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Daycare helps parents, office with absences
Happy face: Toddlers at a daycare center in Bendungan Hilir in Central Jakarta
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Happy face: Toddlers at a daycare center in Bendungan Hilir in Central Jakarta. Daycare centers located near workplaces have seen higher demand for their services during the first week after Idul Fitri holiday. (JP/Indah Setiawati) (JP/Indah Setiawati)
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span class="caption" style="width: 510px;">Happy face: Toddlers at a daycare center in Bendungan Hilir in Central Jakarta. Daycare centers located near workplaces have seen higher demand for their services during the first week after Idul Fitri holiday. (JP/Indah Setiawati)
Thirteen-month-old Justin kissed everybody goodbye as his parents collected him from the Harvest Daycare in Plaza Semanggi mall in Central Jakarta on Friday.
Just like many other kids in daycare, he had a week off for Idul Fitri. Most daycare centers are scheduled to open again on August 12.
'Thank God, daycare will reopen on Aug. 12, which is the same as our office,' Justin's mother, Meyanti J R Hutahuruk, told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.
The employee of a private company on Jl. Sudirman decided to put her son in daycare when he was five month old because she was not sure about employing a nanny.
'His development has improved much faster since being in daycare compared to when my mother looked after him for two months. Besides, he eats much better in the daycare than at home,' Meyanti said.
Looking for a daycare center, she said, was not easy because many affordable daycare centers in ministerial office buildings were usually full.
As much as working parents enjoy the holidays with their little ones, many face the prospect of taking off more days to work around the opening times of their daycare center or the length of holiday taken by nannies or the housemaids.
Amstrong Tahija, a resident of Kelapa Gading in North Jakarta, said when he learned that his son's daycare in Central Jakarta would only open again on Aug. 14, he and his wife decided that they would take turns in taking one-days leave to take care of their son.
Daycares are expecting more enrollments following the end of Idul Fitri.
Della Adelina, a supervisor at Lovely Sunshine Daycare in Bendungan Hilir in Central Jakarta, said she had received bookings from six customers for Aug. 12 to 16, the first week after the end of the Idul Fitri holiday. This would bring the number of children at her daycare to 30.
'According to our experience, many parents rush to daycare during first two weeks after the end of the holiday. Usually their nannies or housemaids have not come back or do not return at all,' she told the Post.
She said that last year, some parents even brought their kids along in a desperate attempt at securing a place for them at daycare.
'At such busy time, we will see whether the kids are manageable. If we think we cannot handle them, we will have to refuse them because we are afraid they will affect the whole environment,' she said.
At the daycare center, one caregiver will be responsible for two babies under 18-months-old, while another will handle three older children.
Della said the demand for in-house daycare from private companies was high this year, but her center had decided to take on only two clients because the other two orders where given at short notice. Her daycare center, she said, would provide a service from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for two private companies on Jl. Sudirman and Jl. M H Thamrin.
'These companies asked their employees to not take leave the week before the Idul Fitri holiday or the two weeks after the holiday is over,' she said.
