Yes, not all people have that “luxury”. 
Add ~2500/month per kid for a few years, I guess… With your 5 kids it would be quite huge.
If you FIRE before having kids, you can move to a cheaper place with lower living costs. Either in Switzerland or abroad. And you also don’t have to spend money on childcare. Think about it, if you want to have kids, do you want to sit in the office until evening and pay someone else to de facto raise your kids? And if you still want to remain active, you and your partner can still work 50% and share childcare responsibilities. So I guess FIRE can make it cheaper and a fuller experience to have kids, but yeah, it’s easier for a man than for a woman to achieve. Unless you reach FIRE and then find a younger girl who you will support.
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That would certainly make a difference, although this should technically be balanced out by the higher income. In my case, we made a decision to work 50-60% each and share the care of the kids when they were young, but that was more a lifestyle choice than a financial one. At the average Zurich rate of CHF 24,500 per year, my costs of putting them all through daycare would have totalled CHF 735,000 plus opportunity costs. With the number of kids we have, the cost of putting them through daycare wouldn’t have made sense in relation to the added income. With 2 kids it generally would.
Just to point out that once you get to 2 kids it would usually make financial sense to hire a nanny which costs ~50k / yr if fully declared or have an au pair part of the time, instead of kita. Would cost a lot but <735,000 CHF
Yup. I have friends which were able to hire nannies very cheaply because they (the nannies) are foreign spouses of friends/neighbors who can’t find work here due to not knowing the languages, lack of qualifications, etc. So it’s more something to keep themselves busy and earn some spending money. Having a good social network is a definite plus for that kind of thing. Au pairs are also affordable, but a lot of admin and work involved. Tagesmutters are relatively affordable compared to daycare. Also, some municipalities have subsidized daycare centers which cost a fraction of the average kita price (we used this for some of our kids for a time).
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Yes, I’d still want them to spend some time (though of course less than 8 hours/day 5 times/week) in a group of other children of similar age, supervised by trained professionals.
There is so much I can do as a parent, not being trained on child development etc, plus they badly need to interact with their peers.
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I can take into consideration that this could be the best for their development, but is there actually any proof? You know, once they’re 6 they gonna go to school so that part is covered.
I am pretty sure there is ton of proofs showing that socialising during the first years of age is key to development, but no, I don’t have papers at hand to share.
Compulsory education in CH actually starts at 4 with kindergarten, but by that time children’s characters are largely formed. I actually think the years 0-3 are the most important of all, that is why I am willing to spend a lot of money on good childcare now but they’ll have to finance university on their own
Kita for lower income+ multiple kids are heavily subsided, or is not the case for Zurich? In my town there is a generic association which comprise of Kita+after school and for three kids the rates are lower , though we still reach the maximum cap because of our salary. But families on lower income pay very little, like 30-40 chf per day so with 2000/month you easily cover 3-4 kids between Kita+after school activities. Alternatively you can find tagesmutter for 5 chf/hour, 40 chf a day. The usually have 3-5 kids so the can reach 15-25 chf/hr.
And finally, but is not our Casey many rely on the grandparents. Insane sometimes how much some of our neighbors rely on them, they are forcing them to work while retires basically. But they are all very oblivious to it.
5 kids :o incredible
I cannot find the excel sheet where I did the calculation some years ago.
The forecast was FIRE at 50 y/o no kids
With 1 kid it goes up to 52
With 2 kids 55
So it didn’t hammer all the FIRE only delayed a little bit.
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well this is really just depending on your canton/town.
Look at this numbers from fribourg:
look at the column “jour entier”. Up until 64k nettolohn (in your salary certificate) you pay 18 chf per day for an entire day. 90 per week, 360 per month. Each child lowers the income by 115000. With 2 kids in kita at the same time (more is difficult 
by natural reason) you get a possible salary of 85000 and still pay 18 chf per day. And is not impossible to get in one of this kita if you live in Fribourg.
So again, cannot be generalized for switzerland.
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One could organise a group of parents to bring the same kids at the same time to the same playground/room every day or so but that would be inefficient and you’d again most likely lack the skills of professionally trained teachers.
100% in agreement. Child benefits, health insurance premium reductions, taxes, scholarships, subsidized childcare, and so many other key factors vary hugely between cantons. That’s the great (but complicated) thing about Switzerland.
This article gives some good insights into the situation with health insurance premium reductions:
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again, there are exceptions. Ticino starts with state-payed kindergarten at 3, although the program and the classes are not different than the activtiy of a Kita with older kids. Is kind of ompulsory as well but you can opt-out and wait until 4. That’s what makes comparison between cantons really difficult.
Kids do not play with each other before 3 y/o and only from 2 / 2.5 start to play close to each other.
you need to do some basic conflict resolution
Some basic Rules that the kids can adjust like no hiting,…
…
True, I only know about ZH and too often forget the school works on the cantonal level
I can’t afford my kids NOT going to KiTA, because there they pick up Swiss deutsch, which we can’t give.
But the rule of thumb is to book kita 60- 80% of time, as little children tend to get sick often and spend lots of time home anyway. By the age of 3 shift ‘em to 100%.
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But in some (or most) places you need to specify which day they will be off (e.g. always Friday), no?
Cannot really pick when they get sick.
Also it takes 3 month warning period before any schedule change is possible.
When kids are sick - it takes 4-5 day on average to get back to ok for kita rules.
My 1st had 100% kita , but on the year 3 we reduced it to fridays at home. It’s price goes down and children needs parent’s attention anyway.
My second is sick more often and by her 16mnths age she spends almost every other week at home. Take into account Covid rules - every fever or cough - 1st to the doctor, wait 24 hrs pcr result at home then she is sick one way or another and 3-4 days home.
Take into account seasonality. Hence I don’t assign down to 50% time. In summer they are going to kita quite full time.
Don’t forget Standard kids diseases - Mund hand fuss… Rota virus etc… all these cuties are imminent. So better when a kid is get sick early as it sick anyway… BUT the reward is - in my experience - after 3 years old they are as strong as an Ox.
It’s like with the office space - rent out only 60-70% office space you need. Real world occupancy is never 100%.
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