Maid/Nanny for Baby - Part I

Before my daughter was born, I had thought I will put her in daycare when she is 6 months and then resume office.
But things change when you become a mother, you become protective, emotional, and I couldn't imagine keeping my little baby in a strange place with strangers, and so the thought of keeping a maid/nanny for her came up. Thankfully my in-laws are living with us, so the nanny wouldn't be alone with the baby.

Nanny search isn't an easy one.
I started by informing our building security to let me know if anybody is interested. I also had a lady coming home for "maalish" (massage) for my baby, she is very well connected with many such people, so she too was looking for someone for me.

The ladies who came to me looking for work, came at odd times, at 3 in the afternoon, ringing the bell loudly, which in turn made my baby wake up!
Also, some of the conversations i had with them were hilarious, some of them were so unsuitable for the job, i didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Sample conversation:
Me : Have you worked somewhere before?
Candidate (holding her sari pallu in her hand, looking down, and blushing, god knows why) : hee hee hee hee
Me (Again) : Have you worked somewhere before?
Candidate : (hee hee) yes
Me : Where? What work do you do?
Candidate:  "Te, tikde, hotel madhe" (translation: there in the hotel)
Me : What do you do in the hotel?
Candidate: (hee hee) "te bhandi ghasna, cutting karna" (washing utensils, cutting vegetables)
Me : have you taken care of a baby before?
Candidate: No
Me (Already decided she isn't the one) : Give me your phone number, will call you if i need
Candidate - cant write :-(

The basic expectation i had from a nanny:
1. should be able to read and write
2. should be clean
3. speaks clearly

The above candidate failed in all.
I met several ladies, who came looking for work, but really, it was a nightmare for me.
Finally the lady who massaged my baby, found me a nanny who had taken care of a kid before for 3 years, I also spoke to her previous employer, who had only good things to say about her.
After about 8-9 months, the nanny left me, since she found some other job.
The search for a new nanny started, which is a story for my next post.

In general, some points to note when hiring a nanny:
1. If she worked somewhere before, do take their number, call them and ask them about her.
2. Note down her address and phone number, if possible check the area she lives
3. Make sure to tell her that the priority is cleanliness and only cleanliness, her measures of cleanliness might not measure up to you, so spell out the exact things she needs to take care of.
4. The nanny I hired turned up on the first day in a sari which was a little dirty and had sharp sequins on it. The next day i bought her 2 saris, which she was supposed to wear when she comes and wash before she leaves. This might seem a little awkward to some, but believe me, for a mother, baby comes first, and I don't mind asking the nanny to do this. Just tell her you are getting her 2 new saris which she needs to wear while handling the baby, and she will be okay.
5. Make the job description very clear, if you want the nanny to do additional jobs around the house, make them clear before you hire, so later you don't have conflicts around it.
6. If you are hiring the nanny for full day, then surely she needs weekly holiday so agree on that beforehand.
7. Ask the nanny to get her own lunch, because one thing, she might not like the food you eat, second, you will be obligated to arrange some food for her, even when you have other plans, don't want to eat etc. The nanny I have currently follows many religious fasts, so many times she eats only fasting food.
8. There are maid agencies available, I didn't try them so far, but have heard that some of them are good, they charge a little more though.
9. The nanny might expect a holiday on every festival, but we don't have holiday in offices for all festivals, so make it clear to her, she will get a holiday only if you have one too :-)

Baby book

Creating baby books is fun, its a lovely memory for the child, and it gives the tired parents a creative channel to vent out their parenting blues.

Many people i know feel too lazy to do this, thinking it takes a lot of effort.
But with a little planning making this baby book can be really easy...

When you take photographs of your baby and upload them to your computer, make sure to create a folder for each month and upload the photos accordingly.
This way, you have all the photos ready in chronological order.

The baby  book can be updated at the end of the year with all the photos per month, selecting one best photo of each month.
You get lovely ready made baby books in most shops, i bought mine from Reliance Timeout (the one near me has closed down now), but Landmark and Crossword have very good options.
(Or you could get a blank book and do a scrapbook)
I didn't want to put too many photos in the baby book, i put a limited set of photos there relevant to the format of the book.

I prepared a separate baby album, for that I selected the best photos of the entire year, from her birth to her 1st birthday and put them in a separate folder.
I wanted to get them printed, in photo shops like fotofast they charge Rs.10 per photo to print.
I checked online and found a good deal on snapfish.com, I printed almost 250 photos for Rs.4 each. I uploaded all the photos to the site and placed my print order. They charged me courier fees Rs.200, but i got all my photos home delivered :-)
Next was an album to keep these, I looked for albums in many shops, didn't find anything suitable.
Finally bought a cute pink mini mouse album from landmark at MG road, and arranged all the photos there in chronological order.

Go ahead and do it for your baby, its one thing they will love to see when they grow up :-)

Baby clothes buying in Pune

For all new parents and to-be parents, i hope this post is useful.

