Making Caregiving
More Transparent

"Auntie Zhang is a very patient, attentive, and professional postpartum nanny. She was especially patient with our baby and fed and cared for the baby carefully and consistently every day. Our baby had a low birth weight at birth, and Auntie Zhang paid close attention to the baby’s feeding and weight gain. With her attentive care, the baby gained weight very well, which gave us as parents great peace of mind. In addition, Auntie Zhang was also very professional in caring for the mother. From helping initiate milk production and relieving blocked ducts at the beginning, to carefully preparing postpartum herbal drinks every day, to postpartum recovery support, her extensive experience and professional caregiving skills could be felt at every stage. I especially want to mention that her massage was truly amazing: while promoting uterine contraction and recovery, it also had a significant effect on pelvic-floor muscle recovery. She adjusted the postpartum drinks according to different tastes and physical conditions. Not only was she thorough in her care, but she also adjusted her approach promptly based on the mother’s physical condition, making postpartum recovery go more smoothly. Throughout the postpartum confinement period, Auntie Zhang was not only a caregiver for the baby and mother, but also gave us a great deal of help and support, easing much of our anxiety as first-time parents. Because I had always been anxious about breastfeeding, she patiently comforted and supported me. She also helped me store so, so much breast milk, building up a large supply of food for the baby. You could truly feel that the baby digested and absorbed breast milk very well! Thanks to Auntie Zhang’s excellent breast-massage and duct-clearing skills, when I had blocked milk ducts, they were cleared promptly, and I had no mastitis at all. She really helped us solve many difficulties. We are extremely grateful to Auntie Zhang for all her effort and care during this time! If any friends need to hire a postpartum nanny, I would sincerely recommend Auntie Zhang."

"This nanny cared for my child from when the baby was 3 months old until 11 months old. The first three months were barely acceptable. After that, things became increasingly outrageous, and she became passive and negligent at work. Here are some of the things we experienced: 1. She was extremely unskilled at making baby food, and the food she made was hard to describe. If she did not know how, she could have learned—there are so many tutorials online. Not only did she not learn, she was also very lazy and fed the child premade baby-food pouches. At most, she would steam an egg. A 10-month-old needs food with some texture, yet she had no knowledge of this at all—or perhaps she was simply too lazy to make it. 2. When the child slept, she slept too, for both the morning and afternoon naps. Every morning and evening, she would stay in the bathroom for an hour. This was when the child was awake, so we could only watch the child ourselves. What exactly did I hire you for? When asked to adjust, she became very unhappy, with such a long face that it was awkward to look at. 3. She had absolutely no safety awareness. The child chewing on unwashed fruit was not even the most serious issue. When we got home, we found a fly swatter, electrical cords, and other dangerous items for a child all left on the floor. You can imagine how long the child had been crawling on the floor and how many things the child had put in their mouth. She liked taking the child out into the yard, where she would lay down a mat and lie on it herself while letting the child crawl freely on the grass. Only when she saw us come outside would she pull the child back onto the mat. Several times, we found the child eating grass or licking tree bark. Once, we even saw the child eating morning glory flowers. We stopped it immediately. It made no difference at all to her; she did not think it was a big deal. Morning glory is poisonous. 4. She could not make baby food and would not make baby food. If the employer made it, couldn’t she at least feed it properly? We stepped out for three minutes, and she poured the baby food out for the family dog to eat. I was furious when I saw it on the security camera. 5. She let the child watch a phone, even in the dark at night. When she watched it, the child watched it too. She had no conscience—such a young child’s eyesight could be ruined. 6. She never held the child upright. She would just lift the child by gripping around the stomach area. Was she afraid of getting hurt herself? The child became especially clingy with us and clearly did not receive good interaction or care. 7. This nanny paid a great deal of attention to personal care. We had a bottle-washing machine at home, and dishes were washed in the dishwasher. The only thing that needed to be hand-washed was the bib used for baby food. Yet she needed to protect her hands, applying Vaseline and wearing gloves at night. How exactly are you supposed to care for a child while wearing gloves? Did I hire you to focus on wellness? 8. She manipulated the employers. Knowing that we were busy and had to go out, she would become negligent in every possible way. In response to all these problems, we used AI to set up a daily schedule, the nanny’s duties, and meal plans. She would not even look at them; they were left on the table outside the whole time. She continued doing whatever she wanted. 9. There were plenty of vegetables in the refrigerator that she could eat, and we never placed any restrictions on her. When we had to go out, she insisted on leaving the child alone inside the house to cut sweet potato leaves from the yard. It is fine if you like fresh vegetables; there were some in the refrigerator, and when we were home you could also go cut some to eat. But you cannot let the child out of your sight or leave the child alone in the house. It is very dangerous! After we let her go, we listed this issue, and she replied sarcastically: “I committed an unforgivable crime by eating your precious sweet potato leaves.” She was avoiding the real issue. Was a little bit of vegetables the point? 10. When we went out, she cooked noodles and did not even wash the noodle pot. When asked, she said she had no time to wash it because she was caring for the child. But you were letting the child crawl on the floor, so what exactly were you doing? 11. During the interview, she said she could also do simple housework; people should be considerate of each other. She took advantage of our kindness. After she came, not only did she not do housework, she did not even complete her own core responsibilities. 12. She criticized her previous employer in the Bay Area for being stingy and not giving her enough to eat. At my home, it would have been no problem for one person to eat as much as the three of us combined. She could eat whatever she wanted, as long as she took good care of the child. But no matter how much she ate, it was useless. There were several times when we wanted to let her go, but we were very busy. We are a dual-income family, we also have an older child, and we were afraid that frequently changing caregivers would be bad for the baby. So we kept struggling and tolerating it, and she became worse and worse. I especially regret it and feel sorry for my child for making the child suffer for so long. People full of petty cleverness will one day suffer the consequences of their own little schemes and tricks."

