Start looking for childcare (mode de garde)
Paperbump's advice, not an administrative step: there is no official deadline here and no official page setting one. There is no official page that sets a time to start looking for childcare, and the CAF page this step used to cite says nothing about childcare at all. The timing here is Paperbump advice. Checked 22 September 2026.
- Who it applies to
- Everyone having a baby in France
- On your timeline
- Paperbump schedules this usually between week 14 and week 20 of the pregnancy
- Official source
- There is no official page that sets a time to start looking for childcare, and the CAF page this step used to cite says nothing about childcare at all. The timing here is Paperbump advice.
- Last checked
- 22 September 2026
What else to know
Places go long before you need them, and in the cities they go very early, so the practical advice people give each other is to start around the fourth or fifth month — register with the crèche through your mairie, and look at assistantes maternelles in parallel rather than after, because a crèche place is never a certainty. The CNAF's own search site, monenfant. fr, is where to look for both. What you pay depends on the route you take and on your income, and the CAF helps with both — but that claim comes later, once care has actually started.
Work out your own dates — free, nothing is sent to us