Helper's schedule for a 2 year old

My new helper will be here in mid-November. I'm just wondering if anyone has a helper schedule drawn up when looking after a 2 year old?


I know this is quite personal but would be grateful if you could send to: xpatinhk@hotmail.com


Thank you very much.

Why not just sit down and think about what you do now with your child, and then write that as the schedule for her to follow? Really, it will be different for everybody. Just think about meal/nap/snack times, and also put down what sort of activities you would like her to be doing in between.

True... it's something I'll have to decide.

I've done one which is based on my existing schedule and I noticed that it's got too many "Mummy's job" in it.


My present only takes care of my baby from 8.45am - 6pm daily. I wake up at 6am, get ready for work, then do all the groceries at 7.30am and cleaning too if my helper isn't free. She also takes a daily nap when baby naps. I come home for lunch (leftover from dinner, eat for 5 minutes, then take care of my baby for the remaining 1 hour of my lunch - I have 1.5 hours). My helper eats her lunch within that hour, puts baby to sleep, then naps for 1.5 hours.


I'm thinking of doing it differently this time. Like perhaps have a schedule that is fair for both myself and my new helper.... I'd like to relax a bit more this time but what is fair? I don't want to tire her out nor do I wish to do everything. Hence my question.....


Thanks anyway :-)

To gogis, that is a really heavy schedule, your helper works 14 -5 hour days with virtually no break.

I don't really know how you can change it to suit you, but a couple of small changes that you could do. Bathrooms don't need cleaning every day, even every other day would be more than enough. Bedrooms also shouldn't get that dirty that they need cleaning everyday. Plan meals better so that she needs only get groceries every other day. You don't really need to eat a cooked meal twice a day, lunch could be a sandwich and fruit, yoghurt etc, save her cooking twice a day. Maybe get a dishwasher so that she doesn't have to spend her evenings washing up, so at least she'd get a bit of a break then to look at a book or write a letter or something. I think her main priority should be the baby, and as she's looking after her she shouldn't be expected to clean every room everyday. I'm sure on such a heavy schedule some small changes would make a big difference to her.

We're not quick to make judgments, from your earlier post you clearly stated that your helper works from 6am until well into the evening with very little break. You also then said if we had any ideas for making it easier to tell you, so don't get offensive when we try and do that.

The poor over-worked helper in question might well consider that her 14-15 hour days here (with pay and relatively nice accommodation) are easy in comparison with being back in her home country, taking care of 4 children, her husband and in-laws (as her housewifely duties, for no pay). My helper works from 7am to around 8 or 9 pm somedays, but she spends her days playing with my son, doing a bit of light cooking/cleaning/laundry, singing, playing games, strolling on the beach - you know, it's not such a bad life.

Hi, coming to gogis aid, I've been speaking to a few local friends who are working mothers and their helpers have schedules that are pretty much the same as gogis. I think even if gogis tells her she could sleep during the day, she may not because she wants to be seen as hardworking....my friends say that too.


The alternative is that mummy does all the chores on top of working full time which is what's happening in my situation. If she doesn't go to half day school, my situation is like how I've posted above. I come home and take care of her during lunch for 1.5 hours then when I leave, my helper puts her to bed.


If she goes to school (still debating coz she's only 2), mummy takes her to and from school, helper puts her to bed right after and mummy goes back to work until 7pm (or later depending on what time she wakes up). Mummy then feeds her, gives her a bath, reads her a story, gives her milk and puts her to sleep. When she's asleep, I talk to the helper about what to cook the next day, have my dinner (sometimes it's at 9pm and my helper eats before me), shower and then get ready for bed. Next day, I'm up at 6am to get ready for work and do the grocery. I'm soooooo exhausted.



I guess the best arrangement would be somewhere in between the two extremes. It's not easy taking care of babies for the mother or the helper. I'm still trying to decide what's workable.... eg. should my new helper help me take her home from school and I take her to school? Can we somehow share the workload so I don't feel like a zombie and she doesn't feel overworked? Maybe we could take turns attending to my baby at night time? Maybe she could let me have a rest one night per week where I can just sleep at 8pm....


Sometimes I feel my helper is luckier than I am because at least she gets Sundays off. I feel like I'm working long hours 7 days a week.... well, better on Sundays I guess because when she naps, I don't have to do my accouting work.


If anyone has any suggestions..... please share..... I pray that she doesn't get up at 3-5am tomorrow for her milk because I'm sick with flu and could do with a looong night's rest.

I forgot to add:-


Maximum daily time helper is alone with baby if I send my little girl to half day school (excluding sleep time): 2 hours. If you count travelling to school time as well (if she's willing to help me on this), add 45 minutes.


Maximum time helper is with baby if I pull my little girl out of half day school: 2 hours in the morning until I get home at 12 noon, and 1.5 hours in the afternoon because she sleeps the rest of it.

