How will be life in melbourne with under 1 year old kid

[Pratap]

Hello friends,
I have applied for child visa for my kid but now me and my wife are planning to apply for a tourist visa for my kid. My wife already have PR. We have been discussing how situations will be once we come there. And after all that, we are confused. We need suggestion\advice from experts or from someone who already experienced it.

My son is now 4 months old and we are planning to travel somewhere in december\january (by that time my baby will turn 9-10 months). My wife may not work till our kid turns 1 year. After that we are planning for a daycare.

Which daycare will be good and affordable (our budget 2000/month)? Is the daycare good enough to handle annoying kids :)? Which suburb is suitable to settle (considering the nearby vegetable market, grocery stores, good public school, etc)?

Thanks in advance,
Pratap

[Quoll]

Don't bring your child on a tourist visa, wait for the child visa. If he's there as a tourist he could have  trouble with medical care especially if his child visa takes a while. 

Where will you be working? That usually has more influence on where you choose to live. Is your $2kpm budget just for childcare? That'd be budget rates - for little kids you're looking at $120-150 per day. But if your child has a PR visa you could be eligible for some child care benefits. There are loads of good child care centres, you'd need to be more specific about the area you might want to live in  - Melbourne is a huge place. However, good child care centres often have very long waiting lists. Most of them are pretty good at dealing with a wide range of kids - if you're worried that your child may be annoying I'm  sure they will talk to you about how you and they should manage that.

[excitedbutterrified]

We used long daycare (7AM to 6PM) up until January 2018 as both parents were working, so a little out of date, but we were out in the suburbs, in a place called Glen Waverley / Wheelers Hill.  Here we payed $109 per day, per kid - and with 2 in full time, we payed over $1000 per week, ouch. 

Shopping around, some childcare places were slightly cheaper, some (much) more expensive, but we found one we really liked and suck with it for 3 years. Also bear in mind if you are on a PR visa and working (plus some other conditions), you can claim child care subsidy, we didn't qualify as we were only temporary residents, but this can provide a huge discount so your budget may be better than you think. Don't worry about your child being "annoying", I'm sure they only annoy you!

Melbourne is great for families with little kids, loads to do, play areas everywhere, very child friendly. We found a good community of other families with similar aged kids, and were never bored. My wife joined some mum and baby groups and once our eldest was old enough, she joined an aussie rules club (auskick) which was fantastic.

On suburbs, normal rules apply, the closer to the city centre you live, the higher rent you will pay, and for less space. As you move out, housing gets more spaced out, but there is less to do. You have to find your balance. You can get away without owning a car if you are very central, but out of the centre, a car is essential. We had a big 4 bed house with a swimming pool and paid $600 per week rent.

Glen Waverley is quite far from the city, being 40 /45 minutes by train, but (like most melbourne suburbs) is quite vibrant with nice restaurants / cafes -  much quieter than central suburbs but still great. We lived there because we fell in love with the park (Jells Park) and the density of housing is quite a bit lower than the more central suburbs. Its a very "Asian" suburb, which suited us fine, but some people can find that jarring if they have lived all their lives in a majority white environment (We loved living in a multicultural place where our kids mixed with kids of all different colours, and you get the advantage of amazing Asian restaurants etc... but our parents found it uncomfortable to be in a minority for once - maybe its a generational thing?)

We always hankered to live closer to a beach, as during the summer months we would be at the coast most weekends, but that also comes at a premium price, depends on personal preference.

For groceries, everywhere will be well covered by the supermarkets, (coles, woolworths, aldi) but also look for independent Asian supermarkets for fresh fruit /veg which are much cheaper , and seem to be everywhere too. A trip to Queen Victoria markets in the city was like a day out, and you could buy pretty much any food item you can imagine!

Anything else you want to know about living in Melbourne with kids, please ask.

