CHILD CARE

I've been asked about child care. If you are a single parent in need of child care here while TDY, unless your child is on your orders, and is command sponsored (like PCS), then (it's my understanding) they don't qualify for Military Child Care. DON'T TAKE MY WORD as ABSOLUTE TRUTH if you've been told otherwise. I asked Hourly Child Care and Home Child Care people on base, and they said TDY is not covered.

The Hourly CDC on base is wonderful. Highly trained, and wonderful people work there. I left my child there while we were in PCS transition, and when I had a doctors appointment, or just needed a break. Current immunizations and a mandatory training session for the parents have to be done before your child can attend, IF you can get a spot (there are specific times to call, two weeks ahead, and you hope you're the first one to ask).

The Main CDC is a wait-list situation, where single parent military come first, then military, then DoD PCS folk, and other civilian contractors... or something like that.

Home Care is regulated, and as part of housing contracts, people on base providing more than 10 hours of child care to anyone, HAVE to go through training and become registered. They can lose their on-base house/apartment if they don't follow this rule.

So, what are your options?

There are Japanese child care places, but I'm not familiar with them. From what I've seen, Japanese are gentle with kids and have more patience than me! Our son has gone 4 months now in an all-Japanese environment, and is picking up a bit of the language. Dame (Daw-may) means 'stop it.' :)

If it were me, I'd advertise for someone off-base who wants to do in-home child care either in the Seahawk, or post a 4X6 card outside the commissary to see if anyone wants to do this. I see a military wife in our neighborhood take care of a little Japanese girl for some extra cash.

Japanese high school kids are pretty focused on their studies and don't really do baby sitting. We are really fortunate to have a few American girls in the neighborhood who will babysit. We also have a network of friends that we trade back and forth with. You can ask around the TDY group and see if anyone wants to baby sit one night, so you can go out.

When we were TDY here, and our son was small, we just took turns going out. Even though the Japanese love kids, and there are booster seats occasionally, our son wasn't a patient type when 2. Come to think of it, he's not a patient type now!