This thread is totally putting me off ever having children as I would have to keep working and even though Gogis & MayC have full time helpers they both seem to be frantically busy all the time.


One point, Gogis and MayC, I haven't heard either of you mention your partners - do they undertake any of the household/child carting tasks at all?

My husband works in China and is only home every other night. Due to the long travelling time, he is too exhausted to help out. We're at my inlaws place for dinner when he comes home (every second day - my helper doesn't cook when we're at inlaws), we rush home after dinner and I do all the "getting ready for bed" thing.


He does try to help me on Sundays.... although it's only showering her and taking her out for walks (but he wants me to come along). I let him carry her so I could rest but she wants mummy so I'm usually the one carrying 70% of the time).


BumpyDog, don't be put off. Children are rewarding. Tough as it may be being a mum and sad as it may be when the helper doesn't work out, but it's worth it.


And I'm trying to stay positive that my next helper will work out. I'm going to do my homework, prepare a workable schedule and do things right this time.


It's so good to be part of this forum because I'm beginning to understand more now from both sides (employers and helpers) and I hope you will too so you won't make the same mistakes I've made.

gogis, yes, the answer is to have a second helper.


MayC, no one is saying that it is easy, but it is your child, not your HELPER's. Surely, you gave some thought to your child's welfare and your workload before you decided to start a family? It has been said before; she is a HELPER not a slave or a substitute parent. I presume that you were being sarcastic about having your helper do the night shift?????

South side, I understand your point.


I don't know how to answer it... you just think everything's gonna work out. I didn't think that far ahead or that I would encounter such problems. First I thought I'd take 2 years off work so I could take care of her..didn't work out because the money we saved up was not enough to cover (lots of unexpected expenses with a child). So I had to go back to work. Then I thought, a helper would be ideal. While I was growing up, we had a helper who worked with us for 13 years....and she's now working for my aunty. And I thought that as long as I treated my current helper nice, things would work out. She ended up bossing me around and showing her temper. And then I had to admit it wasn't working out.


Perhaps also for some selfish reasons, I really want a family of my own. I feel guilty that I'm not home looking after her.... but I really love being a mother.... and really wish that money wasn't a problem so I could stay home.


But now while I'm in this situation, I can only do my best.... which is learning how I could do things better, cope better and do things differently this time.

MayC


Hang in there - you sound like a lovely, dedicated mum. I know mums who don't work at all who make less effort around the house or with their children!


It does get easier as baby gets older so there will be light at the end of the tunnel.

Kindy if you can afford it a couple of times a week would give you a break and your maid a chance to take some of your workload. It will also give your baby some outside stimulation as she gets older and wear her out so those naps keep going for longer! Unless it is very close by, try and share with your maid and do just one trip - personally I would do pick up for the look on their little faces when they see you again.


Good luck with your new maid.

gogis, I work full time, my wife did until we had our first child. She took maternity leave to 'keep her options open'. She loved her job, and was finally at a sufficiently senior level to control her life. After 6 months of maternity leave, we made a decision that there was too much to do to manage both successfully. They were our unique circumstances, the amount of travel that we both did had a part to play in the decision. It has involved a lot of sacrifices, as she earned as much as I do.


I am not arguing that this is the solution, or even possible for everyone. I am just saying that during maternity leave, she got a very clear idea of how much work was involved. Like MayC, we thought that we knew what we were letting ourselves in for, we were wrong. The point that I am making is about the helper. She is not the one to have made the decision to have children. We were in England at the time and would have had to employ a nanny and a cleaner. I just cannot understand why anyone thinks that their helper in HK should do both jobs.


Being a mother, whether you work or not is the toughest job in the world. My wife never has a moment to herself. Sandpiper is right though, we can see with our eldest, who is school going now, that it gets easier.

They are very lucky... and I believe such helpers do exist because the helper that used to take care of me is still with my family. She's been in my family for 26 years, first with my mum and now with my aunty.


I didn't have a schedule with my current helper

when she first worked for me. It was my first time hiring so I didn't have a clue. I didn't see her as a "maid" - having been brought up by a helper myself, I treated her as a family. I bought her Filipino magazines, I gave her a plane ticket as a gift so she could see her daughter, bought her cakes and money for all special occasions etc.... I needed help with my home life and I saw us as a partnership...


Some helpers are happy with this arrangement but some are not - sometimes I feel that mine sees these as things that she should be receiving (or maybe she feels that she should be getting more and I haven't given them to her, I don't know)... she just says thank you and puts it in her drawer. I'm not expecting anything else from her... but it would be nice to just get a smile with the thank you instead of a long face with the thank you.


