24-hour day-care center: childcare around the clock?
For parents who also have to work at night, there are 24-hour daycare centers in many cities in Germany, also known as night daycare centers. In these day-care centers, even the youngest can be looked after at other times than in normal day-care centers and can also spend the night there. But not everyone is attracted to it. You can read more about this in our article.
Child care is an issue that every family grapples with. Above all, parents who cannot financially afford to be there for their children full-time and work in shifts because of their job. This applies to single parents as well as couples. In such a case, 24-hour day-care centers can be the solution to reconciling family and work.
It was precisely for this reason that the then Minister for Family Affairs, Manuela Schwesig, decided in 2015 to promote such 24-hour day-care centers. It was foreseeable that this decision would meet with mixed feelings in Germany.
24-hour daycare: how does it work?
Paramedic, nurse, doctor, cook, waiter, conductor, …: The list of jobs that have to be carried out late in the evening or at night is long. It is normal for us to go to a restaurant in the evening, to be able to reach the emergency service at any time and to be able to take the train after midnight. But it is often forgotten that there are also fathers and mothers behind these professions.
Putting your child in a 24-hour day-care center does not mean having your child cared for 24 hours a day. It means that parents have the option of being able to bring their child to the day care center around the clock – even overnight.
The length of the child’s stay is usually around ten hours, which is not unusual even in normal day-care centers. If the children stay overnight, the educators take care of their bedtime rituals: they brush their teeth with the children, read to them in the evening, stay with them until they fall asleep.
Criticism of 24-hour childcare
Nevertheless, many parents and politicians take offense at this concept. Points that are criticized are:
- Children should always sleep at home in their familiar environment, not in “unfamiliar” places.
- 24-hour day care centers make it easier for employers to require their employees to work shifts.
- When it comes to childcare, the focus is no longer on the children, but on the job and working hours.
- The little ones in particular suffer from the back and forth between home and daycare. It is difficult for the child to create fixed and important rituals.
- Children spend more time in day care centers than at home with their families.
Night-care center: A concept that is hardly ever used
It is precisely for these reasons that 24-hour day-care centers are not so well attended. Few parents bring their little ones to daycare overnight or later in the day. When the Ministry for Family Affairs spoke out in favor of night kindergartens and 24-hour day-care centers, many thought that this concept would boom. But the opposite is the case.
After all, in addition to 24-hour day-care centers, there are other ways of combining family and work, even for single parents. In our article “Rights and financial help for single parents” we present all forms of support.
Despite all the criticism, there are parents who are dependent on 24-hour day-care centers for personal and/or professional reasons. For them, such facilities are a relief. In addition, the night-care centers are also very keen that parents give their children to them for a good reason. There should be no misuse of these day-care centers.
Ultimately, it is up to the parents how best to manage childcare. And isn’t it an advantage that in Germany there are several options from which you can choose to reconcile family and career?
