Hi everyone,
My wife and I live in Itami city, Hyogo Pref., and recently had a child, we are both foreigners without high levels of Japanese, no relatives here. In case anyone asks, we didn’t plan or want to have a kid yet, just happened that way and due to Covid there was and still is no way to go back to my country, if I wanted to do that. (Spouse visa for my wife takes ~2 years right now)
I’m barely-sub-N3 , wife is N4 level. I am doing the work trying to get childcare sorted for when my wife works once she finds employment. For too many reasons to put here, my wife doesn’t have an employer to back to. She resigned during pregnancy and has not been getting childcare leave pay or anything.
The problem I’m running into is I don’t understand this system and the people at city hall don’t explain it well, particularly the timeline and what options are available.
I have been told I am late in applying, so the earliest I can start the govt-linked childcare or whatever it’s called, is May 2023. That’s insane, as we don’t have a lot of job opportunities here and if she, for example, finds a job that needs her to start from March, we will have a problem.
I called many places about ー時保育 but seems you either can’t apply for a whole month or 2, or they’re all full.
I’ve called about 直接契約 but they’re all full so far OR start in April/May, which won’t help with our march timeline.
Any tips? Has anyone had the insane notion of having a kid here as 2 foreigners and survived? (I am aiming to leave but with the state of the world and getting visas for me and my wife, it’s not a quick process)
I work from home so trying to find something close that I can take our baby to daily while the wife works, but already am looking at a 30min+ commute each way within my city for daycare as all close by places are full or don’t offer temporary care or direct contracts (IE only through city hall)
3 comments
You may also want to try asking in /r/Osaka.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/japanlife) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yes, as you unfortunately discovered, this is something that needs to be planned very far ahead. Everyone does it. There’s not much you can do about it if all the daycares around you are full. We ran into the same problem when we had to move between prefectures and settled with a direct contract daycare with a 30 minutes electric bicycle commute. Did that for about half a year and got into a regular daycare next year through the normal process. You just have to deal with it somehow.
Typical timeline is you start applying and doing the paperwork from October to December, in order to get in next April. Right now is the very end of the application window. Better get on it unless you want to be out of luck for all of next school year as well.
Sounds about right unfortunately. Under 3 is hard, especially if one of you doesn’t have a maternity/paternity leave coming to an end. You get put at the bottom of the list.
If you wait until the year they turn 3 to start yochien it is easier and cheaper. 無償化 starts at that age. But even then if you will have to sign up for プレ保育 classes to get a spot. It starts the year before the start yochien. Usually like once a week for 1 or 2 hours.