Making Caregiving
More Transparent

"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. ❤️"

"I strongly recommend Auntie He, whom I hired! After spending this time with her, I honestly feel very good about her. She adapted especially quickly. When she first arrived, she was unfamiliar with the things in our home and the baby supplies, but before long she had basically learned them all. She gradually remembered clearly where things were kept and what the baby usually used, and became more and more efficient in everything she did. In the first few days after we came home from the hospital, the baby’s jaundice level was a little high. Auntie took the baby out in the sun every day. At that time, I did not have much breast milk, and she used her professional knowledge to teach us how to feed the baby and explained that the baby needed to poop more. By the time we went back to the hospital for a checkup, the jaundice had gone down a lot. Auntie also put a lot of care into cooking. She would ask what I wanted to eat and prepare postpartum meals for me according to my physical condition at each stage; the food was also very tasty. I am from northern China, and Auntie could make many kinds of wheat-based foods too—various pancakes, steamed buns, and bread. Auntie is especially skilled at putting the baby to sleep. Sometimes the baby would cry a lot when we held him, but as soon as he was in Auntie’s arms, he would stop crying. Our whole family was very surprised. Later, Auntie taught us how to hold the baby and what to pay attention to when feeding him. Overall, Auntie is truly a maternity nanny who lets the family feel at ease and reassured. She is experienced, patient, hardworking, and responsible. She takes great care of the baby and cooks very well too. We are very grateful for all her hard work during this time, and sincerely recommend her to families looking for a maternity nanny."

"After I went past my due date, the postpartum nanny we had originally booked suddenly canceled on us. I was about to give birth, so we had no choice but to urgently look for another postpartum nanny. Unexpectedly, through a lucky coincidence, Auntie Xu happened to be available. Looking back now, I truly feel incredibly fortunate. On the day Auntie Xu came to our home, she had spent the entire day traveling from San Francisco to Seattle and did not arrive until the middle of the night. As soon as she came in, she left her luggage by the door, washed her hands, and immediately took the baby from my arms. She told me to put on more clothes so I would not catch a chill, and to hurry back to my room and sleep. I had gone through 26 hours of labor in the hospital, a major hemorrhage, and then cared for the baby myself for 48 hours. I had not cried once through the entire process. But that night, when Auntie Xu took the baby from me and I finally lay down in bed, the tears suddenly started flowing. In that moment, I truly felt that someone had finally come to catch me—I could finally sleep without worry. During our video interview, we had mentioned news stories about postpartum nannies secretly giving babies sleep aids and similar things, so as first-time parents we naturally had some concerns. The next day, Auntie Xu proactively opened her luggage for us to see and took out all the supplements and similar items she had brought, placing them in the kitchen. We had not asked her to do this at all, but this gesture made me feel that she was very open and straightforward and very considerate of new parents’ worries. Our baby was a difficult little sleeper. She slept very lightly and would often open her eyes after falling asleep to check whether someone was beside her. Even the slightest sound could wake her. Auntie Xu was truly incredibly patient with her. Whenever she cried, Auntie Xu would pick her up and soothe her again and again, never becoming impatient because she was hard to settle. Our baby later had a tongue-tie procedure, and Auntie Xu was also very experienced and patient with postoperative care. What impressed me especially was that when our little one had her tongue-tie procedure, she cried intensely. Seeing how uncomfortable the baby was, Auntie Xu herself was so heartbroken that she cried too. For us, it was truly rare to find a postpartum nanny who is both experienced and genuinely loves the baby. Later on, our baby clearly recognized Auntie Xu. Near the end of Auntie Xu’s assignment, the baby was crying intensely from being overtired, and no matter how we tried to soothe her, nothing worked. As soon as Auntie Xu took her, held her, and said a few words to her, our little one immediately calmed down. That moment was both funny and hard to part with—the baby truly knew who had been caring for her every day that month. Auntie Xu was also extremely attentive in caring for me after childbirth. I had never been in the habit of eating breakfast, but she worried that going too long without food during postpartum recovery would make me uncomfortable or cause low blood sugar. Every morning, she would repeatedly come to the kitchen to check whether I was up yet and find ways to get me to eat at least a little. She made three meals a day, nourishing soups, and postpartum drinks with variety. The food was relatively light and home-style, but also delicious. Most of the dishes in the photos were made for us by Auntie Xu—she truly fed our entire family very well. In addition, Auntie Xu was very professional with traditional Chinese medicine techniques for stimulating milk production and relieving blocked milk ducts. She knew I was especially afraid of pain, so her technique was always very gentle. Early on, when I was very anxious because my milk supply was low, she was also consistently patient in comforting me and helping relieve my stress. That month, Auntie Xu was not just a postpartum nanny who came to “care for the baby and make postpartum meals.” Especially during the period right after giving birth, when I was at my most disheveled, physically weakest, and completely unsure how to care for a newborn, having an experienced, reliable, and patient person at home truly brought us so much peace of mind. When her assignment ended, our entire family found it very hard to say goodbye. The one who probably missed her most was our little one. If I have a second child in the future, I will definitely reserve two months of Auntie Xu’s availability well in advance. Thank you, Auntie Xu, for accompanying our family through the first month of our baby’s life. Thank you as well for taking such good care of both me and my baby when I most needed rest and recovery."