Considering a move to Doha- need advice urgently please!

Welcome to Expat.com Niamh17!

Your thread has been moved to Doha forum for better visibility.

Hope that you'll soon be advised.

Harmonie

Thank you Harmonie, any help is much appreciated!

well , your life will be little bit boring in Doha but by time you will get used to it , I just shifted from Dubai & left my wife and daughter there , have nothing else to do here other than work , going to gym. regarding accommodation , schools or nurseries I believe you will find all levels but with different cost, good luck

Really? Oh I was hoping that you would say its easy to make friends, a great experience for the children and a great social life for expats? I know Dubai is completely different but I did think that Doha wouldn't be that different for expats than Dubai- thank you very much for replying to me!

You may like to check out the Doha Mums Facebook page or website as they may be the group you want to join to meet other Mums & families. The only problem is that a lot of their events are during the day - so I don't know how flexible your hours of work are - but they do have weekend events and mothers only evenings out.

You will also meet people through daycare/play centres if you use them.

There are also other organisations that you can join and places to go with children - so you wouldn't necessarily be bored - although it may take you a little time to find a network of friends - the biggest issue may be how you work hours will impact the children.

Thank you for your replies this is a very big decision for me, but I don't understand what you mean about my working hours impacting on the children? My previous employment the hours were crazy unsocial hours, Would you mind explaining please thank you

When you are working in the ME they often want you to work quite long hours - many people here work a full 6 day week and "normal" hours in Qatar are 7 - 3.30....... as a single parent that may end up being difficult to manage or sustain with young children, especially once your mother returns home - so I guess I mean that you also need to consider how much time you want your children in care/with a nanny and whether this will work for them and you.

I see, thank you. Here in Ireland my official hours are 9-5.30pm mon- Fri. But I often put in an extra 10/15 per week and some weekend work but not every weekend. It said something on my contract like "depending on the business requirements". And I wasn't paid any over time. The children have been between my mum and a nanny, which has worked very well. With this new job there won't be any regular over time and I have my weekends to myself- so I was thinking I would be able to spend more quality time with my children, finishing at 3.30pm sounds good to me??

Yes - I finish at 2.30 and it sunds good - but when the kids (and I) have to be up at 5.30- 5.45 in order for me to start work at 7am then it means feeding them at 5.30pm and having them in bed before 6.30........... so it really isn't that great when you have kids