Do not judge parents who co-sleep with their babies

A few days ago, I saw friends on Facebook and parents on parent group share The Straits Time news article titled "36-day-old infant who dies after sleeping with parents"

Here's the link for those who have not read the news: 

http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/36-day-old-infant-dies-after-co-sleeping-with-parents

I was emotionally strirred by this article. And felt a need to vent it out here

Sad for the parents who have lost their young baby.

Disturbed by how the author of this article wrote .... which may lead to readers thinking that it's the parents' fault. 

Furious when I saw people who made insensitive comments which suggest that the parents were lazy by choosing to co-sleep with their baby. 

In real life, there are many parents who co-sleep with their babies and often, parents made this choice not because they are lazy but rather they genuinely feel that it's better for their baby. I am one of those who co-sleep with my baby after my confinement and I can understand why parents will choose to sleep with their babies. 

👉🏻Co-sleeping is having a baby in the same room which include bed-sharing or putting the baby cot next to the adult bed. 

👉🏻Co-sleeping does not necessarily increase the risk of Sudden Infant Deaths (SIDs). The risk is higher if the parents who co-sleep are heavy sleeper, smoker, consume alcohol/ drug that can cause drowsiness. 

👉🏻There are babies who cry the moment you put them into the cot and will only sleep soundly when their care givers are next to them.

👉🏻There are many reports which support that co-sleeping if done cautiously is beneficial for babies. I do not want to list down the benefits point by point here so you can click onto the link the check.

Here are a few articles including a published research paper:

http://www.parenting.com/article/ask-dr-sears-co-sleeping-a-sids-danger

http://www.naturalchild.org/james_mckenna/cosleeping.pdf

https://www.bellybelly.com.au/baby-sleep/co-sleeping-8-benefits/

👉🏻Yes, it's true that there is risk of suffocation for babies from bed-sharing. However, there is risk in everything we do. Sleeping inside a cot (in a separate room) is not always the safest choice too. There are cases of babies who died while sleeping inside their cot too. We can try to minimise risk but sometimes accident still happens.

👉🏻Every baby is unique and there is no one perfect solution that works for all babies. Some method may work for baby 1 but not on baby 2. I have heard from many parents who told me that before they became parents; they thought they were well-prepared from reading all the guide to parenting 101, but then when it comes to the actual thing, many supposedly proven methods DON'T WORK .. and we can only try whatever we can and learn "on job". Often, we doubt ourselves for every decisions we made... we will not know whether our method works but we hope for the best. Parents will continue to worry till maybe our kids have grown up or till the day we part the world. Or perhaps still worrying when we are up in heaven. 

The parents in the article are probably in grief and will do anything and everything to have their baby back so hope people who made insensitive comments will learn to understand their pain.

Hope to article will help to spread love & knowledge and not hate & doubts. 

- Mommy eve 

Saving Tips: Top 3 Saving / Current Account in Singapore

Do you know that our local banks are only giving us 0.05% p.a. interest on the money we deposit in their saving accounts? 

On the other hand, MAS expects average inflation in Singapore to be between 2.5% - 3.0 % in 2013 and 2.0% - 3.0% in 2014 (reference from FocusEconomics)

In the current market where property and stocks are not performing well, people may park most of their cash in banks. Thus consumers should aim to get the best deals with higher return interest on those hard earn money we saved. 

I personally recommend the following higher interest saving/current/fixed deposit accounts: 

1. CIMB Star Saver (saving) account

Interest: 0.8%
Minimum average balance: $1,000

How to enjoy 0.8% interest? 

To enjoy 0.8% p.a. on the entire account balance, simply top up the month-end balance of your CIMB StarSaver (Savings) by: 

• Maintaining an increasing balance with monthly deposits of a minimum amount $100; OR
• Placing periodic lump sum deposits that will automatically convert by CIMB Bank into equal portions for your account.

Which mean we may place $ 10,000 and enjoy 0.8% p.a. interest for the whole $10,000 for the next few years. 

Even if you are not able to save too much to meet their tabulated increase in account balance, you may still enjoy 0.5% interest which is 10 times more than other normal saving accounts. 

The disadvantage of this account is that there are only 2 CIMB branches (Orchard and Raffles) in Singapore which allow you to withdraw cash. Alternatively, you may perform inter-bank transfer to get the cash out of the bank. 

This disadvantage can be beneficial to those who wants to save and prevent themselves from easy access to the cash. 

When I recommended this account to my friends, most of them asked "Is it safe? What if the bank closed down (which is highly unlikely)?" 
This account is under Deposit Insurance Scheme which insured up to $50,000 in aggregate per Scheme member by Singapore law. Therefore, if you are saving less than $50,000, you are basically well protected. 

To read more about the fall below fee and other terms and condition, you may visit the website: CLICK HERE

2. Standard Chartered Bonus$aver Current Account 

Interest: 1.88%
Minimum Average Balance: $3,000

How to enjoy 1.88% p.a. interest? 

To enjoy 1.88% p.a. on your savings up to a $25,000 balance, simply spend $500 on the bonus$aver credit/debit card each month based on transactions posting date(s).

Do note that there is a annual credit/debit card annual fee which is waived for 2 years only.

