Parenting Tips and Woes From Tay Kewei, Whose Son Momo May Be IG's Cutest, Most Showbiz-Ready Baby

Tay Kewei, 35, established Singaporean singer-songwriter, who’s performed with superstars, held solo concerts and sung at the NDP, walks into the executive suite of Hotel Jen Tanglin with her 22-month old toddler son for our 8days.sg shoot, and it’s immediately clear who the star in this little posse is. “OMG, Momo!!!” squeal at least 50 per cent of the crew in the room, and between the photographers, stylists, hair and make-up people and hotel reps, that’s quite a lot of squealing. And little Shen Momo soaks it all in, unfazed by the attention, completely at ease with his superstar status, like he’s been playing the fame game all his life. Which he has, sort of.

When your mum’s a feted local songbird and your dad’s also a famed singer and winner of a reality singing competition, and both of them are super sociable, active in the local scene and know their way around an Instagram account, you grow up always having a gaggle of doting aunties and uncles around you, and are used to being photographed and video-ed non-stop. Add to that the fact that Momo is super cute, not shy at all and seems to genuinely relish attention and taking photos, and you have a kid who’s destined for the limelight. He’s a favourite with Kewei’s 52.6K IG followers, with his cheeky grin and funny antics, and is so well-loved and popular, he made headlines when he was recently hospitalised for a lower respiratory tract infection.

If Kewei and her hubby Alfred Sim were popular before, Momo made them popular-er, and extended their reach beyond local entertainment, to people who don’t listen to Chinese songs or are familiar with local singers. Kewei is now a bona fide parenting influencer and Momo a bona fide Instagram child star. In case you’re wondering, Momo isn’t his real name — his parents gave him that nickname as sort of an inside joke (“Shen Mo” means “what” in Mandarin, Shen being Alfred’s Chinese surname), and it stuck. And maybe the cute moniker is part of the bright-eyed tyke’s charm.

And right now, at our shoot, he’s being a total charmer, taking selfies with all his fawning fans and talking up a storm (“Oh, Momo fall down”, he says adorably when he takes a little stumble while toddling happily around the suite — he speaks Mandarin, ’cos Kewei talks to him mostly in Mandarin). We’re just amazed he didn’t scream or refuse to smile for the cameras in front of a bunch of complete strangers. In fact, he breaks into wide grins on cue, is friendly and amiable, and nails shot after shot. It all makes us want to ask Kewei, “How did you create such a cute kid? Pray share your tips!” Well, here they are.