Clueless Moments

Surviving Without a Yaya

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It’s been a while! I’m currently working on a LOOOOONG post about my son’s first birthday suppliers and I’m only halfway through because I’ve been so busy. I know it’s my same excuse every single time, but come on, we’re moms!

My son being adorable.

So anyway, I couldn’t focus much on blogging lately because I have to take care of my son full-time since my yaya (nanny) walked out on me. She was the first yaya I ever hired and honestly, she was good. She was always proactive and she didn’t require as much supervision. What I didn’t like about her was that she had this nasty attitude where she would always make snide comments while she’s next to the person she’s making fun of.

“Naku si Mama mo hindi nanaman daw magkakanin! Haha sige panindigan niya lang yan!”
(Your mom’s not going to eat rice again! Haha she should stick to that!)

I was right next to her when she said that. I was avoiding rice at the time because I was watching my weight as I was starting to gain dramatically. She did this to other people too. It became so annoying but I had to put up with it because I knew how hard it was to come by good help. One weekend I decided to let her take her day off because I needed her to be around the following weekend for my son’s first birthday. She left on a Saturday evening then promised to be back by Monday morning.

Then she pulled off a classic.

She texted me Monday morning claiming she couldn’t return yet because she had to bring her son to the doctor. I had to give her the benefit of the doubt, she used the “my child is sick” card and it would be cruel of me to accuse her of lying. Long story short, she didn’t come back and she spread stories about how I would make her starve and that I was hiding the coffee. Seriously? We always had food in the kitchen and I always bought coffee and left it on the dining room table. Why would I hide the coffee?? It turns out that the real reason why she did not come back was because she was offered a higher pay at another household. I couldn’t compete with that, so we just decided to let her go and look for a new yaya.

It’s been three weeks since and we still haven’t found a new yaya.

My husband and I decided to “wing it” for now until we could find one. It’s been pretty tough because we both work full-time and we both work night shifts – which means we both need to sleep during the day. What’s more is that our son is now more active than ever and he refuses to be left in his crib. He has this urge to always walk and follow us around the house even though he’s not used to being on his feet yet.

So how do we manage surviving without a yaya? We take turns looking after our son. I work from home from 9PM-6AM so right after work I look after him – feed him breakfast, wash and prepare his bottles, give him a bath and cook lunch. He tends to wake up earlier than 6AM so I let him watch some nursery rhyme videos on our iPad while I finish my shift. While I’m on baby duty, my husband sleeps from 6AM when he arrives from work until about noon. After lunch and washing the dishes, we switch and I get to sleep until about 5PM. My husband then starts to prep for work and leaves at around 6PM. I put my son to sleep at around 7:30PM but sometimes he doesn’t fall asleep until 8:30PM. Once he’s asleep I start prepping for work. If he cries in the middle of the night I take a real quick moment to put him back to sleep then get back to work.

Has it been easy? Absolutely not. But these things happen and we need to adjust, even if it makes us twice as tired as before.

I have to say though that being “yaya-less” has given me the chance to bond more with my son. Ever since he turned one, he’s become more affectionate but has also entered the separation anxiety stage. I’m glad that I am able to address his needs at this stage and that I am able to realize his changing needs as well. For example, as I mentioned earlier my son has this urge to walk all the time. Here in our house there really isn’t enough room for him to do that, so his yaya just lets him stay in the crib which makes him cry and fuss a lot. When the yaya was gone and I took over, I realized that I needed to find a way to let my son practice his motor skills so he can start walking. I started moving furniture around to make enough space for my son to walk around and play. Ever since then we has improved dramatically and he isn’t as fussy as he used to be. He enjoys the freedom to walk and play outside the confines of his small crib.

Do you think my yaya would have done the same thing? I don’t think so. There’s just these things that only us parents can and will do for our children. Now that I have realized this, I’m thinking of not hiring a yaya anymore. I’ve also grown to love the quality time I get to spend with my son. I guess that’s what tops it all off, like the proverbial cherry on a sundae.

Was there a time when you had to manage without a yaya? How did it go?

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Clueless Moments

A Quick Update and A Big Thank You!

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How are you, Clueless Moms?

Cancel my 9 o’clock, Mama. I have to watch Mickey Mouse.

I’m pretty sure you’ve noticed that it has been a while since I last posted, and I have a good reason for that! I’ve started training for my full-time home based job and it is pretty intense. I haven’t slept well in days and I think I’ve gained weight from stress-eating. Haha!

Anyway, I just wanted to drop by to tell you guys that I haven’t given up on this blog and that I do miss sharing stories with you. Also, I wanted to give a quick shout out to the moms who’ve sent me emails recently. I’m glad that my posts have been useful to you in some way, especially the one about my son’s baptism suppliers. I may have failed to respond to some recently because I’ve been very busy, but I’ll get back to you all soon.

Though I am welcome to receiving emails, I also encourage comments so that we can actively have discussions with each other here.

I’ll be back as soon as I pass my training. Please look forward to a few more product reviews and my son’s first trip to the beach!

Catch you later!

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Clueless Moments

My Experience with Disposable and Cloth Diapers

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Every mom has her own take on diapering options. Some manage to make cloth diapers (CD) work, while others choose to stick with the traditional disposable diapers (DD). Here’s my take on the topic.

My son at five months, sporting fish printed cloth diapers


When I was still pregnant with my son, a fellow mommy and I decided that we would try cloth diapers. I’ve read so many topics about cloth diapering, and I was sold by its benefits to my baby, the environment and my pocket. In a nutshell, cloth diapers are re-usable, meaning you will only need to build your stash for a few weeks or months, then you just need to wash them after every use. With disposables, as the term suggests, you need to throw them away after every use and they become part of landfills. It takes less effort though compared to cloth diapers, just dump them and you’re done.

