Babysitter - Part 1

A friend of mine had forwarded a link of this blog. A sad story about the death of a baby.....under the hand of her babysitter. She was reported dead due pneumonia (sorry if I get this term wrong) to which later found to be incorrect and the actual reason is not known yet and the case is now under police's investigation. The babysitter is suspected hiding things on whatever had happened to the baby on the day of her death.

As I read the whole blog, it saddened me on the attitude of the babysitter (of course, the story is on one side only, we do not know what the babysitter would say about the tragedy and all the back dated stories of her babysitting the baby).

It reminds me how lucky I was to have a good babysitter for my twins when I stayed in KL.

The issue of child care for my babies had started bugging me while I was still pregnant. I had asked around about getting good babysitter, but until I've came into full term , I still couldn't get one. There were several babysitters in the list but these babysitters were already having several kids under their care. I had considered sending my babies to nursery but that was also not very good choice. We were also thinking of hiring maid.

There was this lady ( let's name her as K) who lived in the same block with me and she babysat children. Initially I was thinking to ask her to babysit my babies, but looking at her character (I know it is not right judging her by the way she dressed up, but I couldn't help it) , I just didn't feel like to. Besides, since I used to go home during lunch hour, I always heard she shouted to the children she cared for and the children always cried. So I decided not to. Luckily I'm not the talking type so I rarely talked to her. Once in a while when we bumped into each other, I only smiled to her.


By the end of my maternity leave, I still didn't have a solution for my twins's childcare. A week before I started working, I came back to KL with the hope that I would get a babysitter. Then, we received a visit from this elderly couple who live in my block and I mentioned about my situation and I said (since I was desperate) I was going to ask Kak G to babysit my twins. The couple gave us odd looks and said 'please don't do it first'. They said she already babysat many children so it's better to get someone else. The next day, the couple came back and recommended a lady (Kak K) who lived in another block to be my babysitter. He said he already called the lady and asked us to meet her.

And we did. But before that cik HB and I had discussed that we only send one baby first to see how things were and one baby would be sent back to my hometown, to be cared by my mother. The reasons were:

1) We didn't really know this babysitter, for one baby to be cared by her was already worrying enough, what with two babies. Call me fussy, but I've heard a lot of horrible stories when it comes to babysitters.

2) My hometown is just about 45 minutes drive from KL. We could go back everyweekend and switch the babies. So it wasn't that bad.

3) We too, were not confident enough that we would be able to care for both of them at home with no extra help. And with the nature of our job that required us to stay back sometimes, I was afraid that things would be

Kak K agreed to babysit my baby. And she wasn't even question why we only send one baby.

So we went on with the arrangement, one baby with us in KL for a week, and another baby with my mother. Friday evening, right after office hour, we would drive back to my hometown and by Sunday night brought the other baby back to KL.

It wasn't easy for us. Especially when I was still breastfeeding (but not exclusively) both of them. At first I wanted to wean them from breast feeding as I thought it will not possible to keep them breastfeeding with this arrangement. But my mother and my sister were very supportive. Since my sister who lives near my parents' house was also breastfeeding her daughter, she offered to help breastfeeding the babies, just to make sure that they didn't forget how to suck while any of them been separated with me in 5 days time. And Alhamdulilah, I managed to breastfeed both of them until they reached 2 years old. I owe a lot to my mother and my sister for their support.

During that time, some people in my office were talking about how could I separate the twins and only take one back with me. Although I kept explaining that I alternated both babies, somehow they got the idea that I only favoured one baby. Eventually, I just ignored those unpleasant remarks, bearing in mind "people can talk whatever they want, but it is us who have to bear the problem".

In the meantime we were confident with Kak K caring for our babies. When the twins entered their fifth month, I asked her whether she would want to care for both of them as I wanted to bring them to KL permanently. Commuting every weekend from KL to TM was very exhausting. And during working days, I kept missing the one I left in my hometown.