Both parents working and 2 v young kids. Mad 2 move 2 Spore?

[Simmy19]

Hi All,

Urgently seeking some advice from what seems like a very informative and switched on forum. We have been offered a move to Spore with my work. Currently we are based in the UK and both me and my husband work. I'm currently on maternity leave and we would move out with an 18 month old and a 4 year old. Both girls would go into school/nursery though I am really unsure as to how we would primarily cover the holidays. I'm thinking we would have a home help who would care for the girls a few hrs a day until we came home from school. Seems this is the norm and while very different from what we are used to (someone living in and the girls not having grp care rather depending on just one person) I think we could probably adjust to this and will likely end up feeling this is a good solution. Would you agree or is it better to have be parent be at home until a relationship and trust is built up with the home helper?

The big question for me is the school holidays. It looks like the are 15 weeks of holidays which after vacation from work leaves about 8-9 to be covered. I am not finding any summer camps that would cater for my children's ages or if I can it's half days for a few weeks. What do people do? Obviously I can try and ship relatives over but not for the whole time and this is not foolproof. Is there a smarter solution that you have all worked OR is the norm more to have one parent at home which is the sense I seem to be getting when I read various frums.

Help please! It's such a big move and we would only be happy and able to enjoy the Spore experience as a family if our girls were happy and well cared for. I can be flexible at work (and work 4 days not 5 anyway) and be home 2 days for school bus collection BUT it's the long holidays that I am concerned about. Any help would be greatly appreciated as this is our stumbling block to making the move!

Thanks a lot. S

[nutnut]

We've been through similar recently. My wife gave up work, and everything works well, until then we had home help and kinderkarten everyday and whilst this was very convenient, we felt that we weren't giving our kids the time and effort we should have been.

It's a tough decision, but, if you can afford to live on 1 wage, then it's the best way. Maids are great, but, generally they don't do things quite like you would! Especially in regards to discipline.

[guyg]

My wife and I are making the move from London to Singapore later this month partly because we are working parents but we only have one 8m old son. Interesting point about school holidays. We have already prearranged a domestic helper but also feel uncomfortable relying on her for childcare so we've booked a place in a childcare centre ( I don't think they close over school holidays) and will be looking to hire a part time nanny when we arrive.
In london we currently split the week between a nanny at home and nursury which works well for us.

[x9200]

Finding a nanny in Singapore is not that easy as it may be expected. To start with be prepared to pay at least twice as much as for a living in maid (assuming full time).

[brian_singapore]

We moved to Singapore (we both work) with a 1 year-old and a 3 year-old. The concept of live-in helpers (and associated costs) are a bit of a foreign concept to most from western countries. But very common in SG.

We hired an FDW to take care of our kids and she's been with us for almost three years now. We are hoping she will still be with us when she retires (at the age of 50) about 8 years from now. My wife took 4 months (deliberately) before looking for work to make sure the 2 kids were settled and FDW was capable. We did luck out and get a very good one.

The (maybe running joke) turning point for most expats is when they hire their first helper and then realize they can never go back to the west. That's pretty much what happened to us.