What To Look Out For In A Domestic Helper In Care for Infant & Children
Hiring a domestic helper has been an increasingly common childcare solution for many families especially in our hectic day-to-day lifestyle. Many parents can’t see themselves giving up a job they love, therefore find it challenging to cope and balance between work commitments and parenthood. With more mothers returning to the workforce, the divided attention between work and family often leads them to feeling guilty and stressed. It’s never easy being a mom trying to juggle a full-time job with a family life. In such a scenario, hiring a domestic helper would seem like the easiest, reliable and most straightforward solution. This makes finding the right domestic helper with the right skill set essential.
In a double-income household, nothing beats having an extra pair of hands to ease the workload – from looking and cleaning up after the kids, your domestic helper can also cook, clean and keep the house running smoothly. However, it is important to hire an suitable and efficient domestic helper. She should at least be experienced in caring for babies, toddlers and/or children depending what you need! Finding someone like this could be a tough task. But fret not, Recruitbee got you covered! We would like to share according to our experience with domestic helpers, what are the essential skills you should look out for in a domestic helper when it comes to hiring for infant and child care.
1. Trustworthy & Caring
Beside the most important criteria that the domestic helper needs to have prior experiences in working with infant and children – this means she should know the basics of how to take care of infant and young children without a lot of help from you – it is also essential you find a trustworthy and responsible helper that you can entrust your kids to her in your absence, and feel assured that your kids is in a pair of safe hands.
Whilst fulfilling the temporary absence of parental care and responsibilities in caring for your kids, the domestic helper needs to also be endowed with hopefully almost similar caring qualities and loving personality as you are in order to have your kids feel safe and comfortable enough being taken care of by this person.
2. Patient & Attentive
Patience is a must-have quality when taking care of little children. Curiosity is the root of intelligence and little children tend to be curious and playful with the world around them. This makes it important that your domestic helper is patient & attentive to your children’s needs and behaviour.
From remembering your toddler’s or kid’s daily routine for sleeping, feeding, learning, playing and bathing. Or for baby care where more details should be bear in mind such as the optimal temperature of milk, baby’s reaction while feeding and burping, personal hygiene, and many more. You should communicate the pattern and daily tasks that you require of your domestic helper and work out a perfect plan for both of you and the kids. Your full-time maid in Singapore should understand your kids just like you. Most importantly, to achieve such an understanding, they need to be good listeners.
3. Cheerful & Energetic
The cheerfulness of a person, is the reflection of the amount of positive energy they possess. Every employer would agree that the domestic helper should be cheerful and energetic enough to keep up with your kids’ level of energy. Children are curious and hyperactive by nature and most of them want a playmate who will go hide and seek with them during playtime! According to our clients’ feedback, we found that Filipino and Indonesian maids are usually great with kids because of their warm and friendly personalities.
4. Good Listener & Communication Skills
Hire a domestic helper who is patient with your child and is attentive to his or her needs. It is important that your helper is fond of children, because only a person who genuinely loves childrens will understand what your child needs. This is essential since young children might not tell you what they want. For example, instead of telling you that they are hungry, toddlers might resort to crying or become irritable. A good domestic helper is one who is well-versed with the body language of children and thus takes good care of your little one.
5. Good Time Management & Organising Skills
Kids have the uncanny knack of messing with things around and leaving everything in an unorganised manner. With their seemingly inexhaustible energy and restlessness, such exuberant chaos is quite expected, and hardly we can mend their ways to meet our demands of neatness. But that is when domestic helpers can really play an important role. They can always put things back in order and from time to time organise the kid’s room by placing things where they should belong to.
You Can Never Be Too Careful, It Is Your Kids We Are Talking About
If you need a domestic helper with all of the above qualifications, you know what you need to ask your candidates during the interview. Make sure to go through all the history and previous experiences of the candidate and that she meets all the required criteria and possesses all the skills and qualities on your list. Please remember that you are not simply hiring a domestic helper to babysit your child for the day. On the contrary, you are creating a healthy, loving and comfortable environment for your children to grow up in.
We understand that every home is unique in its needs and preferences hence we have previously written a blog post on Over 180 Sample Interview Questions to Ask When Hiring A Domestic Helper, here you will be able to handpick the questions you like and make your own interview checklist.
Sometimes, it may not be easy to get the perfect helper who checks all the boxes. What’s good is that there are many certified courses offered by recognized organizations to help your helper equip with the babycare skills you need. If you are interested, you can explore The Mother & Child First Aid for Helpers class that covers infant and child care essentials such as CPR, accident prevention, first aid and emergency procedures, or even Conscious Parenting Training for Caregivers / Helpers class that help your helper to understand the importance of connecting with your children in a positive way and follow the style of education your approve. Not only will your helper be learning worthwhile skills, this course will also give parents peace of mind knowing that their children are in capable hands.
Looking for a maid agency in Singapore to hire your first Indonesian maid, Filipino or even Myanmar maid? Let our consultants help you with your childcare needs today.
Share with us your criteria you want from the domestic helper – these include the nationality, age, religion, marital status, work experience and expected salary range among others.
For more information concerning hiring a full-time maid, let us work together with you on your selection to find the most suitable domestic help services that you need. Give us a call today at (65) 6721 9031 / (65) 6721 9032 / (65) 8189 5339.