Finance Smiths

The 1st payment of the Baby Bonus Cash Gift of $3,000 has been credited into my wife’s DBS Multiplier Account today. The next thing we did in the same day is to transfer this $3,000 into her POSB Smiley CDA. Now we wait for the Government’s matching contribution of $3,000. We are also waiting for the CDA First Step Grant of $3,000 by the Government to be credited.

We finally solved the problem of my wife having to wake up a few times overnight to breastfeed the baby. The solution is the Haakaa Silicone Manual Breast Pump. While my wife is breastfeeding the baby on one side in the day, the Haakaa is attached to the other side to keep the breastmilk that leaks out. It is then stored in a milk bottle in the fridge.

As this happens more times in the day, my wife builds up a supply of breastmilk that is stored in the fridge. At night, the confinement nanny wakes up to feed the baby using a syringe each time, while my wife gets a good night’s sleep.

It took us 2 weeks since the baby was born to get to this point. Because my wife needed these 2 important things to happen for the solution to work. First, the breastmilk supply must increase over time for her to have a sufficient supply to store the excess in the fridge. Second, the baby must learn how to feed from a syringe.

Once we problem-solved the baby’s overnight feeding, both of us can sleep through the night. My wife has more energy during the day at home while I can better focus at work in the office. Which translates into a more enjoyable experience with the baby when we have time for him since we are better rested.

On a side note, I was with my wife last night as she removed her C-section wound medical tape and dressing. Followed by her applying the medication on the incision to facilitate the healing and reduce scarring. The last thing would be me assisting her with placing the abdominal binder back on, which will happen every night for about 6 weeks until she is fully recovered. It’s a long road ahead to recovery and we just have to keep going day by day.

This is one of the most interesting questions I have been asking my wife since we found out she was pregnant earlier in the year. Back then, her answer was that she would like to continue working after having the baby. We set out a roadmap for my wife to stablise her team as the manager with sufficient coverage after she leaves for maternity leave.

One of our concerns was pregnancy discrimination but this didn’t prove to be an issue. Largely because my wife has been working at the same bank for a number of years and has built up professional & social relationships to address this. Plus it helps to be the manager so she has some level of control over her workflow and what happens to her.

A benefit of being pregnant when you are older is that you are more likely to be higher up the corporate food chain. If you are too junior in rank when pregnant, you have no control over your workflow and are at the mercy of your manager. Anything can happen to you.

Even though my wife started her maternity leave a month earlier due to the premature birth of the baby, she only just managed to get the coverage into place. It’s not ideal but should work for the next 5 months until she goes back to the office next year in Apr 2020.

Which brings me to the other thing. I asked her the same question and wanted to know whether her answer has changed now that she’s had the baby & started caring for him. Her response was that she can better understand the struggle working mums go through now.

On one hand, you want to achieve something for yourself that is not tied to your husband, child, family, etc. It’s your own thing at work and you get your alone time to interact with colleagues & friends. On the other hand, you want to be there to care for your baby, be present for all the milestones as he grows, etc.

The key to addressing this fundamental issue seems to be how well you balance between these priorities than can often be at conflict with each other. And my wife wants to give it a try to see whether she can do it. So it still looks like the working mum route for now.

The present concern we have to address is maternity discrimination. What happens to my wife’s job now that she is on maternity leave? She decided to take the 4 months of maternity leave and additional 1 month of annual leave i.e. she will be away from the office for 5 months.

In this day and age, that’s a lot of time for many things to happen. We know there might be a restructure with job cuts at the start of the new year 2020. Again, it’s important to keep your ears close to the ground to try and get ahead of such announcements so you can start planning first.

We are taking a risk for my wife to take that extra month off to be with the baby and weighed it against our assessment that she is not one of the targets of the retrenchment. The bigger risk is actually whether the job scope will change drastically as part of the restructure by the time she returns to the office.

Not being there to manage this change process is the main problem. Nothing my wife can do except keep in contact with her colleagues and monitor her work emails. By having a confinement nanny every month until the helper comes in and with her parents helping out a lot, it gives her time to look into this.

The next concern we will have to address is working mum discrimination. This comes down to my wife’s ability to transition back into working life while still having to care for a baby. And the subsequent impact on her career prospects.

As I write this, it has become evidently clear what my role is as all these events unfold. It’s not enough for me just to be present to help out with taking care of the baby and handling household chores. As my wife’s focus starts shifting more to caring for the baby, my responsibility now also includes helping her to strategise the steps she can take in her job to protect her career.

Because while my wife’s scope of responsibilities has expanded exponentially, mine has only been a step up so far, and not a steep one. The logic is simple. When your wife is the one doing breastfeeding for the baby, you as the husband aren’t actually doing much more other than ensuring everything around the house is taken care of. And when you have a confinement nanny/helper, how much more are you actually doing and how would you add value?

That’s what I keep asking myself. And my answer is simple. I can think, strategise and help to put in place the steps necessary to facilitate my wife’s maternity leave and her eventual return to work. This can involve all kinds of things. The most important being to encourage her not to switch off from work totally and keep herself in the loop on critical matters in the office.

Lastly, my focus in my job at the office has also become clearer. I have to be more efficient and effective at doing my job so I can still push for a promotion and pay rise while leaving work on time to be with my wife and baby. It takes practice to achieve this but it helps to have a clear objective.