I used to buy maternity wear clothes at Uzazi at Camp.
(I had my eye on the shop long before i was pregnant, and always wanted to shop there :-D)
Once while shopping there, i asked the friendly woman there, where can i buy newborn baby clothes, and she told me about this wonderful shop called "Needlewoman" on M.G.Road. (its right next to Karachi sweets)
This is a plain old traditional shop, but with very good soft cotton clothes for kids upto 7-8 years of age I think.
When we went there, asking for new born baby clothes, they immediately gave us a whole list of what is required for a new born baby, it was so helpful, we just selected all the things we needed and they showed us all the stuff they had.
The baby clothes there are all of cotton, nice and soft, reasonable prices, i buy all my daughter's comfortable home and night wear from this shop.

The other shop from which we bought  a lot of stuff is Mom & Me.
We bought her baby cot, pram and a lot of other baby paraphernalia from there.
The clothes there are a little expensive, i have not bought a lot of clothes there, only once i bought a baby pink party wear frock for my daughter, but in general the range of party wear frocks is not that great.

Same with Me & Moms in SGS mall at camp, the clothes not that great, but have bought some small items there once in a while.
One tip : the socks that i buy for my daughter to wear around at home, i buy those, which have a rubber print design on the underside, this gives better grip and chances of slipping on the floor are less.
Such socks i could find in Me&Moms, didnt get them either in Mom&me or in Needlewoman.

When i had to buy her a frock for her first birthday, i took the advice of a friend, who told me about a great shop called "Small Mall" in Deccan. It has a lot of variety and I got a lovely frock there!!

Laxmi road has a lot of good shops too. I have shopped in Maitrik - this is where i bought her 2nd birthday dress. I also got a very good ghagra choli from here.
They have a good selection of shoes too, but on the expensive side, ranging from Rs.850-900.
In tulsi baug theres a very small shop, i will try to remember the name and update, that too has nice soft homewear for babies and kids, it also has cute parkar polkas (the traditional maharashtrian dress) for girls.

Recently, theres a shop called bonsaii opened in seasons mall. The shop has a very good variety of shoes.
But the clothes range I didnt like so much.
The range of toys for kids of all ages is very good!

BTW all the above shops are good for boys clothes too :-)

Next time I plan to explore more shops on laxmi road and tusli baug, the shopping experience there is so much fun! I love the traditional market there, the small shops, this kind of shopping cannot be compared to the glass and AC shops in malls...

Copycat

My little daughter copies everything we do..

Yesterday, i told her i am calling her pappa, while i was still dialling, she picked up her toy phone, put it to her ear, started walking around like we do, and was talking "haan, tu kadhi yetoy ghari?" (When r u coming home?)
It was amazing to see her talking the way I do!

Another incident today morning, every day in the morning i call up my mom (my daily status call :-)).
My daughter calls her "mothi aai" (it means elder mom, its the term used for grandmother).
While i was in the kitchen, she went in, got my phone and gave to me and "mothi aai la phone laav"!! (call mothi aai), i didnt realise its become a routine for her too...

But sometimes these cute little things she does can also be scary..
In the evening, I had put the pressure cooker on the gas stove. As soon as the weight on the cooker blew a whistle, she ran to the kitchen and before i could blink my eye, came back to me saying "aai, shitti zhali, cooker band kela"!! (mom, the the whistle blew, i switched off the gas!!)
the little girl had actually turned off the knob!!!

Toddlers and playschools

My daughter is 2 now, and the thought of putting her in a playschool comes up several times.
Some people put their kids in playschool at 1.5 years of age!
There are different views on this, play schools promote the idea of sending kids (babies still) to playschool early for their development.

I too have had a lot of conflicting thoughts about this.
Once playschool starts, the kids (or rather baby's) life will start off in a never ending story of playschool, nursery, kindergarten etc...
I want my daughter to enjoy at home , when else will she have this time of -
getting up in the morning, going straight to her toys and just playing,
running around giggling  while her grandfather runs behind her trying to stop her :-D,
getting flowers from the terrace in her basket and offering them to god,
doing what she wants, when she wants :-),
making a mess of the entire living room,
jumping on the sofa and not letting her grandmother sit :-D,
running behind the cleaning maid (mavshi) and helping(!!) her to put the clothes to dry,
playing hide and seek with the cook,
sitting on her little chair in front of the devara, folding her hands and saying morya at any time of the day! :-),
singing chandoba chandoba,
watching krishna on tv and eating dahi with her hands :-)
generally creating a chaotic scene at home and then laughing away!

People say a child develops faster, learns a lot in playschool.
But she is learning at home too, she observes everything everybody does, and tries to do it too...

I think its a personal choice of each parent.
There's a lot of confusion among all parents about when to put in playschool, and most go by peer pressure.

Let the kids enjoy whatever they do :-)
I have decided to put her in playschool a little later, i will also get more time to get adjusted to her going to school!
I guess for working mothers who don't have support at home, putting in playschool early becomes a necessity, my daughter thankfully has wonderful grandparents at home, who can look after her along with the maid, while i am at office.