The first weeks at daycare: settling-in, meals, pickup, and when a sick child can return

An offer is the start of a shorter first week and a health rule that is easy to misread. Kawasaki city's fiscal-2027 guide describes the first weeks. The national daycare infection guideline (保育所における感染症対策ガイドライン, revised 2018, corrected July 2023) describes when a sick child stays home. Your daycare can be stricter than the sample. Follow the doctor who is treating your child.

Settling-in is a shorter day, and the fee is not shorter

Kawasaki calls the first days ならし保育 (narashi hoiku) or なれ保育: the usual day is cut short while the child gets used to the group. The guide says this often lasts about a week, and it can be longer. The daycare decides the length with you. The question-and-answer section says the period and the content differ by age and by daycare.

The enrolment date is still the 1st of the month. It does not move because settling-in starts later, and it does not move because you return to work later. If settling-in does not begin on the 1st, the monthly fee is still charged in full. Kawasaki is explicit that a settling-in month is not a discounted month.

Before that week, every child Kawasaki offers a place sees the daycare doctor, usually at the same time as a meeting. The doctor is judging whether group life will be a problem. A concern goes to a health committee of doctors, daycare staff, and city staff. You may be asked for your own doctor's letter. For the youngest group, from the 43rd day of life in a limited number of places, Kawasaki requires a paediatric letter. The visit and the document fee are yours.

At the meeting you sign the daycare's important-matters sheet: opening days, extended care, staff, and whether meals are charged on top. Tell them about allergies there. Kawasaki asks you to mark allergies on the application as well. Removal of a food is something the daycare has to plan.

The day: meals, pickup, cars

For ages 0–2, Kawasaki daycares provide the staple and the side dish, and the price is inside the fee. For ages 3–5 the side dish comes from the daycare and the staple sometimes comes from home. When the daycare provides either, you pay a real cost on top of the fee. The city's guide figure for the side dish is 4,500 yen a month. Who is excused from that charge is in the fees article. The staple is not excused with it.

Pickup is, in principle, a parent. If a parent cannot come, Kawasaki says you call the daycare and an adult relative can collect the child. The car is, in principle, not allowed, because of the neighbours. Each daycare has its own version of that rule. Ask at the visit.

A child who entered on a job-search reason has two months to start work of at least 64 hours a month and to file the change papers. Without them, Kawasaki in principle ends the place.

When a sick child can come back

The guideline asks daycares to keep a child home while they can still pass an infection on. A doctor's opinion letter (意見書, ikensho) and a parent's return form (登園届, tōen todoke) are not required for every illness at every daycare. Each daycare decides, with its doctor and the city. If yours asks for a paper, the samples below are the ones it is likely to resemble.

The day the fever breaks does not count. The next day is day 1. The guideline's influenza example: fever confirmed on Monday, then Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at home, and a return on Friday, for a rule written as "three days after the fever breaks". Influenza at daycare has two clocks, and both must finish. The sample says five days after symptoms start, and two days after the fever breaks, or three days for an infant.

Illness (guideline sample)	Return when
Influenza	5 days after onset, and 2 days after the fever breaks (3 days for an infant)
COVID-19	5 days after onset, and 1 day after symptoms have eased. No symptoms: 5 days after the sample was taken, counting that day as day 0
Measles	3 days after the fever breaks
Rubella	The rash has gone
Chickenpox	Every spot has scabbed
Mumps	The guide's school-rule line is 5 days after the swelling starts, and until the child is well. The sample form is the doctor's letter
Strep	24–48 hours after antibiotics start
Norovirus, rotavirus, and similar stomach bugs	Vomiting and diarrhoea have stopped, and the child is eating as usual. Virus can still be shed for weeks
Hand, foot and mouth; herpangina	Fever and mouth sores are not stopping normal meals
RSV	Breathing symptoms have gone, and the child is well
Slapped cheek	The child is well. The infectious week is before the rash

"Symptoms have eased", for COVID-19, means the fever has gone without medicine and the cough or breathlessness is improving.

Illnesses the guideline puts on the doctor's letter include measles, influenza, COVID-19, rubella, chickenpox, mumps, tuberculosis, pool fever, and whooping cough. Illnesses it puts on the parent's form, after a doctor has seen the child, include strep, hand foot and mouth, norovirus, and RSV. The letter does not have to say the child is cured. The sample says the doctor signs when symptoms have improved enough for group life.

What it costs

The monthly fee is the full fee during settling-in. The side dish, where it applies, is about 4,500 yen in Kawasaki. The paediatric letter for the youngest infants is paid by you. Neither page prints the clinic's price.

What goes wrong

• Planning a full day of work from day 1, then meeting a shorter settling-in week at the full monthly fee.
• Bringing the child back the morning the fever breaks. That day does not count.
• Assuming every illness needs a doctor's letter, or that none does. Your daycare's list is the one that matters.
• Leaving an allergy off the application.

An offer can still be reconsidered after the health check. The guide does not promise that every offered child will start.

What to do now

1. Ask, as soon as you have an offer, how many shorter days to expect and who must do pickup.
2. Mark allergies on the application and raise them at the meeting.
3. Save the daycare's own return-to-care sheet. Use the table above as the national sample only.
4. If you entered while job-seeking, diary the two-month deadline for starting work.