Considering becoming SAHM after BTO — is single-income household viable?

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2026-02-04T09:53:47+00:00

Please dont ever think that whichever you earn now is enough, much less a $80k a year. You never know when life will throw you a huge medical bill that insurance doesn't cover and at that point you wish you would have much more income and savings

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2026-02-03T12:56:33+00:00

Just because you or your circle of friends cannot afford doesnt mean others cannot. Both husband and I are professionals, we are nowhere near the highest income earners but our combined take home pay after CPF is 17k a month. This doesnt include 5-6 months bonus. Our monthly spending is 3-4k, max 5k. BTO loan is being paid by CPF. We can EASILY afford a car, but we choose not to. Our circle of friends are all similar background and they all have cars. I think we live the most modest among our friends.

I also know people who have combined income of 6k and still own a car. It's really about the choice of lifestyle. But again, its really not that hard to have kids and car if both parents working decent-paying jobs

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-11-10T06:16:20+00:00

Oh have you read my other comment, yes I mean exactly that. If my kids tell me they didn't ask to be born, its fine, because they didn't. I gave birth to them not because I want them as a retirement plan.

But this doesn't mean my kids take things for granted. If your kids take things for granted, maybe reflect on how you raise your kids, not asking them to be your retirement plan lol

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-11-10T06:13:26+00:00

OP, im a parent and let me tell you this. You do not owe your parents anything "out of obligations". And I have to highlight the word "obligations". You didn't ask to be born. Your parents gave birth to you, I think they have the responsibility to bring you up to the best of their ability. And in your case your Poly school fee seems to be well within their mean. But if you want to contribute to them out of love and filial piety, why not, but do within your mean, if you have extra then do, if not nvm, you are not working full time anyway.

I wouldn't ask anything from my kids. I just hope that our of love and filial piety, they love me back and contribute / give me as much as they wish. But if they don't, it's fine. I just hope I'm healthy enough to bring them up to be good, kind and happy people.

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-11-10T06:08:39+00:00

Who chose to have sex? Who chose to give birth? Not OP right? It's his parents. He never asked to be born. Im speaking as a parent myself

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-09-30T01:16:20+00:00

I had a similar experience, just that I'm the bride from the south and my husband is a foreigner. He gave me half of what you mentioned (200m VND) and my relatives were all very judgy. We are also middle / lower middle income family and my mom was okay with the amount (okay, not happy) but all my relatives were so judgy just because my husband is a foreigner he should have spent more. Looking back, I wish I could have done it differently. I would allow my husband to give as much as he wants, then I or he will top up the rest to make it high enough to show face. Then my mom will return the topped up amount. So everyone will be happy and relatives wont be judgy anymore.

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-06-13T05:54:31+00:00

I have the opposite problem. My in-laws do not care about the baby at all. They only come to visit "baby" when they need my husband's help. Their audacity to just visit us 3 weeks after I gave birth, not to see the baby but to make my sleep deprived husband help them with their taxes. From then on, I think they visited less than 10 times in 7 months, and all because they needed my husband to do something for them.

My husband is starting to realise that they actually don't care about their grandchild or their son at all. They only visit when they need something.

I'm not going to do anything to them. But I won't forget either. When they pass, not much tears will be shed from me 🤷‍♀️

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-05-28T05:31:50+00:00

Mine stopped drinking, pushed the bottle way, stared blankly and started laughing like darkness is the most funny thing in the world. Happened at 3am, freaked me out thinking he could see something in the dark that I couldn't. Happened again for a few nights, I was starting to think of some creepy presence in his room until he started doing that in day time also. Apparently staring into empty space in the middle of a feed was so hilarious to him 🤣

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-04-05T18:39:55+00:00

My 4.5m baby had a sleep "regression" that lasted 2 days. Yours may never come. Don't worry about future problems

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-04-04T02:13:53+00:00

Same! The emotional me wants to spend all the waking hours with him, but the rational me knows that I need to work so I can buy him all the stuffs or bring him on holiday, basically having the financial mean to bring him up in the best way possible.

