Singapore Expats

Hi all,

This is my first post here, so please forgive me if it's in the wrong place

My family and I are due to move over to Singapore next month from Australia and I'm after some childcare advice for my 2.5 year old. Here in Australia I had been lucky enough to negotiate a 4 day work week with my employer - working 2 days a week from home, so my daughter is currently attending daycare the other 2 days. However, both my husband and I will be working full time in Singapore, so will need to organise childcare for our little one.

I like the idea of daycare as I think it is a great learning and social environment for kids and my daughter currently loves it. I have also heard that in Singapore, many people employ nannies who can look after the kids during the day. I am not entirely comfortable with that idea though as I don't trust just anyone to watch my child. However, I would not like her to attend daycare for 5 full days. I think that would be too much for her. Would it be crazy for me to think about hiring a nanny for a couple of days a week, and enrolling her in daycare for the remaining, so she gets the best of both worlds? I'm hoping I can work from home one day a week, but will have to check that with my employer, so ideally she would only need care 4 days a week.

Additionally are daycare centres pretty easy to get in? Are there often long waiting lists? Does anybody have any advice or experience using any either a nanny or a daycare centre? Sorry for the long post, but any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!

I am not sure about how easy it would be to get into full-day day care but an additional option for you would be to hire a maid and enroll your child in a playgroup which runs for about 2-3 hours a day. Playgroups schedules follow regular school schedules.

Are both parents going to be working? If so I recommend a live in maid. It's the only economic solution. You can add on playgroups and casual day care and early learning but you need the maid for pick up /drop off etc.

I hired a maid when I started work again. It is not easy for the kid.My son was stubborn and doesn`t want to follow the maid`s recomendations but eventually, he adapt. So don`t worry too much, children are tougher than they look.

sundaymorningstaple wrote:Was that in Bulgaria where all of your posts are coming from? - Moderator

Op, soorry, I always forget to turn off the VPN

Sia White wrote:

sundaymorningstaple wrote:Was that in Bulgaria where all of your posts are coming from? - Moderator

Op, soorry, I always forget to turn off the VPN

VPN ? Scared of Singapore internet monitors ?

Oh ho...

Hello.. For some preschool or daycare, it may take up to 1 year to register to be in the waiting list. For my child, we are pretty blessed. We managed to find one near our home and it still has some vacancies just before year starts. You can try little footprints.