"After spending this time with Sister Liu, my biggest takeaway is that she does not just help you take good care of the baby. More importantly, she gradually teaches new parents how to care for the baby themselves. This was especially important to us. While caring for the baby, Sister Liu would also share many practical methods from a professional perspective—for example, how to tell from the baby’s different cries whether she was hungry, sleepy, uncomfortable, or simply needed soothing. She also helped us observe and understand our own baby’s little habits and patterns. She did not take over everything herself; instead, she intentionally helped Mom and Dad gradually participate and learn. So when it was truly time for her to leave, although we would definitely be sad to see her go, we would not have that anxiety of “the maternity nanny is leaving and suddenly we do not know what to do.” Instead, we would feel confident and prepared. Sister Liu is also someone who plans her work very well. This was something that made a deep impression on me during the interview. She did not feel that having worked for so many years and having plenty of experience was enough. She is always learning and improving, periodically attending more professional maternal-and-infant training programs, earning certifications, and updating her knowledge. It was the same after she started with us: on the first day, she patiently and thoroughly introduced the general daily care schedule for the baby, so that new parents could have a clear idea of what to expect from the beginning. If you have your own needs, you can also communicate them with her in advance; she will discuss them with you, make adjustments, and cooperate. Another thing I personally value very highly is that she is easy to communicate with and has a strong sense of boundaries. Every mother has her own ideas and preferences about feeding and caring for a baby, and Sister Liu fully respects our routines and feeding philosophy. When she feels there may be another way to handle something, she shares her experience, judgment, and reasons with you, giving you more information to make your own decision, rather than simply insisting, “This is how I have always cared for children.” This made our time together genuinely comfortable and made me, as a mother, feel respected. Lastly, I have to specifically praise her postpartum meals—they were truly top-notch! 😂 As time went on, I increasingly felt that good postpartum meals are not about making the food look elaborate every day or serving a huge number of dishes. They are about knowing what the body truly needs after giving birth, making meals nutritious, balanced, tasty, comforting, and easy to eat, while also matching the body’s recovery at different stages. Sister Liu did an excellent job with this. She took care of nutrition without making me feel as though every meal during postpartum recovery was just a task I had to complete, and it was a great help to my physical recovery after childbirth. In short, during this time, it was not just that someone helped us care for our baby. It felt more like someone accompanied two new parents through the most hectic and overwhelming stage, and before leaving, gradually helped us reach the point where we could manage independently. We are very grateful to Sister Liu for taking care of our baby and us during this time, and I feel very fortunate to have met a maternity nanny during my postpartum period who was professional, dependable, willing to keep learning, and also so easy to get along with. ❤️"