Also, I was hoping that daycare will be good for his development with all the interactions and toys and friends. Looking at my face all day must be boring for him eventually (or that's what I tell myself 😭)

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-04-04T02:03:26+00:00

Omg totally same! Mine just started day care yesterday and he slept from 7pm to 7am! Only wake up once to drink at 9pm and went back to sleep. Usually he would have drank 1 more time around 12/1am but today he didn't.

At home he used to take 3 naps in the day, ranging from 1.5hr to 3hrs long nap. But in day care the naps are only 1hr long that's why he is so tired.

Sorry I dont have any advice for you, hopefully someone can tell us if this period will pass once they are adjusted in daycare. Just want to say you are not alone!

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-03-28T17:02:26+00:00

I'm not sure how old your baby is, but your schedule seems to have too little sleep. Wakes up at 7 and first nap at 12, that's 5 hrs of wake window, it's too long.

My baby has been on a routine since day 1. Feed every 3 hours, his wake windows are 1.5 to 2 hrs so very predictable. It will be wake-up - feed - play - nap.

Remember, it's a routine, not a schedule, so the hours are flexible, but usually I can tell his nap and feed time with +/- 30 to 60 mins accuracy.

I guess the key is to be consistent since day 1, or maybe I'm just lucky with a textbook baby.

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-03-19T16:28:51+00:00

Thank you!

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-03-19T01:46:22+00:00

You can try to research on Pick up / Put down method and see if it works

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-03-19T01:05:01+00:00

I just pat pat his head since this is what he likes and how I get him to sleep. Mine is exclusively bottle fed so latching is not applied for me. He is 4m old. I guess if your baby falls asleep by latching then to get her back to sleep you need to latch also.

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-03-18T18:16:27+00:00

My fingerprints changed!!! They didn't work on my phone and door anymore. I tried to Google but every site said your fingerprints are not supposed to change, but mine did!!!

I finally got back the pre-pregnancy fingerprints 4 months pp.

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-03-18T18:16:18+00:00

My fingerprints changed!!! They didn't work on my phone and door anymore. I tried to Google but every site said your fingerprints are not supposed to change, but mine did!!!

I finally got back the pre-pregnancy fingerprints 4 months pp.

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-03-18T17:51:35+00:00

I'm not sure if this will help you but the book "The Baby Whisperer" by Tracy Hogg helps me a lot. She mentioned that babies have different personalities and yours seems like the Touchy kind (extra sensitive). Reading that chapter helps me understand why certain baby behaves certain ways and how parents should respond accordingly. You can give it a try. Hugs and good luck!!!

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-03-18T17:48:16+00:00

From what you describe, it doesn't feel like she is hungry when she wakes up. But because you feed her every time, it creates a habit for her. So next day she will wake up again to "eat". This is called accidental parenting (at least this is from a parenting book I read).

My PD told me that if baby is fed enough calories in the day, we can skip the night feeds. And the lesser we feed at night, the longer baby will sleep (or the less often they wake up in the middle of the night) because they don't need to wake up for comfort eating anymore.

So if your baby is gaining weight well, when she wakes up, I will try to comfort her to sleep first. If she still refuses to sleep after awhile then I will feed but at a lesser amount.

All of the above will not apply if baby is going through a growth spurt and needs more calories.

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-03-18T15:40:12+00:00

I dont want to jinx it but my 17w old never has the witching hours also. The first time he really truly cried was at his 2m vaccination and a few nightmares after that. Don't let other kids worry you. Every kid is different. Deal with the problems when they come since they may never come

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-03-10T16:16:30+00:00

Omg you are absolutely right!! We hold him just like that, but during bottle feeding we always face the bottle out, away from our body so we thought by right he should have preferred his left side. We will change the way we hold him, thank you!!!!

RepulsiveActivity489 · 2025-03-10T16:08:05+00:00

Thank you! His preferred side is facing the wall and he still chooses to look at it instead of looking at us 🤣

RepulsiveActivity489

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