months and even longer in terms of sleep, feeding, and developmental changes; what decisions we would still need to make; which principles we should stick to; which “pitfalls” to avoid; and which good habits and routines were worth establishing and maintaining early. This experience was incredibly valuable to us. Now that there are AI chatbots, like many new parents, we naturally also turn to AI for parenting questions. But we quickly realized that AI needs a lot of background information repeated over and over: the baby’s age in months, birth history, feeding method, sleep habits, home environment, what happened before, and what methods we had already tried. Many times we also had to confirm whether the AI really understood our baby’s specific situation. For Sister Cui, though, this came almost naturally. She observed the baby every day and understood our home environment and caregiving style, so her judgment was naturally built on complete, continuous context. AI parenting videos or advice on social media are often fragmented, and it’s hard to tell whether they truly fit our baby, and they also lack a real-time feedback mechanism. Sister Cui was different—she is experienced and observant. She could keenly notice many small details, such as the extent of the baby’s twisting, the timing of lip-smacking, and changes in crying and alertness, and use those observations to verify or adjust the care plan. Sister Cui also taught us to ignore many false alarms. She didn’t just simply say, “It’s fine”; instead, she summarized her experience into patterns and taught them to us. For example, babies at certain ages naturally grunt; if the baby is grunting in the early morning but hasn’t opened their eyes, many times they are not fully awake. She taught us how to distinguish which signals need a response and which are just normal phenomena, which greatly reduced our anxiety and overreaction. In short, Sister Cui’s arrival and her hard work every day first gave us and the elders in our family some very precious rest; more importantly, she cared for the baby’s healthy growth together with us, and also gave us more confidence that after she leaves to care for another newborn family, we will be able to take on the responsibility of caring for our child more calmly and enjoy the joy of watching our baby grow. We feel very fortunate that during the most hectic stage of becoming parents for the first time, we were able to receive Sister Cui’s care and guidance."

"Auntie Zhou has been working in our home for two months already, and she has less than one month left before finishing her contract. Everyone in our family likes her very much. During this time, she has done her very best to care for the baby and prepare postpartum meals, allowing the mother to get good rest. At the same time, she also arranges her time reasonably to take the father’s work schedule into account. Most importantly, she takes excellent care of the baby. Every time the baby poops, she carefully washes the baby’s bottom. She changes diapers frequently every day and applies diaper cream to prevent diaper rash. When the baby was going through a gassy phase and was uncomfortable and fussy during the day and waking frequently at night, she was also very patient and soothed the baby back to sleep again and again. We had told her beforehand that there were cameras in the house and in the baby’s room, and she was understanding and showed no discomfort at all. She usually sleeps with the baby. Because we encourage the baby to sleep in the crib, after soothing the baby to sleep, she needs to put the baby down in the crib and then watch to see whether the baby is fully asleep. This process may require repeatedly picking the baby up and putting the baby down again. You can see from the recordings that she works very hard at night, so the baby’s mom and dad also try their best to share the workload so she can get a bit more rest. Even though she is tired, she is still full of energy every morning. As first-time parents, we feel very fortunate to have hired Auntie Zhou. After spending some time with her, we also trust her to stay home alone and take care of the baby, which has given us the freedom to go out for coffee, take a walk, or have a meal. We also have a little dog, and it likes Auntie Zhou very much too!"

"Auntie Huang came to our home after I gave birth and took care of me and my newborn for a total of 28 days. She has a cheerful, easygoing personality and is very easy to get along with. She quickly blended into our family, and being with her felt as natural as being with family, which made the postpartum period feel relaxed and reassuring. She works very efficiently, is organized, and is especially clean. Whether it was the baby's items, room hygiene, or daily tidying, everything was handled in an orderly way. When it came to caring for the baby, she was very patient and attentive. You could clearly feel that she genuinely likes children, and she cared for the baby seriously and gently. She also observed the baby's condition very carefully on a daily basis. In addition, she put a lot of care into the meals she made. They were varied, nutritionally well balanced, and tasted excellent. I looked forward to the food she prepared every day. We are very grateful for Auntie Huang's hard work during this time and sincerely recommend her to families in need."