Baby K goes to school!

Obviously it's not quite time yet, but I spent part of last week touring nursery schools around Basel. BK and I have talked quite a bit about the fact that we want her to go to some sort of nursery school pretty early on. We're big believers in the benefits of socialization for her, but outside of that, BK mentioned early on that he assumed I would want some adult time during the week as well. I'm glad we were on the same page on that one! She'll only go two days a week, but I still think it will be really good for her (and me).

Last week I visited four different nursery schools. They are all relatively close to our apartment, with the furthest one away being about a 12-minute bus ride to the main train station- not too bad. The most convenient one is just outside of BK's work campus, pretty much right behind his building. I thought this one would be good so that dad and Baby K could have some time together in the mornings for drop off…unfortunately I wasn't a big fan of the place. My favorite one is right down the street from BK's campus though, so that will still work well for us.

Overall I was very impressed with most of the schools. Day cares/nursery schools in Switzerland all seem to be highly regulated and are overseen by the Department of Education, regardless of what, if any, subsidies they receive. BK's company does run five different day cares for their employees, but both parents have to be working to qualify to use those, so it's not an option for us.

Here are some of the things I learned and observed while visiting:

• The monthly cost is about double what it costs in the US;
• Most are open from 7:30am to 6:30pm;
• All of the nurseries I looked at were German/English bilingual;
• Staff to child ratio is about one to four;
• Typically there is a two week acclimation period for Baby K to get used to the place, meaning that myself or BK would go with her for increasing periods of time, then start to leave her for longer periods of time so that the transition into school is easier on everyone;
• All of the schools provide all diapers, wipes, toiletries, and any food outside of formula and/or breast milk;
• Most have a cook on site to prepare all of the meals with fresh food;
• All schools follow the baby's schedule, so you can dictate how you want their day to go;
• All schools take the children (even babies) outside every day, regardless of weather- all of them said that they believe it helps the children sleep better, play better, pretty much function better if they can spend some unstructured time outside each day.

It was all pretty interesting, and I would be happy with almost any of them. I may look more this week to see if there are any others I should look at. For example, there's one that's just at the end of our block, but I'm not sure if they speak English or not, so I don't know if it's an option. She won't go to school until September or the beginning of October, when she'll be nearly six months old, but we need to apply and let schools know that we want a place relatively soon.

As a side note, I know I've been posting a lot about Baby K, but we're quickly approaching her arrival date and finishing up some of the things that need to be done before she gets here. We're contemplating one last weekend away before she gets here, but we'll have to ask the doctor when we go on Wednesday to see what she thinks.

Happy Monday to all!