Author: Seiichi Sato | Editor-in-Chief, TamagoDaruma

For international families raising children in Japan, situations come up often enough: “I’d like to leave my child for just a short while,” “I want to find a babysitter I can communicate with in English,” “I’d like to use temporary childcare other than daycare.” But in Japan, the practice of casually asking a neighborhood student or an acquaintance to babysit — common in some countries, including many English-speaking ones — isn’t yet the norm, and the types of services, the pricing, how to book, the contract relationships, and the points for checking safety can be hard to figure out. On…

June in Tokyo often overlaps with the start of the rainy season (tsuyu), so rainy and cloudy days become more frequent. Even when you think “I’d like to take the kids somewhere,” a rainy day means thinking through travel, meals, toilets, nursing, diaper changes, and even nap timing — and just choosing where to go can wear you out. So in this article, we’ve organized rainy-day outing spots near Tokyo that are easy to visit with children in June 2026, not as single venues but as “indoor-friendly areas where a parent and child can comfortably spend half a day.” We…

“My child wants to use ChatGPT, but I’m not sure whether I should allow it.” We’re hearing this from parents more and more. After the smartphone, the next judgment call today’s parents are facing is the one around generative AI. Letting children use generative AI isn’t something that should be banned across the board, nor something to allow unconditionally. By checking three things — the child’s age, the terms of use of the service being used, and the purpose of that use — you can build a standard for your own household to judge by. This article pulls together a…

Kewpie’s baby food line is scheduled to end production at the end of August 2026. Since sales will wind down store by store as stock runs out, a more realistic response than panic-buying is to organize the details — your child’s age, eating stage, food texture, allergy labeling, and where you plan to use it — and then trial alternatives in small amounts. Plenty of families have leaned on Kewpie’s baby food over the years. A trip away from home, an evening when daycare pickup ran late, a meal on a day when someone wasn’t feeling well — this is…

For children at daycare (hoikuen) or preschool (yōchien), heat illness prevention becomes clearer when you split it into three stages: before drop-off, during the day at daycare or preschool, and after pick-up. Breaking it down this way shows exactly what your family can prepare for at home. From late May into June, as hot days become more frequent, plenty of parents feel “this is the year I’ll really get prepared.” In reality, though, the first thing that comes up is usually uncertainty: “How much should I actually do?” “How much is okay to ask the teachers?” “Is that unusual tiredness…

Reluctance to go to daycare after Golden Week tends to surface at a time when both child and parent are already carrying a lot. Before anything else, don’t blame yourself — break the morning down into small, separate steps. The first morning after Golden Week, your child breaks down in tears at the front door. You couldn’t even get their socks on. The clock keeps moving, even though nothing else seems to. Holding back the urge to say “hurry up,” inside, you feel like crying too. After Golden Week — Japan’s run of national holidays in late April and early…

If you looked at your payslip and thought “What is this child and childcare support levy? Isn’t this supposed to be a benefit? Why is more being taken out of my pay?”, your reaction is completely understandable. Several official programs in Japan share the word “childcare” (kosodate) in their names, and the overlap is genuinely confusing. This article sorts out the difference between the child and childcare support levy (kodomo kosodate shienkin) and the benefits families can receive, such as the child allowance (jidō teate), Tokyo’s 018 Support, and various childcare support payments. By the end, you’ll be able to…

If you’ve been going back and forth on whether to give your child a smartphone, you’re not alone. “Maybe it’s too soon” and “maybe I’m being overprotective” — most parents find themselves caught between both feelings at once, looking for an answer that doesn’t quite come. This article focuses on what to think through before you get to device comparisons and carrier plans — specifically: putting into words why you’re giving your child a phone, building rules together as a family, and creating a family approach that keeps communication open after your child starts using the phone. Before choosing a…

“We didn’t get a spot at hoikuen, Japan’s licensed daycare system.” “I’m working from home but can’t get anything done with a toddler around.” “I only need a few hours this afternoon — where do I even start?” These are real, pressing problems that many families in Japan face on a regular basis. There are several ways to arrange childcare outside of standard licensed daycare enrollment: drop-in daycare at a facility (ichiji azukari), babysitting services, the municipal Family Support Center program, commonly shortened in Japanese to “Famisapo,” and the newly launched Universal Preschool Access Program (Kodomo Dare Demo Tsuen), which…

Have you ever stood in the kitchen, phone in hand, searching “can my baby eat this yet?” — only to find five different answers from five different sources? There’s no shortage of weaning information online, but it’s rarely gathered in one place by age, texture, and quantity. So you end up searching the same foods over and over. And sometimes what you find on parenting blogs or in older baby books doesn’t quite match the most current guidelines. This article is a reference guide — not a recipe collection — built around Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW)…

When you book your first daycare visit, it’s easy to wonder: what exactly am I supposed to be looking for? You may have read the brochure, browsed the website, and still walked away with nothing more than a vague sense that the place seemed nice. That experience is more common than you might think. A daycare visit — often referred to in Japanese as hoikuen kengaku, meaning a visit or tour of a licensed daycare center (hoikuen) — is not just a facilities check. It is your chance to get a feel for the environment where your child will spend…

Many of the examples in this guide come from Japanese nursery and home play traditions, but the ideas can be adapted for families and educators anywhere. Have you ever stood in front of your child, completely unsure what to do next — or found yourself falling back on the same routine, day after day? Fingerplay songs — simple songs with hand motions, gestures, and playful repetition — ask nothing of you except your voice and your hands. No props, no prep, no special space. But it’s still easy to feel stuck: What should I sing? Is this right for their…