Jane Hansen The Sunday Telegraph
Image: Help needed: Federal government childcare reforms have hit both cost and available placements. Source: The Daily Telegraph
Two weeks ago Zona Shepherd dropped her bundle.
But it wasn't the bone-sapping exhaustion of breastfeeding her five-month-old, or the accompanying sleep deprivation that felled the first-time mother, it was knowing her maternity leave was up and she had yet to secure suitable child care for baby Brooklyn. The stress tipped her over the edge.
"I was hospitalised for severe sleep deprivation and depression. I couldn't sleep, I was so stressed and stressing myself out worrying who was going to take care of Brooklyn, and how were we going to make ends meet," says the 32-year-old from Rozelle.
An internet web producer by trade, Zona has already postponed her return to work twice and feels the guilt acutely. She also feels like a failure because she didn't put her name down on any childcare waitlists until she had her baby.
"I knew I was in trouble. I didn't put my name down when I was pregnant and some put their name down as soon as they find out they are pregnant. By the time reality set in, I was in my third trimester, and way down the list," she says.
Two suburbs across in Leichhardt, Emma Grogan is in the same position. With her maternity leave up in October, she is no closer to finding a placement for nine-month-old Lilliana despite putting her name on every centre in the surrounding suburbs when she was five months pregnant.
"It's ridiculous, I haven't had anyone say they have a spot, they are all full," the 35-year-old says.
In the latest Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, three out of four parents nominated difficulties in finding childcare as one of the major stressors for family life.
Government initiatives aimed at increasing the fertility rate have worked, with 1.9 births per woman the highest since 1981. But at the same time, federal government childcare reforms increasing staff-to-baby ratios from five children to four have hit both cost and available placements.
Take a snapshot of any high-density city region like Sydney's inner west and the figures speak for themselves. The 5000-plus babies born each year at Royal Prince Alfred mean prams are as prolific as coffee shops, yet the area's 140 childcare centres only offer about 1500 baby spots. It's a big gap and most centres have two-year waitlists.
According to a yet-to-be-published Childcare NSW survey there has been a 20 per cent reduction in available placements for under-two-year-olds in Sydney centres because of the reforms.
"Instead of adopting another carer to meet the ratios, childcare centres have reduced placements," Childcare NSW president Vicki Skoulogenis says.
"If they offered 10 places they now offer eight, if they offered 15, they now offer 12, and so on."
Other providers have put up costs to accommodate the new ratios and they are much more than the 57c a week the government predicted last year.
For Zona, finding an alternative is no longer a choice, but a necessity.
For a month, she has been advertising on Gumtree for a nanny to share with another family and she is not alone: Mary Poppins wanted? heads many a post. Once the preserve of the rich and famous, the idea of a nanny has become more affordable as parents opt to share the costs.
"I can't afford the $24 an hour, but if I share, it will be OK," she says. Emma Grogan is thinking the same way.
Sites like Nanny Sharing Connections, which puts like-minded parents in touch with each other, are booming.
"Nannies cost $24 an hour, and it's $12 an hour with two children," site owner Rebecca Singh says.
According to weneedananny.com agency owner Jason Everest, the costs are now on par with day care.
"In the last year, business is up 50 per cent; now with childcare fees going up, the average family can afford it, especially if you have two to three kids or you share with another family," he said.
The HILDA study shows families using a nanny as a source of child care have more than doubled since 2006. Back then, only 3 per cent of families did, but by 2008, the latest statistics, 7.5 per cent of families did.
Mother-of-two Sally Bamford has been sharing a nanny with friend Lucie Strudwick for the past 18 months. She hasn't even bothered putting seven-month-old Roya on a waitlist because she says it's pointless.
Her son Banjo, 2, only just got a placement at a day-care centre two days a week, but she nanny-shares the other two days a week and the costs are similar.
"We couldn't afford a nanny so we share one. We pay $27 an hour or $120 a day and it works out roughly the same as child care," Sally, 37, says.
Lucie has managed to get Amelia, 2, into day care one day a week. The toddler spends the other two days with Banjo and the nanny and Lucie says the cost is comparable.
"It's about the same, but only because we share," the 40-year-old says.
Experiences in the first five years of a child's life can set the course for the rest of their lives, so the reforms to improve early childhood care standards, including the carer-to-child ratios, were well-intentioned. It meant babies and toddlers would receive more individual and better-quality care.
Minister for Employment Participation and Child Care Kate Ellis said the cost was going to be minimal: rising from 57c a week to $8.67 a week by 2012 for a family on $80,000 with one child in full-time care. But most childcare centres have upped their fees as well as cutting placements.
Now, Ellis accuses private operators of thinking only about profit.
"The government will not hesitate in calling out providers who try to account large-scale fee increases to these reforms when they are simply trying to boost their bottom line," Ellis says.
