private daycare in Helsinki area

Hopeapaju · Post by **Hopeapaju** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 11:14 am

Hi there!

I have searched a bit in the forum and it seems there is no such information. Hope that I did not miss out anything.

Our son is 2-year old. For the past year he has been staying in a private family daycare in Helsinki. That was a normal family daycare as such that he is there from 9am till 4.30pm.
But now the lady is pregnant and so we need to find a new place.
We work inside Helsinki but we live outside. So, for daycare we cannot use the public ones.

We have been asking around and most places only take children from age 3 onwards. Seems it is not easy at all to find one

Anyone knows any private daycare or family daycare? It can well be Finnish or English. We even considered putting him into the French one but then again they only take children in from age 3.

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Amandine.K · Post by **Amandine.K** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 2:44 pm

I looked into private day-care for my son a few weeks ago. All the English-speaking ones won't take below age 3. ICEC can take young ones in Niityykumpu (Espoo) though.

For the French one, le club des 5 in Helsinki centre takes from 1 yr but the owner told me they are full right now.

Finnish ones seem to have a waiting list of over 2 years to get in. I don't know about the private family care though. Good luck! And if you do find something please let me know, we're still looking. We had a place offered in the public but it is very far away for us

Mook · Post by **Mook** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 2:53 pm

In theory you _can_ get daycare from a place beside your work rather than home. At least in the daycare we're going to after Summer there are children from outside.

However, everything is so fscked up just now, that getting anything is hard - especially in the center. It's taken us a year of fighting to get a place near us.

Hopeapaju · Post by **Hopeapaju** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 3:10 pm

Yes, it seems it is rather difficult to find a daycare somewhere inside Helsinki center area.
We have been looking for a place for several months now. All the places they are either full or they do not take children under 3.

For the public daycare in Helsinki, it seems there is not that much of a problem getting a place. The only problem is we live in Kirkkonummi, so we cannot really get any public daycare place in Helsinki.

The solution we have right now is, with my wife we work take turns to work short weeks to take care of our son, and keep looking for a suitable daycare.
The children in our previous family daycare have got some solution among themselves, since they all live within Helsinki. They have somehow hired some daycare woman to take care of the children. They work so that they use one child's home as daycare center for a week, and then they move to another child's home. In that way, all the parents' "burden" are shared among themselves.

Mook · Post by **Mook** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 4:03 pm

Hopeapaju wrote: They work so that they use one child's home as daycare center for a week, and then they move to another child's home. In that way, all the parents' "burden" are shared among themselves.

In that way they all get to use the tax allowance for "work done in the home". They also get the allowance for having their children at home rather than in daycare.

Amandine.K · Post by **Amandine.K** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 6:13 pm

Mook wrote: However, everything is so fscked up just now, that getting anything is hard - especially in the center. It's taken us a year of fighting to get a place near us.

Oh no

Here was me hoping they'll get us something near our home soon

It's ridiculous, we went through so many comissions to eventually end up so far away from our home, our daughters' school and our workplaces...

Mook · Post by **Mook** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 8:56 pm

Amandine.K wrote:
Mook wrote: However, everything is so fscked up just now, that getting anything is hard - especially in the center. It's taken us a year of fighting to get a place near us.
Oh no Here was me hoping they'll get us something near our home soon It's ridiculous, we went through so many comissions to eventually end up so far away from our home, our daughters' school and our workplaces...

Well, for last year we were in Eira, but now we have a place in the one down the bottom of Aleksanterinkatu.

My partner and other mothers in the area had letters and interview in the newspapers and eventually they managed to persuade the city to vote to create another daycare here. Incidentally, one problem is that daycare places here are taken by children whose parents work in the city and don't live here (e.g. single parents)

Amandine.K · Post by **Amandine.K** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 11:21 pm

I see. We have the same problem here in Lehtisaari. I actually find it very unfair. We live here, work here too but the daycare we should be depending on can't take us because a lot of families that work in Otaniemi/Tapiola/or at Nokia put their kids here.

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