[starlight7]

I'd say look East/South East rather than West with Melbourne. The whole place is very child friendly, childcare centres just about everywhere and new ones opening all the time. You need to go and check them for yourself to see which one suits.  Go unexpectedly and you will get a true picture though these days they are pretty well regulated and you shouldn't hit any problems. As Quoll says, Melbourne is huge and it takes literally hours to travel from one side to the other so you should get some idea of where you want to be beforehand ideally.

[Pratap]

On 05/08/2019 at 05:24, Quoll said:

Don't bring your child on a tourist visa, wait for the child visa. If he's there as a tourist he could have  trouble with medical care especially if his child visa takes a while. 

Where will you be working? That usually has more influence on where you choose to live. Is your $2kpm budget just for childcare? That'd be budget rates - for little kids you're looking at $120-150 per day. But if your child has a PR visa you could be eligible for some child care benefits. There are loads of good child care centres, you'd need to be more specific about the area you might want to live in  - Melbourne is a huge place. However, good child care centres often have very long waiting lists. Most of them are pretty good at dealing with a wide range of kids - if you're worried that your child may be annoying I'm  sure they will talk to you about how you and they should manage that.

 

6 hours ago, excitedbutterrified said:

We used long daycare (7AM to 6PM) up until January 2018 as both parents were working, so a little out of date, but we were out in the suburbs, in a place called Glen Waverley / Wheelers Hill.  Here we payed $109 per day, per kid - and with 2 in full time, we payed over $1000 per week, ouch. 

Shopping around, some childcare places were slightly cheaper, some (much) more expensive, but we found one we really liked and suck with it for 3 years. Also bear in mind if you are on a PR visa and working (plus some other conditions), you can claim child care subsidy, we didn't qualify as we were only temporary residents, but this can provide a huge discount so your budget may be better than you think. Don't worry about your child being "annoying", I'm sure they only annoy you!

Melbourne is great for families with little kids, loads to do, play areas everywhere, very child friendly. We found a good community of other families with similar aged kids, and were never bored. My wife joined some mum and baby groups and once our eldest was old enough, she joined an aussie rules club (auskick) which was fantastic.

On suburbs, normal rules apply, the closer to the city centre you live, the higher rent you will pay, and for less space. As you move out, housing gets more spaced out, but there is less to do. You have to find your balance. You can get away without owning a car if you are very central, but out of the centre, a car is essential. We had a big 4 bed house with a swimming pool and paid $600 per week rent.

Glen Waverley is quite far from the city, being 40 /45 minutes by train, but (like most melbourne suburbs) is quite vibrant with nice restaurants / cafes -  much quieter than central suburbs but still great. We lived there because we fell in love with the park (Jells Park) and the density of housing is quite a bit lower than the more central suburbs. Its a very "Asian" suburb, which suited us fine, but some people can find that jarring if they have lived all their lives in a majority white environment (We loved living in a multicultural place where our kids mixed with kids of all different colours, and you get the advantage of amazing Asian restaurants etc... but our parents found it uncomfortable to be in a minority for once - maybe its a generational thing?)

We always hankered to live closer to a beach, as during the summer months we would be at the coast most weekends, but that also comes at a premium price, depends on personal preference.

For groceries, everywhere will be well covered by the supermarkets, (coles, woolworths, aldi) but also look for independent Asian supermarkets for fresh fruit /veg which are much cheaper , and seem to be everywhere too. A trip to Queen Victoria markets in the city was like a day out, and you could buy pretty much any food item you can imagine!

Anything else you want to know about living in Melbourne with kids, please ask.

WOW! Thank you for providing detailed information.

[Pratap]

5 hours ago, starlight7 said:

I'd say look East/South East rather than West with Melbourne. The whole place is very child friendly, childcare centres just about everywhere and new ones opening all the time. You need to go and check them for yourself to see which one suits.  Go unexpectedly and you will get a true picture though these days they are pretty well regulated and you shouldn't hit any problems. As Quoll says, Melbourne is huge and it takes literally hours to travel from one side to the other so you should get some idea of where you want to be beforehand ideally.

Hey, thanks for your reply. Yeah i you are right i will need to visit the places myself and experience it for once.