Check out this info graphic for more information:

I did not purchase cloth diapers til my son was four months old. I came across an online shop on Facebook that sells Alva cloth diapers. If I am not mistaken, this seems to be the cheapest cloth diaper option ranging from P200-P250,. The name of the shop is The Little Matter Cloth Diapers and what I like about this shop is that it posts on-hand designs that are ready to be shipped. Most shops I found on Sulit.com sold Alva’s on a pre-order basis.They also sell other cloth diaper brands, inserts and wetbags.

My Alva cloth diaper stash
Micro fiber insert, inclusive with each cloth diaper

The transaction was smooth and fast. I simply followed the instructions here and was sent their bank details. I used my BPI mobile app to transfer the payment and within minutes, my payment was confirmed! Since I placed my order on a Friday past cut-off, I received my order the following Monday. I made sure to wash the diapers before using them.

The following month, my father bought my son some Bamboo Dappy cloth diapers, which were way more expensive, about P700+ a pop!

The Bamboo Dappy stash
Closer look at the Bamboo Dappy inserts

From my experience, Alva cloth diapers are absorbent they don’t feel so wet when they’re soaked. The Bamboo Dappy ones, even though the material is superior and softer, leak easily. When my son sleeps at night I double up on the inserts for extra absorption. When he poops though, it tends to get messy whichever diaper I use. However, since I am pretty much aware of his pooping schedule, I let him wear disposables until he poops, then change him into cloth diapers for the rest of the day.

Eventually, I managed to get the hang of cloth diapering… not my mom though. She struggled a bit with the cloth diapers while I was at work and preferred to use the disposables. I couldn’t blame her though, cloth diapering involves a lot of effort, especially with the cleaning and washing.

In the end, we gradually shifted back again to disposable diapers. My father bought several packs of Pampers (I forgot which variant) so we had to use them in place of our regular brand, EQ Dry. I agree that Pampers are very absorbent, however, they are too absorbent to such a point that no one notices that my son’s diapers are all bulky with pee since he doesn’t fuss too much as he still feels dry. I didn’t like this at all. Once our stock of Pampers ran out, I decided to buy EQ Diapers, which is different from EQ Dry. EQ alone is a lot cheaper, and the fasteners are more secure than the ones from EQ Dry – those rip off easily.

EQ Diapers
My Opinion on DDs and CDs (Sorry it took a while to get to this part!)

I’m quite disappointed that I could not fully commit to CDs. They require attention and more work compared to disposables, which was something I could not find time for given that I was working full-time. Since they are easily soaked, they need to be changed regularly, about every two hours. I chose the easy wrap-and-dump option offered by DDs as it saved me more time and energy. In the long run, I am spending more than I should. Sigh.

I do believe that DDs can come in handy though, like for trips out of town or for days out at the mall. In my case, as mentioned above, while cloth diapering I still used DDs for when my son pooped.

However, now that I am a full-time hands-on mom, I am willing to give CDs another try. I really believe in cloth diapering benefits and I think it’s not too late for me to give up on CDs. I think I’ll start by adding more diapers to my stash so that I won’t need to keep washing them everday – I only have eight CDs in my current stash!

I will most likely blog again about returning to cloth diapering. I know that this post may not be as informative as others, however I just wanted to share my own experience and not overwhelm you with too much information, hence the info graphic.

So mommies, do you prefer CDs over DDs? I’d love to hear your opinion!

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Clueless Moments

A Tough Decision, A Big Change

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I just came back from a 22 kilometer bike ride and I’m exhausted! However, my mind seems to be clear right now so I thought of updating my blog while by son is busy watching his nursery rhymes.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have made a life changing decision that will allow me to spend more time with my son. It was very difficult for me at first, however, after weighing the pros and cons, my husband and I decided that it was the best thing to do – for our family, especially our son.

 I decided to quit my job.


Well, it’s not like I’ll stop working completely. The reason why we came to this decision is because we will be moving to another house, which means I can’t leave my son with my parents anymore. We don’t want to hire a nanny yet, because it’s quite hard to find one we could trust and our son is too young to tell on the nanny, ha!

It was a tough decision to make. Ever since I started working in the BPO industry I wanted nothing than to move up. I always aimed for career growth and promotions. With my latest company, I couldn’t move up since our management did not need another supervisor yet, which was understandable because it’s a small company. But now that we had to make changes to accommodate our growing baby boy, I decided not to wait for that promotion anymore and move on to becoming a full time mom. There were hesitations. What about my career? Are we going to manage with only one person working?

I realized that I could pick up my career again, perhaps when my son is older. Or maybe, I can pursue a different career. But in the meantime, how are we going to manage financially?

I prayed for an answer to this, and God answered my prayers.

I came across a friend on Facebook who posted about working from home. It turns out there is a PH based company that hires virtual assistants for foreign clients to do administrative tasks and calls. Long story short, I inquired, I applied and I got hired.

Everything just fell into place and I now believe that things were meant to be this way. The timing of how everything came to be just seemed right. Everything feels right. And even if things don’t work out, I have faith in my husband, that he would take care of us and find a way to get by. It’s one of his traits that I admire and I feel lucky that he is my son’s father.

It was sad for me though to leave my previous company as I made great friends there and the benefits and pay were good. However, I can’t help but feel excited for this new role of mine. I no longer need to commute four hours daily and I get to hug and kiss my son whenever I want to. I can finally cook for my husband all the time and catch up on our favorite TV series and movies.

All my hesitations are gone and I can’t wait to be a full-time mom, wife and homemaker.

Have you made any tough decisions like mine? Feel free to share your thoughts.

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