I am new...Questions about nurseries...

[CarrieCDN]

Hello Everyone,
I just wanted to introduce myself. We moved to Dusseldorf this past month and I don't know anyone and am having a bit of a difficult time getting our lives sorted actually.

We have just moved from London where we have been for the past 11years. We still have a house there but will rent it out as of this weekend.

My husband and I both work in banking and we are here as a result of a job he has accepted. I am still working from home and will be flying around Europe and back to the UK in order to maintain my position. A bit tough with a two-year old...

At the moment we are using an 'emergency' nursery in Dusseldorf. We have just found a house in Kaiserwerth and plan to move next week (all our things are in storage at the moment so I'm really looking forward to unpacking).

The big problem is that we have not been able to locate a good nursery (day-care) in Kaiserwerth. Elliot has just turned 2 so he's not yet ready for kindergaarten. Either the nurseries are full or they close at 1:30 which just doesn't work for us.

Can anyone give me some tips etc. on what you have done for childcare? Is it worth advertising for a part-time nanny or babysitter anywhere?

Thanks so much!

Carrie

[Vicitoria]

Hi Carrie!

Welcome to Duesseldorf! We've been here for 5 months now and live in Rath. I'm a member of the American Women's Club in Duesseldorf and there are many, many members in Kaiserswerth. I have an almost 2 year old. Day care is few and far between it seems or I just haven't found the right situation yet. I'm just looking for a few hours a week myself. Let me PM you with a lot more info and telephone number and email. Victoria :-)

[behr]

Hi Carrie,
daycare is just not something that is done in Germany yet, especially not on short notice. People who need full-time care usually go for a Tagesmutter. Those are private moms who take in a few kids at a time. They might have a group with adresses locally. Try asking the Jugendamt, a Mother's center or look for ads in the local papers in the childcare section.
Good luck!!

[SwissMama]

We did daycare in Germany, and it wasnt a good experience for us. The conditions at our daycare were inadequate for a baby, but maybe for a toddler it would be ok.

First, we contacted the Kinderampt (I have no idea if thats the proper name), who gave us the complete list of day cares. Second, we contacted our daycare (close to my office) and just by luck, we got in (they had a waiting list but accept 3 out of town children, and one had just left).

We started day care in October. Long story short, my child became sick. And sicker. And sicker. She was in the hospital 2x (Once for 3 days, and once for 5 days). Every illness was a daycare virus (the standard ones, rotavirus, etc) but the second time she was in the hospital was with severe pneumonia, which the doctors said was a very odd combination of viruses attacking her at the same time (Rotavirus, Adenovirus, etc). Stupid me, after a month or so, I brough her back to daycare, thinking that the virus season was over. And of course, she got sick. Again. We pulled her out for good in February.

I did *like* the daycare. I felt the daycare workers were trained enough, but somehow keeping the daycare clean and keeping the children occupied was a big challenge for them, let alone adding a baby to the mix (i.e. no seperate rooms for napping, etc). My child constantly came home with full untouched bottles of breast milk (wasting my precious liquid gold!), because they kept it out of her reach so the other children couldnt drink it. She came home tired, hungry and sick more days than not.

Conclusion? I have come to the opinion that the situation with being a mom/working/daycare in Germany is in a crisis - I worked at the University where woman could not just take off time if there child was sick, at least not without missing meetings or being left out of projects. Therefore, there is ALOT of pressure on these woman to get to work, regardless if their child was sick or not. Our daycare is not the only one like this, another friends daycare constantly had children in it with eye infections, diarrhea (rotavirus) and even lice. The daycare workers seem to have pressure not to turn away the sick children. Its not a good situation overall.

So....

We contacted the Tagesmutterverein. That is an organisation in Germany tha t liaisons between Tagesmutters and Parents. They have a website (in German). We scheduled a meeting, they interviewed us to find out our needs and then matched us up with the best Tagesmutter we could have hoped for. Now that we have her, I keep thinking back to that daycare, which i THOUGHT was normal and cringing at my own resistance to pull her out of it. I still feel badly about it.