Basic Essentials to Prepare before Baby is Born

By MinimalistMum | October 31, 2019 |

There seems to just be so many things you need to prepare for your new baby’s birth. Every time you step into any store that sells baby items, everything seems essential, yet foreign. How do you know what you really need? To me, clothes are the last thing you should buy before baby is born,…

How to Establish a Routine Once You Get Home from Hospital with a Newborn

By MinimalistMum | July 28, 2021 |

Since I’ve started Baby Planner SG, I’ve been journeying with many new parents through offering Private Prenatal Classes. The classes have helped these new parents grow with their confidence of getting ready for their newborn to join the family, especially by ensuring they know exactly which areas of their house to do which activities with…

Swaddling My Baby to Sleep (or not?) – A Complete Guide

By MinimalistMum | August 3, 2026 |

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…

Postpartum Doula vs. Birth Doula vs. Confinement Nanny — What’s the Difference?

By MinimalistMum | August 2, 2026 |

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.…

A First Visit From Your Postpartum Doula: What To Expect

By MinimalistMum | August 2, 2026 |

“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…

How to Avoid Nipple Confusion

By MinimalistMum | August 2, 2026 |

“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,…

How to Choose a Baby Sleep Consultant (Beyond the Cookie-Cutter Advice)

By MinimalistMum | July 28, 2026 |

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…

Breastfeeding Approaches and Goals, Explained

By MinimalistMum | July 21, 2026 |

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…

What a Confinement Nanny Can (and Can’t) Help With for Breastfeeding

By MinimalistMum | July 20, 2026 |

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…

Postpartum Care Options in Singapore

By MinimalistMum | July 20, 2026 |

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,…

Private vs. Group Antenatal Class in Singapore

By MinimalistMum | July 17, 2026 |

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…

Sleep Training Methods

By MinimalistMum | April 28, 2023 |

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…