Maybe she's just not happy with me. She'll tell me off and she'll ignore me if she doesn't like what I tell her however polite it may be. And she's usually the one who decides when she'll talk to me again or when she feels she's ready to greet me again. I've had endless talks with her and have asked her what else I could do. She said I yelled at her once (for which I apologised and told her I didn't mean to yell and I felt awful), at the time it was because she was retaliating so much and I just wanted her to be quiet and listen and I started with being really nice about it... but she wouldn't listen. It's like I am not allowed in any circumstance to tell her what to do, however polite it may be. And she said that she's very sensitive and finds it hard to forgive like she can't forgive her ex-husband for leaving her for another woman. Maybe she's still bitter about that.... or it's just her character that you are not to tell her what to do. I try not to.... it's only occasionally, like once in a few months where I really need things done my way. I could go on... but I better not. I think I've bore everyone for the past one week with my issues. I'll try not to post again once all of these have cleared. Sorry.



This time, from all the advices I've been given, while a friendship is good, it is important to maintain and employer/employee relationship. A schedule is a bit like a job description before you start a job. It's always good to know what's expected so beancurd, I think I may still go with the idea of drawing up a schedule. Not saying that she must follow it like a gospel, but just an idea of what's important to me.

Barbara30 - how can you say that someone taking care of a single child and doing light household work for more than 10 hours a day is slave labour? Perhaps you don't realise that this is the real world. People work. My helper works, as I said before, around 12-14 hours a day. This involves taking care of a generally trouble-free 2-yr old, doing a bit of cleaning and cooking, and not much else. I work for 8 hours a day, in a crappy windowless office, dealing with f*ckwits who have no concept that their employees might have a personal life too, I spend 4 hours a day travelling as my salary does not afford me the luxury of a nice HK-Island residence, and then I get home, feed and bathe my son and put him to bed.Then I eat quickly and go to bed. Then I get up and repeat the process. 6 days a week. Sunday I take care of my son. My salary has to support my own family and two Sri Lankan families. I consider that my helper's working life is a lot better than mine - yes, she earns less, but she is young, single, and when she returns home she will have a sound financial situation to start her married life with. When I was young and single I worked in jobs that left me with a lot less money at the end of the month than my helper gets. We all make choices. Some helpers are abused by their employers - lots of employees are abused by their employers in various ways - these people can choose to leave or stay. And don't come up with silly excuses for helpers staying in crappy jobs - oh, poor woman, she has a family to support - if you only look at this website there are people crying out for GOOD helpers. There is no shortage of jobs for GOOD helpers. I cannot abide people going on and on about how we should be sympathetic to someone who may 'work' long hours but spends most of that time on the phone (my first helper) or crying about various health problems that she denied having at her medical check-up (same helper) and so on. Aaaaaaaarrrrrggghhhh!

Interesting...

Gogis,


When I first went back to work (when my son was about 10 weeks old) I tried to do everything, rushing around to trying to finish work in an unrealistically short time, eating lunch on the run, rushing back to put him to bed and then doing more work....


After a week I was going mad and the first Saturday (my DH's day off) he cried for 7 hours solid. I think he coudl feel the tension in me and at the end of that weekend I decided things had to change. If I was to be a full time working mother (which I have to as I am a single mother), I have to be realistic about what I can do.


So my baby wakes between 6:30 and 7:30. I get him up as morning is our time. My DH is ready by 8 so we can catch up before I have a shower and leave for work. She gets something for him and her for breakfast, but it is easy for me to pick something up on the way into work.


I then accept I will rarely put my son to bed as often have to work until 10/11pm. But on Thursdays, if at all possible, my DH drops my baby off with me, I take him home and put him to bed (and finish work later if I really have to). She then gets the evening off.


The one day she gets him up is Saturday (even though her day off) so I can lie in until 9/10 am. I then let her go until around 4pm on Sun so she gets some nice time off, can stay with a friend if she wants to, and get a good lie in.


It is a long day for her as she works 8am until 8pm when the baby goes to bed and often irons after that although I tell her she really does not need to.


Just as I have to be realistic, I have to be realistic about what she can do. Her priority is the baby and the baby's (and her) food. I do not care if the bathrooms are only cleaned once a week - it is more often than I used to do them. I can always grab a meal on the way home (not as healthy as a home cooked meal, but something has to give and I do not want it to be my sanity - or my DHs).


As far as I am concerned the place is spotless, but it may not meet some employers standards. In my view a bit of dust never hurt a kid and there are reports that living in too steralised an environment is bad for babies.


So I do not feel pressured to try and finish work when I know I can't - I even go out sometimes and see my friends. My helper has one evening a week off and most of the weekend. I know she does a big job so I pay her over minimum.


My baby is now 2 and we are all very happy. Of course I am exhausted, but as someone said, I chose to be a mum and so it is the DH not me that really needs time off at the w/e.


So I say try and relax, be realistic and prioritise and it does nto have to be traumatic - it can be a pleasure (most of the time!)