Starting Infant Care

After months of considerations and praying, we have finally decided to put Emma at the infant care. We will be starting her on 9 Dec, about a week plus before I start work.

It's a tough decision to make as putting a baby under other's care can be worrying. But after exploring all options, putting her at infant care is the best as of now. I guess we just have to keep our faith and review the situation from time to time.

1. Mum is not working but she is staying far from us. The traffic at peak hours from north to west would probably drive us mad and tired. Besides, we wouldn't want to leave her with my parents for weekdays and just bring her back on weekends. 

2. Even though Mother-in-law is staying near us but she is still working. Hence, she wouldn't be able to help us.

3. Having a maid would be our last resort as I am not comfortable to live with another stranger and all the maid problems.

4. After hearing all the scary incidents at infant care centres and since we didn't manage to secure any placing until recent, we tried looking for nanny by pasting flyers at blks around our place. There is one potential experienced nanny who stays just across our blk. But she is also babysitting another toddler which I'm afraid of Emma being bullied. Besides, the nanny is a Buddhist. We would prefer Emma to grow up in a Christian or neutral environment. Afterall, it is hard to trust a complete stranger and there isn't anyone else to ensure that baby is well taken care off. Unlike in the infant care centre, there are several teachers to watch over each other and we could feedback to the administrator. Hence, we decided on infant care centre when we were informed of the placing.

5. Even though there are many horror stories, infant care centres are still super in demand and the waitlists are all so long. Each infant centre could only take a small number of babies (2-18 mths), for ours it is 15 babies under the care of 6 teachers. Hence, we are very blessed to be able to secure a vacancy before I return to work.

In addition, I like that even though the centre is not to preach the gospel, the children in the school get to pray before meals (when they start eating solid food) and sing Christian songs. The children and teacher were singing "walking in the light of God" just before we left the centre! This way, Emma could at least grow up in a more Christian environment.

The centre is about 10 mins drive from our place and it is sheltered from carpark to the centre. Besides, the centre has been renovated just a while back. The teachers look professional and I believe there are passionate teachers around. The only worry would be Emma being more exposed to viruses and we would need to take urgent leave from work. Thus, I hope to breastfeed her for as long as I could to build up her immunity. 

As much as I would like to take care of Emma myself, I am not yet ready to be a stay home mum. I guess I am not willing to give up the stable income and am looking to progress in my career after I get my degree next year. Hubby also thinks that it would be better for me to work rather than to coop at home. Besides, I also don't wish to disappoint my boss. He trusted me, gave me a chance and accepted me even though I was months pregnant.

Nevertheless, I would still like to work towards my dream of being a stay home mum (hopefully by then to 2) probably sometime before she enter primary school. Maybe I could take up freelance home-based jobs or setting up some business or otherwise, praying hard that Hubby would strike a much much fatter payslip! :p Well, I believe that we just got to take things step by step, pray and see how God is leading us like he always has.

The new journey as a working and studying mum (for abt 5 months) would certainly be more challenging than ever but I am just going to trust in the Lord and press on!

But Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. - Matthew 19: 26