The disadvantage is that you will have to make sure that you spend $500 on card each month. However, I believe that in our current society where living expenses are high, it is not too difficult to clock the $500 per month. 
If you are not a big spender, you can choose to offer to pay first on your credit card whenever you dine out with your friends and get them to pay you by cash. This will help you to clock your $500 per month. 

To read more about the fall below fee and other terms and condition, you may visit the website: CLICK HERE

3. OCBC High-Interest Deposit Account (Bonus+)

Effective Interest: 0.69% p.a.
Minimum initial deposit: $10,000

This saving account is a little more complicated than the previous 2 accounts. 
To enjoy 0.45% p.a. interest, there should be no withdrawal in the 1st month and 2nd month. On the 3rd month, if there is no withdrawal, there will be interest of 1.18% p.a. on the quarter month. The resulted effective interest p.a. if there no withdrawal made is 0.69% p.a. 

Complicated? You may take a look at the following illustration taken from their website. 

To read more about the fall below fee and other terms and condition, you may visit the website: CLICK HERE

4. Fixed Deposit (FD)

Fixed Deposit is another safe avenue to park your spare cash with some returns.

If you are able to set aside cash for 12 months, you can place your money in FD that gives good interest return.

On and off, you may also find promotional Fixed Deposit accounts that give interest of more than 1% . 

Currently, there are a few FDs that give quite good interest:

UOB

CIMB
Promotional 1.1% interest FD for 12 months tenor

Save smart for rainy days!

With love,  

Evelyn 

What is Do Not Call Registry?

Have you ever received unimportant calls from marketing sales agents which disrupted your meeting/work?

Or

Have you experienced receiving multiple advertisement SMS from unknown numbers?

Annoyed?

Frustrated?

Want to stop this? 

Your Savior is here!!

Do Not Call (DNC) Registry

It is an initiative run by Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) - a government statutory body established to administer and enforce the Personal Data Protection Act 2012 (PDPA).

So if you will like to stop receiving unsolicited telemarketing messages, you may register your telephone numbers with DNC Registry!

You can customize the types of marketing channel you will not like to received. There are in general 3 types:

1) No Voice Call Register
2) No Text Messages Register
3) No Fax Messager Register

And you may choose to reject all 3 sources of marketing information or only restrict the sales marketing from calling you or only restrict them from SMS-ing you, which ever combination you like.

However, there are some things which are classified as non-marketing messages and is not protected under DNC registry

1) Service call (e.g. reminder for an appointment)
2) Market survey or research 
3) Charitable or religious causes (e.g. donations to a charitable organisation)
4) Business-to-Business (B2B) (e.g. corporate insurance as opposed to personal insurance)
5) Head hunting calls (So you do not need to worry that if you have registered your number under DNC registry, you will not be head hunted!)

So only pure consumer tele-consulting calls/SMS/fax on the number registered under DNC registry will be protected

Till here, you should be wondering.... How Can I register? 
There are 3 ways of registration: online, SMS and phone. 
And it's free to register. 

You may only register from 2nd December 2013 onwards

1) Online @ DNC Registry Website: http://www.dnc.gov.sg/


2) SMS

3) Phone

If you are still not too sure, you can check out the video below:

You may wonder what is the penalty if sales marketing agents still call you after you have registered your number? 

--> You can lodge a complain to PDPC with information of the organization/marketing agents. 
Successful complain will lead to a fine from S$ 1,000 to S$ 10,000 on the organizations which breach the act.

With a such a hefty fine, most organization will probably not take the risk. 

However, organization may still call/ SMS you if you have given them clear consent to do so, and it can be in consent forms or materials which you have agreed.

In the future, we have to read the terms and conditions clearly before we agree on it as it may be conditions that provide them with the consent to market their products to you. 

Important Points for Consumers: 

Consumer may still receive telemarketing calls after registration: 
1) Within 30/60 days* after registration
2) If they have given clear consent to specific organizations (before or after registration) for telemarketing
3) If they receive overseas telemarketing messages for overseas products and services only (the overseas telemarketer cannot have any link to Singapore organizations, else consumer has the rights to charge related company in Singapore)
* 60 days for the period before 2 July 2014 and 30 days for the period on or after 2 July 2014.

Timeline:

1) 2nd Dec 2013: Consumers may register early from this date but the DNC provisions have not taken effect and organizations are not obligated to start checking the DNC Registry yet

2) 2nd Jan 2014: Organizations must check DNC Registry before conducting telemarketing activities and consumers may still receive telemarketing messages for up to 60 days

3) 2nd July 2014: Consumers may still receive telemarketing for up to 30 days 

If you have any enquiries, you may visit their website at: http://www.pdpc.gov.sg/home to know more or

Attend their upcoming consumer Talks

The Personal Data Protection Act and What It Means to You

• Date: 15 January 2014, Wednesday
• Time: 7.00 - 8.30pm
• Venue: Central Public Library
• Fee: Free
• To register visit: http://golibrary.nlb.gov.sg/programmes/business/51530/the personal data protection act and what it means to you.aspx

Knowing Your Choices: Personal Data Protection Act & Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act

• Date: 18 January 2014, Saturday
• Time: 9.30am - 12.00pm
• Venue: NTUC Centre
• Fee: S$5 (exclusive GST)
• To register visit: www.case.org.sg/seminars.html

Hope that this information is useful to you!


Evelyn Cheo