My family is about to move to Switzerland from the US. I would like to continue working, but I heard some quite discouraging "news" about the availability and cost of daycare centers in Switzerland.
I would appreciate if somebody gave me some insight into the issue!! (costs, is it better to hire a nanny or go with a daycare center, etc...).
I plan to live in the Nyon area...also, my son will turn two in June.
thanks a lot!
K.
Some of them have website and pricelist. But generally talking you can end up with 1000-1500 CHF/month for a full day care.
http://www.englishforum.ch/family-ma...nd-zurich.html
The Au Pair/Nanny employment thread (no ads!)
As to your question on whether nanny or daycare is better -- the answer is: it depends. But most often you do not have much choice anyway because there are waiting lists for daycare in the whole Geneva area.
Once again the cost is primarily because of Staff wages which need to be covered by the admission fees. There are STRICT ratio's of staff to children necessary and this is higher for staff to babies.
WARNING: Don't expect to turn up and find an available place. I know in the Zurich regions there can be WAITING LISTS. May not be the case where you are going but best to be safe than sorry.
I think a Nanny would be more expensive (or at least for just one child).
Also check out if anyone knows of someone who looks after peoples children in thier home. A friend uses a service like this where he drops his kids off 2 or 3 days a week and it is cheaper than a commercial day-care service.
www.greataupair.com they allow you to search for aupair on here and vise versa.
I was an aupair for 2 years and loved it!
Initially they were only able to offer odd half days but over the months that increased to them being able to offer full-time.
During that time we also found out about a new daycare starting in Nyon from Sept as an extension to an existing Montessori School. People are aware of the shortage but at the same time talking to the director you get an idea of how hard it is to offer new places due to typical Swiss pressures.
Generally we found precious few places available at short notice in Vaud and overall the prices were about the same.
Both our kids had been in daycare in Canada so we've not had any experience with nannies. For us the chance for more social contact with other kids and the vulnerability of depending on a single person made us opt for daycare again, so we took the hit of a person staying at home until we had a place.
For our 4yr old we found a local school that offered a before and after school care program, which appears to be rare in Vaud. They also offer care during the two hour lunch(!) breaks. Without this we wouldn't both be able to work. We found that Maman du jour's are hard to find especially those willing to drive, which can in turn limit the choice of places to live and schools.
Also the Swiss believe young kids have to be lowered gently into daycare/new schools. So while you pay lots of money expect the daycare to suggest only an hour or two to start with over the first week.
It sounds like you will be coming to the Nyon area so I would suggest phoning ahead and getting your name on the waiting lists asap - even if you later decide to use a nanny.
Very best of luck and feel free to PM me once you are here in Switzerland.