"Community-run centres, council-run centres and private centres, everyone has put up their fees from $10 a day upwards," says Skoulogenis.
Goodstart, the not-for-profit charity that bought the state's 154 former ABC learning centres, estimated its fees would rise between $2 and $20 a day.
Chris Buchtmann who runs two centres says he raised prices by $20 a day, up to $115, to meet the new ratios and fears the costs will send childcare underground.
"Parents are voting with their feet and seeking alternatives. It's obvious what is happening," he says.
John Owens, who also runs two childcare centres, says has not cut his spaces for babies, yet, but admits he has put up the daily price for a baby position to $110 a day and acknowledges it is outrageous.
"It's exorbitant, it's embarrassing, we can't afford the extra staff and it's inevitable we'll cut the placements," Owens says.
According to Skoulogenis, that cost tipping-point is driving parents to seek alternatives like nanny services.
In Lane Cove, Nikki Giteau, mother of 12-week-old Tia, feels she is a victim of the new reforms and the resultant lack of places. As soon as she confirmed her pregnancy at six weeks, she put her name down on waitlists at 15 centres and only one has said it will have a place for Tia, but not until 2012.
"I paid $50 to be waitlisted and one place said, 'Yeah, sure, we'll waitlist you, but there are 850 people in front of you'," Giteau, 32, says. Like many Sydney parents, she cannot afford not to work and will have to go back to her IT job part-time in September.
"Childcare is so expensive now anyway, basically $110 a day and if I share the cost of a nanny with another, my child basically gets one-on-one care instead of being in a centre with 30 other kids."
Felicity Gray of Abracadabra Child Care Services, a placement agency for nannies, says many families also want in-home care for younger children.
"Some parents don't have a choice, but others feel centre-based care for little ones means they are sick more often and mum and dad then have to take more time off work as a result," she says.
Other families, like the Wrightsons from the northern beaches, have schedules that don't fit the 8am-to-6pm model of centre-based child care.
Chris Wrightson runs his own financial consultant business and often travels to Brisbane and Melbourne, while wife Kristin is an international Qantas flight attendant who often starts at 4am and is sometimes overseas for four days at a time. The three children aged two, three and five are in need of a Mary Poppins or Nanny McPhee to pull it altogether.
"Childcare (centre-based) is set hours and suit people with mainstream jobs, but for people with odd hours and shift work it is impossible," Chris says.
The family is hoping to share a nanny with another family that also has three children and are both Qantas pilots. Chris thinks it will work out well economically, too.
"We're already paying $210 a day in childcare for the three kids. You get some of that back, but you get no flexibility," the 45-year-old said.
"It is comparable on cost, but it's more about convenience for us," Kristin, 39, adds.
The cheaper option of an au pair is also a trend gathering popularity.
Young, usually female travellers from Europe offer childcare services in the family home in return for room and board and some pocket money.
Danielle Wright, a small-business owner and mother of two, has been using au pairs since her son was six months old. Now on to her fifth one, Hannah, she says she can't imagine life without her live-in helper.
"It's absolutely brilliant," the 39-year-old Randwick mum says.
"I pay a quarter of the price of childcare fees and the children are looked after in their own home."
Au pairs, however, are not qualified childcarers and their visa requirements mean they can only work for six months at a time.
"We went over to England and au pairs were huge there, so we thought we'd give it a go. I went back to work three days a week when my son was six months old and I was not nervous at all. I can't imagine us not having one now," Danielle says. "The flexibility is huge, I pay $250 a week for 40 hours and I provide a room and food."
Stephanie Prenzlau, who runs the AIFS au pair agency, has placed 250 au pairs this year and business has doubled in the past two years. All the girls are from Germany and she insists they have been screened closely, but they are not professional childcarers.
"The typical au pair we place is 19 or 20 and wants to have a gap year in Australia before she goes back to start university. She has to have 100 hours of referenced recent childcare experience, good education, a police check, medical check and first aid certificate," Prenzlau says.
Skoulogenis is concerned by the trend, however. The government's pursuit of higher standards has backfired, she says, by sending children into unregulated care.
"My concern is we have high quality care and people are leaving the service because of the impact of ratios and costs and going into unregulated care," she says.
She warns it will get worse next year when the
National Quality Framework guidelines require the staff-to-child ratios for older children aged two to three move from one carer to eight, to one to five.
"We're not against the reforms, but you can't roll it out that quickly and expect parents just to pay for it."
Zona Shepherd went back to work this week part-time and the only reason she could was because her husband took time off work. It is not a sustainable solution and she is still desperate for help.
Did you struggle finding care for your children upon returning to work? What advice would you give to parents in this situation?
Alison Godfrey - 
Comments