Coping Without A Maid?

[ARCHer 0]

Yesterday, we received news that my maid's mum has passed away. My maid's children are being looked after by her mum, and with her passing, my maid has decided to return home.

Now my wife and I are not sure if we should find a replacement maid. The hassle of finding someone whom we can trust is making us worried enough to consider not having a maid. On the other hand, both of us are working (my wife working from home and on a part-time basis), and with a 9 month old baby in the house, we are not sure if we can cope without a maid. Mind you, all my colleagues also told me that having a maid will give us a better quality of life i.e. we don't have to worry about mundane issues like cleaning, cooking etc.

So those of you without a maid.... how do you cope?

Edited March 30, 2007 by ARCHer

[hasibee 0]

I do not have a maid. Only me and my husband in a 5rm flat. We don't have any kids. Both of us are working. Already we are finding it a little difficult to cope.

I cook on alternate days evenings as my husband prefers home cooked food. I also do washing and vaccuming on alternate days evenings. My hubby will help me mopping once a week. Other than that u'll hav oth work like cleaning up aft cooking, folding clothes, washing toilet and etc....

By the time u finish all ur work, u r dead tired that u just want to hit the bed and sleep as u need to go to work the next day. We hardly spend quality time together anymore doing things that we like, example: watching DVDs, playing games and sometimes even too tired for S**.

So we do feel the strain. What more if we hav a baby ? Can't afford to engage maid as we still have reno loan and oth stuffs to settle...

[ARCHer 0]

I do not have a maid. Only me and my husband in a 5rm flat. We don't have any kids. Both of us are working. Already we are finding it a little difficult to cope.

I cook on alternate days evenings as my husband prefers home cooked food. I also do washing and vaccuming on alternate days evenings. My hubby will help me mopping once a week. Other than that u'll hav oth work like cleaning up aft cooking, folding clothes, washing toilet and etc....

By the time u finish all ur work, u r dead tired that u just want to hit the bed and sleep as u need to go to work the next day. We hardly spend quality time together anymore doing things that we like, example: watching DVDs, playing games and sometimes even too tired for S**.

So we do feel the strain. What more if we hav a baby ? Can't afford to engage maid as we still have reno loan and oth stuffs to settle...

Before our baby came along, we also never have maid. We stay in a fairly big house, so even if we devote the whole weekend to cleaning, we would probably not have time to finish all the cleaning, laundry etc. So we ended up cleaning only part of the house, and even then, we were more tired from the cleaning during the weekends than working during the weekdays. In fact, I even broke my hand once while I was washing the floor.

[HSH21 1]

Both my HB and I are working... our children are big... daytime.. no one at home... my mum will come over to cook dinner and washing ....

After we finished our dinner... both of us will do the dish washing ... and that's the end of our house work...

The rest of the house work will leave it to the weekend....

But for your case... your girl is still very young ... she needs alot of attention... unless your wife can leave the work till U come home... otherwise it will be very difficult...

Edited March 30, 2007 by HSH21

[Nin's 0]

I use part time maid, once a week. She does the harder works like scrubbing bathrooms, mopping/vacumming, ironing some clothes that needs to be ironed and cleaning windows sometimes. She also tidy up my clean laundry like folding them and put them on the wardrobes.

Daily my hubby cooks and does the guys stuffs like fixing stuffs and get me heavy stuffs. I do laundry and washing pots/pans. We have dishwasher so no headache there. Hubby will unload dishwasher and load to shelves. both of us load the dishwasher as when we have dirty crockeries/cutleries.

Once our baby arrives, we will engage nanny who will come to the house 7am-7pm until our child is big enough for child care. Both of us working, my hubby travels 70% of his time, while I travel 10%.

Edited March 30, 2007 by Nin's

[hasibee 0]

Before our baby came along, we also never have maid. We stay in a fairly big house, so even if we devote the whole weekend to cleaning, we would probably not have time to finish all the cleaning, laundry etc. So we ended up cleaning only part of the house, and even then, we were more tired from the cleaning during the weekends than working during the weekdays. In fact, I even broke my hand once while I was washing the floor.

Ya tell me abt it. I sprained my knee recently when washing the toilet. It was so bad that i couldn't walk for almost a week and my knee was swollen very badly. Even aft 2 months now, i still feel the pain slightly sometimes.

[korea 0]

Yesterday, we received news that my maid's mum has passed away. My maid's children are being looked after by her mum, and with her passing, my maid has decided to return home.

Now my wife and I are not sure if we should find a replacement maid. The hassle of finding someone whom we can trust is making us worried enough to consider not having a maid. On the other hand, both of us are working (my wife working from home and on a part-time basis), and with a 9 month old baby in the house, we are not sure if we can cope without a maid. Mind you, all my colleagues also told me that having a maid will give us a better quality of life i.e. we don't have to worry about mundane issues like cleaning, cooking etc.

