❗️Why we chose not to have a confinement lady 🙅🏻‍♀️

Right after giving birth to a baby , comes the dreadful confinement month!! 😂

We’re probably one of the very few who didn’t have a confinement lady 😮‍💨 It’s almost unheard of, especially in the Chinese community.

👉🏼 We’ve heard many stories about bad CLs who are very controlling and demanding 😂

👉🏼 We didn’t want to pay $3.5-5K for a stranger (that’s insane to me tbh) to stay with us 🫣 And then who’s gnna take care of the baby once she leaves? Reckon it’ll be a culture shock for us.

👉🏼 We were staying with my mum so she could render help after she comes back from work. She’s mainly the baby supplies runner + red date tea maker haha. My hubs and I mostly manage baby on our own.

👉🏼 My husband saved up a lot of his leave from the year before so he could extend paternity leave by another 2 weeks. He was there to help me for an entire month! 🙌🏻

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𝗦𝗼 𝘄𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗮 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: + did things that kept us sane

1️⃣ Drank red date tea and wore long pants + socks

My mum painstakingly boiled red date tea for me every single day 🥲 Very touched. Tried my best to replace drinking water with red date tea for the entire month.

2️⃣ Herbal bath

Yes, I showered every day 🤭 I think I’ll go nuts if I had to sleep with oily hair.

Warm-hot water + herbal bags from the Chinese medical hall (I.e. Eu Yan Sang)

3️⃣ Halal confinement food by Ummu Fazwill

💰: $1450 for the 30-day lunch + dinner package

👍🏼 They were strongly recommended by my SILs.

👍🏼The wonderful thing is that the package will kick start the very day you return home from the hospital.

👍🏼 The food which were placed in heat retaining bags were brought and placed outside of my place twice a day - during lunch and dinner.

👍🏼 Food’s pretty yummy and interesting (western and asian flavours). The low carb and stews helped with my lactation too.

4️⃣ Post-partum and lactation massage

💁🏻‍♀️ My mother-in-law specialises in this so I was super lucky to have her massage me during pregnancy stage and post-partum. She did a wonderful job in binding my waist - super skillful! She’s the one who helped me release my breastmilk + saved me from engorgement 😂 So yeap, she saw my tities and all haha.

5️⃣ We set up a routine - and got better at it over time

✔️ Every morning, we would push baby to the living room for some air while we take turns to catch some sleep.

✔️ During the night, it’s almost like clock work - whenever baby wakes up for milk, we would also do a round of nappy change. Ngl it was tough but we got used to it after awhile. 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

6️⃣ Baby routine checks at the polyclinic

It was quite daunting at first, especially when u see other couples with their confinement ladies who were busy patting the babies 😅 We were on our own! We managed to get our baby out of the jaundice stage by increasing feeds. Very proud of ourselves.

7️⃣ We went out for a dinner date

🙌🏻 My mum was nice enough to take care of baby for a couple of hours while we went to have an epic steak dinner at Asap n Co. Was definitely nice to have some time to ourselves! 🥰

8️⃣ We kept ourselves busy

✨ We started to prep for our house and the things to buy once I ended my confinement month. It was just nice that we had the month to think through and discuss house related things without having to think of work. ☺️

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😌 I think at the end of the day, it requires alot of team effort to press on and really go through the motion. It’s certainly not easy. 😮‍💨 The thought of having to go through the whole process again with the next bb is just mentally exhausting hahahaha 😂 We truly believe having a child takes the relationship between two people onto a whole other level. Fast forward, our little man is already 9 months old! Seeing his cute face makes all of this worthwhile 😌

#confinement

#confinementlady

#pregnancy

#maternity

#paternity

#weddingprep

#parenting

#MyLemon8Diary

#baby

#Ummufazwill