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. ❤️