So those of you without a maid.... how do you cope?

hubby used to have a maid in his own house (my in laws' house). the maid will do all the house works but she doesn't really know how to cook. i can say that with a maid and things will be a lot easier, our life will be more relax after a hard day of work. the house will be very clean and tidy. but hubby's maid left last year liao b'cos she said that her family had problem and needed her to go back.

for your case, you should hire another maid since your house is rather big and your child is still very young. it's very tiring for 2 adults to cope everything.

[ARCHer 0]

It's not just about getting a replacement maid. It's also training up the maid, and more importantly, it's whether my daughter will 'accept' the maid to look after her.

Our current maid (the one that is going home) is not exactly good. She made lots of mistakes, but at the end of the day, we didn't change her because we do not have the time to train a new maid. Also, my daughter has gotten used to her and so she could at least look after my daughter when my wife and I are working.

My maid will be leaving on Wednesday. As it is the Good Friday week, we won't get a new maid until middle of the month. It's going to be a trying time over the new few weeks.

[korea 0]

It's not just about getting a replacement maid. It's also training up the maid, and more importantly, it's whether my daughter will 'accept' the maid to look after her.

Our current maid (the one that is going home) is not exactly good. She made lots of mistakes, but at the end of the day, we didn't change her because we do not have the time to train a new maid. Also, my daughter has gotten used to her and so she could at least look after my daughter when my wife and I are working.

My maid will be leaving on Wednesday. As it is the Good Friday week, we won't get a new maid until middle of the month. It's going to be a trying time over the new few weeks.

ya, agree. training a maid isn't an easy task. sometimes, after trained the maid liao and she forgot then repeated the same mistakes. my in laws also changed a few maids liao and eventually the last one was the best but too bad she resigned due to her family affairs.

[chew@PPLe 0]

Probably getting a part time now will help, at least with the housework, if not the baby. I guess your wife's work has to take second place for the time being.

[korea 0]

Probably getting a part time now will help, at least with the housework, if not the baby. I guess your wife's work has to take second place for the time being.

we ever done some research and realised that part time maids are more expensive b'cos usually are local people.

[lovenest 0]

sigh...i know if i go back to work i need a maid to look after kid and to do housework. now im handling everything cos not working n trust me it can be such a headache and exhauting mainly becos my toddler needs attention and hates it when i do housework. so from the moment i get up in the morning until i sleep at night it is non-stop work work work. to be fair, i do get the one or 2 hr or TV when he naps. but otherwise, im always on the go.

i donno if i go to work hubby can get used to it or not...now he gets homecooked lunch and dinner....everything is done for him...he only need to go to work.( which is very tiring for him too).

so now our duties r very clearly defined...but sometimes i miss doing the mental work when u work outside.but thinking about having a maid around, whether i can trust or not, etc etc keeps putting me back.

sorry for rambling.

[waileong 0]

There's no way to "cope". It's just a question of what you want to give up. I don't think $$$ is the problem for you. So if you want more time for yourself, you have to get a maid or equivalent.

[gendon 0]

sigh...i know if i go back to work i need a maid to look after kid and to do housework. now im handling everything cos not working n trust me it can be such a headache and exhauting mainly becos my toddler needs attention and hates it when i do housework. so from the moment i get up in the morning until i sleep at night it is non-stop work work work. to be fair, i do get the one or 2 hr or TV when he naps. but otherwise, im always on the go.

i donno if i go to work hubby can get used to it or not...now he gets homecooked lunch and dinner....everything is done for him...he only need to go to work.( which is very tiring for him too).

so now our duties r very clearly defined...but sometimes i miss doing the mental work when u work outside.but thinking about having a maid around, whether i can trust or not, etc etc keeps putting me back.

sorry for rambling.

I know what u mean, I'm a SAHM too, aka Domestic Overall Commander

It's gd to have "sanity breaks" and "lazy days" once every now and then (at least 1-2 hrs on your own, out of the house, having time to your self) and like what waileong mentioned, it's a matter of what you're willing to give up. Since your child is still a toddler, I know it's very tiring and frustrating. But soon when he's in school-going age, u'll get more time in your hands.

Edited July 28, 2007 by gendon

[meridan 0]

All the while, even before our girl arrived, we do our own housekeeping. Weekday (6 days) normally we are too tired to do anything in the house after work. We dine in my mum's place or eat out daily. As for weekend, we will do the household chores and laundary, ironing....etc

During confinement, we did engage a confinement lady for a month and a part time housekeeper for the subsequent 6 months after my confinment lady left. This is just to make sure I can have more time taking care of my girl. It has been more than 1 1/2 years that we do without a part time housekeeper. I take care of my girl during weekday and my mum will help during the weekends while I do part time job.