Daycare

[Kyung]

Hey,

For all you new parents out there and all you parents-to-be, start looking for daycare now. You're thinking what? Is she crazy? The baby isn't even born/is only a couple of days old.

Well, welcome to the world of childcare; and it is very competitive and expensive. If you have a family member who is going to take care of your child. Terrific!! That is awesome. You are so lucky!!!

But if not, you're going to have to find childcare. Nanny? Expensive and you want to find a good one. Lots of research involved.

Did you know the wait list for some locations in Irvine, CA can be anywhere from 6 months to two years? When I first moved to Irvine, I really wanted my daughter to get into the Montessori school that's close to my house. Their wait time was two years. So basically, a year before you were pregnant, you had to put yourself on their wait list. I kid you not!!!

Are you going the in-home daycare route? Make sure you check them out thoroughly, licensing, police reports. You never know.

[Michelle]

A waiting list of up to two years!! I thought things were bad here in Ireland where we need to get on the list a year before enrolling in the montessori school to be sure of a place, but with the religious schools, which are government run here, they pretty much have to take all comers in their catchment area, so no sweating over places there. The added bonus to that is that if you have a child already in the school, you automatically jump to the head of the queue; it allocates places based on the fact you already have kids in the school, then to people of the same religious ethos as the school and finally to anyone else who wants a place.

As for childcare, it's pretty expensive here too and many families have two working parents, where one wage is going almost entirely on childcare, that's crazy. But luckily for us we have both sets of grandparents in very close proximity, even great-grandad does the school run on occasions :)