Background: My wife and I are both American. I just applied for an opportunity within my firm (Big Law) where I would spend 12-18 months in Tokyo working with one of the largest mega conglomerates in Japan. My wife and I have 3 kids under 3 (a 2-year old and twins).
Living in Japan has been a lifelong dream of ours, so I am doing everything I can to secure this position. My wife has a fully remote job and will be able to keep it when we move. But we have no idea what to do about childcare and resources online seem very sparse.
From what I have read, securing a spot in daycare usually comes with a long wait similar to how it does in the US, and by the time they got off the waitlist, our time in Japan could be at half over or more. Traditional japanese daycare also seems to come with a whole host of social cues and requirements that we’d hate to be a burden on the daycare due to getting wrong/misunderstanding.
We’re assuming we’d look for an au pair or something. Obviously English speaking would be ideal for ease of communication with us, and our oldest barely speaks English and some spanish. We may be working on somewhat short notice, so any advice would be greatly appreciated!
