Family Ski Holidays with Child Care

Childcare Ski Holidays

Snow Finders specialises in childcare ski holidays- every year we send our staff to the mountains to witness the childcare options on offer first hand. Most of our staff have children that have used the various childcare options on offer and we are confident that we know this very important aspect of your holiday inside out. Skiers with young children should be aware that the youngest age that children can be cared for is at around 3 months with many facilities not accepting children unless a minimum of 6 months of age. Many of the Germanic speaking resorts will have no childcare for young ones until they are at least 3 years old or out of nappies.

Our Childcare Options

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There are different types of childcare on offer:

Private nanny

Most often this will be an NNEB qualified British nanny to look after your children. Rates can vary from around £400.00 - £1000.00 per nanny per week. A Private nanny offers great flexibility as you could organise the nanny to meet you on the mountain with the children for lunch. If you have a group of children in your party then the nanny is a great option as you could share the cost between more than one family and keep your children together within a homely environment (i.e the chalet or apartment or hotel).

In-house Creche

This is most frequently offered by private chalet companies and is the option of choice for most British skiing families with young children. The creches work to strict NNEB or equivalent guidelines on ratios of children to carers. the creche environment is often better than the private nanny experience as the children have a good sized dedicated creche with excellent facilities for day long stimulation. In addition sleep areas are set up for younger ones and the whole interaction with lots of similar aged like minded children means that the children look forward to their days activities. Rest assured though, as this is an outdoors holiday children will be outside at every given opportunity and only inside when the weather closes in.

Resort creche

These are aimed at international guests and as the name implies these are a creche facility set up by the ski resort. The French are very good at this but clients should be aware that often the creche will be French spoken and sometimes the creches will insist that the children have innoculations that are not given normally to British children at such a young age. Some resorts are better equipped at looking after children from a foreign country than others so please bear this in mind.

Kids clubs

Generally these are again offered through chalet and chalet hotel tour operators but also through some hotels as well. Here you can have children accompanied to ski school by carers (often called titles such as GOs, Snow Rangers, Monitors, Kids reps etc) singing songs and playing games along the way. This way children are eased into the ski school with no worries and the transition is swift and pain free. They are then picked up after ski school, fed at lunch, and entertained throughout the day outside (or inside if the weather is poor) until parents pick them up after their days skiing. Many will now include a high tea at around 5.30/6pm and again the children will be supervised during this period, thus ensuring they eat a good meal. Many are now offering a "pyjama/snuggle/cocoa" club that entails the entertainment of younger ones through story telling and videos etc in the evening. This facilitates the adults to enjoy their evening meal whilst the children wind down ready for bed. As the requirements of child care are so particular to individual specifications we highly recommend that clients call one of our ski consultants to discuss the vast array of possibilities. On this site you will find a selection of what we are able to offer but not everything. If you cannot find what you are looking then call one of our ski consultants now for a full selection of childcare ski holidays.