Posts by MinimalistMum
Swaddling My Baby to Sleep (or not?) – A Complete Guide
Swaddling is one of the most common newborn sleep questions — should you do it, how do you do it properly, and when do you need to stop? Here’s a full breakdown. Why Swaddle in the First Place? A few genuine benefits behind the practice: Helps baby feel snug and secure, similar to the closeness…
Read MorePostpartum Doula vs. Birth Doula vs. Confinement Nanny — What’s the Difference?
In Singapore, “doula” is usually understood to mean a birth doula, while postpartum support is usually associated with a confinement nanny. But the term “postpartum doula” is often unheard of, and gets misunderstood as something similar to a birth doula, or an unfamiliar, slightly confusing third option for some form of confinement nanny. It’s neither.…
Read MoreA First Visit From Your Postpartum Doula: What To Expect
“Postpartum doula support” can sound a little abstract until you know what actually happens during a visit. Here’s a realistic walkthrough of a typical first visit — illustrative rather than any one specific family’s exact session, since every visit flexes around what a family needs that day, but built around the pattern a first visit…
Read MoreHow to Avoid Nipple Confusion
“Nipple confusion” is often the term used to describe a baby having a preference for being fed through a milk the bottle over the breast, or struggling to switch between the two ways to feeding. If you’ve just had a baby and are worried about introducing a bottle out of fear of nipple confusion happening,…
Read MoreHow to Choose a Baby Sleep Consultant (Beyond the Cookie-Cutter Advice)
Search for baby sleep advice in Singapore and you’ll notice the same handful of rules repeated everywhere, stated as if they’re universal law: stuff like blackout the room completely, never use a pacifier or any other “sleep crutch”, get baby into their own room as fast as possible, bedtime by 7pm sharp, the list goes…
Read MoreBreastfeeding Approaches and Goals, Explained
Breastfeeding Isn’t One Decision — It’s a Combination That Shifts Over Time Most breastfeeding advice tends to treat it as a single choice: are you nursing, or are you pumping? And then leaves “what happens”/your output as the result of that. In our view, there are actually two separate dimensions running alongside each other in…
Read MoreWhat a Confinement Nanny Can (and Can’t) Help With for Breastfeeding
The practice of confinement traces back to the traditional practice of “zuo yue zi” (坐月子, “sitting the month”) — a structured postpartum recovery period centered on the mother’s physical healing. A confinement nanny “yue sao” (月嫂) traditionally takes over newborn care, household tasks, and the preparation of warming, nourishing confinement meals, so a new mother’s…
Read MorePostpartum Care Options in Singapore
Once baby arrives, one of the biggest practical decisions a family faces is who helps look after mother and newborn during the postpartum period — and in Singapore, there’s genuinely more than one path. Broadly, families choose between four options: a live-in confinement nanny, help from mum or mum-in-law, a stay-out nanny or postpartum doula,…
Read MorePrivate vs. Group Antenatal Class in Singapore
If you’re pregnant and starting to look into antenatal classes, you’ve probably noticed there are two very different paths: a group class — whether run by a hospital or an independent provider — or a private, one-on-one class at home. Both cover similar ground — labour, breastfeeding, newborn care — but the experience of each…
Read MoreSleep Training Methods
Chances are, when you think of “sleep training”, you think of “cry it out”. Are they the same thing? Not quite. “Cry it out” is another name for Extinction, which is one specific method under “limited caregiver assistance” — one of two broad approaches to baby sleep. This post covers exactly that: limited-assistance approaches, and…
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