Childcare centre hunt

I thought I needn't start googling for "childcare centre in Yishun" until another one year after finding Zhirui's present nanny.

But from the look of it, Zhirui's present nanny will not be able to look after her for long.. For reasons:
1) nanny's grandson will be due in Jul/Aug. Which means there will be no room for Zhirui then.
2) nanny's health has been suffering since she took up the task
3) jx is not very pleased that he has to share his Grandmother with Zhirui..

The above factors are not within our control, so it's better to start planning for Ya tou's child care needs.

There are many things going thru my mind. One is, believing that '三岁定终身', should I take no pay leave and stay home to take care/educate Ya tou till she turns three? But knowing myself is not the type who can face the child whole day alone, this option will be very challenging (or killing). Ok, how about going part-time so that I can have a balance?

When I told MP about staying home to teach Zhirui, she discourages becos she feels that we (stay-home mums) won't be able to teach many things at home as compared to in childcare centres. Example is phonics. Huh?? But is phonics more important than the (emotional) well-being of a child (feeling secured and loved when her mother spends time playing with and teaching her child personally)? Hmm.. this seems to be the mentality of many Singaporean parents. They tend to weigh academic acheivement more than anything.   

Anyway, if we can find a childcare centre which can provide holistic development, we will consider putting Zhirui into it. So the search was on. Contacted a few centres and viewed them with SB. We liked "My little campus" but the principal could only confirm Ya tou's enrolment for playgroup 2011 next week.

Hopefully there will be a place for Ya tou. Otherwise, we would really need to start our own child care centre (which SB has been contemplating!). :)